Homework from school last year was very hard work when my daughter was in reception she was not interested one little bit. At the end of the year we were told she would have to repeat I knew with more time she would get there so I spent

everyday of the Christmas school holidays doing work with her. By the time she went back to school and her new teacher got to know her couldn't believe the difference from what she was told to expect from my daughter. When having an appointment with her teacher I was told if she keeps going the way she is going she will not have to repeat year one which was the most wonderful news ever I couldnt wait to tell my daughter how well her teacher said she was doing and tell my husband.

What We Do

My daughter has a reader and spelling words as her actual homework from school.

First we do her actual homework.

We read her reader and also read other readers which you can get from the library. Then when she has done her look cover write check I call out her words and give her a spelling test I usually leave this to the second night so she is more familiar with the words to give her more confidence.

I have brought some extra work book which you can get from local supermarkets or department stores called school zone once you have worked out what stage your child needs then purchase the age on the books doesn't necessary mean that is right for your child. We brought a reading one and a maths one they have nearly sixty coloured pages in them for around five dollars its cheaper than printing and they are on hand to use. My daughter often wants to do more than two pages because she enjoys them so much.

With the maths we use small blocks for adding and subtraction.

We have recently started a new exercise book left over from last year which we are solely using for sentence structure we get A4 paper cut it into four longways strips and write sentences using sight words etc whatever you want to work on and cut it up once your child with your help has wrote the sentence mix it up and they need to glue it back together on their book and read it. Today me and my daughter to help her on one of the strips I wrote W words eg what.were,when,where,was instead of writing sentences we ending up then writing i words in,it ect and t words  the,they,their,then, I would write a few and she would look in her books for more.

Just writing about what they did at school or cut a picture out of a magazine and write about it. Playing memory with words letters numbers they have difficulty remembering is a great idea use white cardboard from the shop for a dollar make it small I have about seven or eight sets of memory games and my cardboard hasn't run out. You can even make little lower case alphabet letter and capitals double then and do spelling.

My three year old loves finding the letters of her name out of the whole alphabet I have wrote her name on cardboard and she puts the letters on top.

She has numbers on the other side to. You will find if you start to extend their homework they will start to enjoy the time with you to so wont mind doing a little more.

I have brought a 1 to 10 book for my three year old she think its great to have similar book to her big sister who is six. Homework is very important even on the weekend its how you know how they are coping at school and being a part of their learning.

My daughter has trouble with letter b,d,p which is Farlay common so I get her with her old school books to write out ten b the we talk about the letter and I will ask her different thing what they start with to try the help her learn to recognize b. Each of the old school books we use to do work in I label for eg phonics,sentences,general homework which can be something I printed out for her to do a puzzle I have made. We have just brought bingo great for numbers and uno is good to even my three year old likes uno and snakes and ladders my three year old likes to. Even a book with the alphabet one on each page they draw something that starts with the letter and have a go a writing it I let my daughter choose a letter they like to have a bit of independence and I come back and have a look.

At the moment we are making two felt boards which will have all the days of the week the months, numbers,letters words ect it is a butterfly print felt which I will glue to thick board and hang on the outside of her door because they always have their door open.On a separate sheet of paper I will write months in a row number one to twelve and the weeks numbered one to seven and each months how many number it has for example we are in march which is number three to explain to her 21/3/09 and well 2009 I will make a poster on a time scale from when I was born explaining 09. I thought this was a really good idea.

Well hope this has been helpful to someone it makes such a difference doing extra work with your child and you get to know everything they understand.

On all of her work we do I make sure she writes the date and her name.