Homework

Reading

Your child will choose a book from our banded reading scheme; the majority of these books are listed in the front of their planner (purple pages). Your child should be encouraged to read for at least fifteen minutes daily, independently or with an adult. Even if they are able to read independently, we would really appreciate you continuing to hear them read to support them with increasing fluency, accuracy, expression and understanding. The children must record the book title and the pages read in their planners. Planners must be handed in on a Friday and should be in school every day. Please sign your child’s planner each week before it is checked at school to indicate that you have heard them read. Recommended reading lists are available on the school website. Children will also have the opportunity to choose books from the library once a week; they will be responsible for ensuring these books are returned to the library.

Due in: Friday

Times Tables

Children should practise times tables (and related division facts) regularly at home. We do not send home specific work but highly recommend that children spend time learning their times tables to reinforce school work. Children should begin by learning 2, 5 and 10s, then move on to 3, 4 and 8s before finally practising 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12s.

Mental Arithmetic

Your child will be given a Mental Arithmetic (MA) book and we would like them to complete one page each week. Your child should be able to complete the majority of it independently but we are grateful of any parental support. If your child has required a lot of support, please let us know by starring the questions (*) or writing a short note on the page. It is important that children complete all corrections from previous tests before moving on to the next one. A page of MA should take approximately 30 minutes so if it is taking significantly more or less time than this, please let your child's class teacher know.

Handed out: Friday

Due in: Wednesday

Spellings

Each week your child will be given a list of words to learn for a spelling test the following Wednesday. The words will either be linked to spelling rules learnt in school that week, topic-related words, statutory words or high frequency words which are being frequently misspelt in class. Children can choose how they want to practise these words and should show evidence in their orange spelling books. If the children practise their spellings using an app or other method not shown in their spelling book, please ensure a parent writes a comment to explain this as evidence in their book. The challenge words are optional; however, we would encourage children to learn these if they are already confident with the others. Some suggested activities for learning can be found below and these are also in their orange spelling books. Children should be spending at least 20 minutes learning their spellings.

Unscramble the muddled spellings and write them correctly.	Design and complete a wordsearch.	Use Scrabble tiles or something similar to design a cross-word.
Pyramid words	Write a silly story or silly sentences using all of your spellings.	Play Squeebles or a similar App on your computer or tablet.
Write sentences using your spelling words.	Join up the letters to spell each spelling word like dot to dot.	Make some of your spelling words out of leaves in your garden! Take photos!
Rainbow writing ROYGBIV	Split your spelling words into their syllables.	Write each word using Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check.
Write the vowels in one colour and the consonants in another colour.	Sir Linkalot App	Write your spellings forwards then backwards. Check the backwards words using a mirror!
Write a definition for each word.	Use bubble writing or make a collage of your spellings.	Spot the correct spelling.
Complete a dictation.	Use pictures/photos to help you remember.	Write some acrostic poems using your spellings.

Lexia

Lexia is an app/computer program supporting spelling and reading comprehension which we use in Year 3 at Amherst. Although this is not formal homework, we encourage children to do some Lexia at home to help them progress through the levels. Lexia can be used on a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop and details of your child's login is stuck in their school planners.