Fourth Grade Homework Expectations
Many of you may be wondering about what homework will look like this year in fourth grade. This is a year when your child’s expectations for work will be increasing and you will see more studying for tests or completing work for projects at home. According to our district policy, students in Central York School District are expected to complete approximately 10 minutes of homework for each grade level year they are in. This means that in fourth grade, your child will be expected to complete about 40 minutes of homework each evening.
Mrs. Centeno and I have worked together to develop a consistent set of expectations for students between our two classrooms. When we assign homework for your child, we strive to make the assignments purposeful. We want assignments to be practice of a skill that your child has already learned, so it should not be something new that will confuse or frustrate your child.
During the first few weeks of school, we will be teaching and modeling essential homework skills with your child. We will discuss how it is important to find a quiet area to work, free of distractions and other useful strategies to help your child be successful. We appreciate your support in reinforcing these skills at home.
While we appreciate your support and encouragement of homework at home, one thing that we do not want you to worry about is having power struggles with your child over homework. Since we are the ones who have assigned the work, if you find that your child is arguing or fighting with you over a homework assignment, feel free to jot us a quick note to let us know and we will hold your child accountable at school for not completing their assignments.
On a similar note, we do not want your child’s homework to be frustrating to him/her either. If you are noticing that your child is confused or reaching frustration with a task, please let us know. Also, if you see that your child has been working on an assignment for longer than the expected 40 minutes total, please stop them and make a quick note on the paper. Another thing that we do not want to happen is having your child labor over homework for an entire evening just to finish it. Getting practice with the skill during the time allotted is what is most important to us.
Another important idea that we value is family time at home. For this reason, you will not frequently see homework assignments over the weekends because we believe this is your time to spend together as a family. We encourage children to continue reading daily over the weekend, but they will not likely have any other assignments.
We do not have a systematic homework policy in our classroom. We expect each child to complete their homework assignments every evening because we believe that they are important and beneficial to your child, however, we understand that there are sometimes circumstances that occur which will be out of your child’s control and they may be unable to complete their work. Therefore, we will take each child’s individual circumstances into account when assignments are missed. If we notice a pattern occurring with missed assignments, your child will have a meeting with either Mrs. Centeno or myself to discuss ways to help solve the problem and you will be contacted to let you know about the issue.
Mrs. Centeno and I have worked together to develop a consistent set of expectations for students between our two classrooms. When we assign homework for your child, we strive to make the assignments purposeful. We want assignments to be practice of a skill that your child has already learned, so it should not be something new that will confuse or frustrate your child.
During the first few weeks of school, we will be teaching and modeling essential homework skills with your child. We will discuss how it is important to find a quiet area to work, free of distractions and other useful strategies to help your child be successful. We appreciate your support in reinforcing these skills at home.
While we appreciate your support and encouragement of homework at home, one thing that we do not want you to worry about is having power struggles with your child over homework. Since we are the ones who have assigned the work, if you find that your child is arguing or fighting with you over a homework assignment, feel free to jot us a quick note to let us know and we will hold your child accountable at school for not completing their assignments.
On a similar note, we do not want your child’s homework to be frustrating to him/her either. If you are noticing that your child is confused or reaching frustration with a task, please let us know. Also, if you see that your child has been working on an assignment for longer than the expected 40 minutes total, please stop them and make a quick note on the paper. Another thing that we do not want to happen is having your child labor over homework for an entire evening just to finish it. Getting practice with the skill during the time allotted is what is most important to us.
Another important idea that we value is family time at home. For this reason, you will not frequently see homework assignments over the weekends because we believe this is your time to spend together as a family. We encourage children to continue reading daily over the weekend, but they will not likely have any other assignments.
We do not have a systematic homework policy in our classroom. We expect each child to complete their homework assignments every evening because we believe that they are important and beneficial to your child, however, we understand that there are sometimes circumstances that occur which will be out of your child’s control and they may be unable to complete their work. Therefore, we will take each child’s individual circumstances into account when assignments are missed. If we notice a pattern occurring with missed assignments, your child will have a meeting with either Mrs. Centeno or myself to discuss ways to help solve the problem and you will be contacted to let you know about the issue.