I was wondering how you all aligned your homework so you were not tormenting yourself yet were sending the homework home for your entire class? How did you create it vague enough the various levels could do it and detailed enough that it truly supported the children's classroom learning?
For reading: you can send home just read or strategy bookmarks. For writing: journal writing on any prompt. For spelling: a list of ways to practice their spelling words. For math: this one really does need to be somewhat individualized depending on the grades. With two grades, just split the class by grade. If they are younger grades: it could always be fact practice.
Here's how I handle homework: *Anything not finished in class becomes homework responsibility. *Weekly spelling contract (given on Monday and due Friday.) *Math: Per grade level--if assignment not completed in class *Monthly book project The kids rarely have homework as they have the time to finish their work while I am working with the other grade level. There's Social Studies and Science homework as well: we rotate as a grade level so their teacher for that rotation assigns the homework, if any.
Of course, any larger projects /reports would fall into this category. I try to allow the kids classtime to work on those, however, there is going to be some work done at home, too. The usual studying of spelling words, vocabulary words, states, capitals, and whatnot also fall into this category. I give each student a planner (school provides them) and we spend the last part of the day writing in the planners. We do it together as a class and will also write future events, due dates, etc. It's important for them to learn this skill! Our school is a K-5, so they are off to middle school and will need to know how to plan for the various assignments and responsibilities they'll have.
In my multi-age class, I have done a "one pager" for homework. It goes home Monday and comes back Friday. I made it each week and printed it on a legal sized sheet. 2/3 of the sheet was a tic-tac-toe type grid. The kids had to choose one thing from each of the columns. One column would have math problems. I usually just had ONE story problem in each box. They picked the one at their level. The first box was always the lower grade level, the middle box was the higher grade level, and the last box was a challenge. I usually did them on the same topic, for example, addition. One would have two digit numbers, the next three digit, and the last 4 digit. The middle column would have 3 choices for a writing prompt. The kids needed to write the same number of sentences as their age -2. So a 7 year old would write 5 sentences, an 8 year old, 6 sentences, etc. The last column would have 3 suggestions for practicing spelling words. They usually were like: write each word 5 times each day. Or, practice your words on spellingcity.com each day. The other 1/3 of the sheet listed their spelling words, and had a cut off sheet for their practice test at home, which was done on Thursday night. The kids chose one thing from each column that was appropriate for their ability. Each child was in a spelling group and would write their words to one side of the sheet. This worked well for me because it was differentiated. I also changed it up throughout the year. For awhile, I did "creative" homework instead of writing, or "logic games" instead of math. If you're interested, you can PM with your email address and I will send you a copy.
I have not been back for a while to this post; but I happened on it today. Thank you all for your great suggestions!
