Key Stage 1 - Years 1 & 2 Homework Overview
Year 1 Homework Weekly homework:
- A library book and two reading books from the correct colour shelf of the child’s choice will be brought home every day. Encourage your child to read every day.
- Children are expected to write a comment or ask and answer a question in their Reading records weekly, using the comprehension questions provided by class teachers at the beginning of the year.
- Library books and reading books will be changed weekly (children may request to change their books earlier, should they finish reading a book early).
Please return reading books and book bags daily, as children read every day in class.
- Spellings to learn. Spellings are tested weekly.
- A literacy activity will be set weekly.
- A comprehension exercise will be sent home in the Spring term for those children on Green shelf and above. This is expected back the following Wednesday.
- Each week children will be given a times table they need to practise and learn at home. Children are expected to know their 2, 5 and 10 times table facts off by heart.
- Bug club/Active Learn: This website contains phonic and reading activities for your child to do online, at least once a week.
Other home learning tasks to be carried out during the year:
- Practice your child’s spellings and challenge them to use the words in sentences. Find synonyms and antonyms for each word.
- Find alternative, fun ways to practice spellings, for example: find the spelling words in a newspaper, write an acrostic poem with some of the spelling words or write the tricky words in bubble writing and then colour them in!
- Join a Library and explore a variety of fiction and non-fiction books. Discuss your favourite books giving reasons for your views.
- Encourage your child to retell stories orally and draw story maps of their ideas and include interesting sentences to describe the pictures they have produced.
- Read texts from real life sources (newspaper articles, leaflets, non-fiction books) to get the children used to the main features of non-fiction.
- Encourage your child to keep a diary, where they record the activities that they have done using punctuation. They can then share their diary with the class if they want to!
- Read shelf book while performing Kung Fu Punctuation actions for every punctuation mark.
- Dress up or make puppets and retell or invent stories. Encourage your child to use a range of vocabulary.
- Visit the Natural History and Science Museum to learn about dinosaurs, mini beasts, space and other interesting facts. Read and discuss signs and talk about what they observe.
- Do cooking and baking activities at home with your child. Encourage your child to use a range of vocabulary to describe what they see, observe and do.
- Visit local shops. Talk about weights, money and numbers in the environment.
- Visit the local park and play games that involve children counting in their times tables.
- Find opportunities to sing times tables together, for example, in the car or on the way to school.
- Listen to Maths songs on YouTube and try to learn them! Add actions to remember key concepts.
- Create times tables cards and play snap with them or create a board game.
- Play games involving counting.
- Go on a shape hunt around your house, garden, park or supermarket. Draw a picture using only 2D shapes.
- Help your child to learn to tell the time.
Year 2 Homework Weekly homework:
- Reading shelf books and library book to share on a daily basis.
- Children are expected to write a comment or ask and answer a question in their Reading records weekly, using the five types of comprehension questions provided by class teachers.
- Library books and reading books will be changed weekly (children may request to change their books earlier, should they finish reading a book early).
Please return reading books and book bags daily, as children read every day in class.
- Spellings which will be tested weekly
- A comprehension exercise will be sent home in the Spring term in preparation for the SATs exam.
- On those weeks where a Literacy homework is not specified, children are expected to focus on their reading and comprehension skills.
- Each week children will be given a times table or another mental maths skill they need to practise and learn at home.
- A Maths activity will be sent home in the Spring term in preparation for the SATs exam.
- On those weeks where a Maths homework is not sent home, children are expected to use Monster Sats to practice their maths skills.
- Times Tables – children are expected to know their 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables facts off by heart and the corresponding division facts.
- Bug club/Active Learn: This website contains phonic and reading activities for your child to do online, at least once a week.
- Monster SATs: for Maths, Reading, SPAG revision and test practice.(Subscription is paid for by the school.) Monster SATS is an interactive platform to help pupils to prepare for the National Curriculum tests and beyond. It has a range of unique practice papers and curriculum based games (with instant marking) to build test confidence in each curriculum topic. Matched to the requirements of the National Curriculum, the practice papers are designed to target every topic in year 2. They are designed to be used flexibly throughout the year to prepare pupils for the statutory tests.
Other home learning tasks to be carried out during the year:
- Practice your child’s spellings and challenge them to use the words in sentences. Find synonyms and antonyms for each word. Write an acrostic poem with some of the spelling words.
- Join a Library and explore a variety of fiction and non-fiction books together.
- Encourage your child to retell stories orally and draw story maps of their ideas and include interesting sentences to describe the pictures they have produced.
- Read texts from real life sources such as newspaper articles, leaflets and non-fiction books.
- Get your child to keep a diary. Pupils can then share their diary with the class if they want to!
- Dress up or make puppets and retell or invent stories.
- Visit the Natural History and Science Museum to learn about dinosaurs, mini beasts, space and other interesting facts.
- Visit the Monument to the Great Fire of London in central London.
- Visit the Tower of London and learn who used to live there and explore what castles looked like. Draw a picture of the Tower and write the most interesting facts you learnt.
- Do cooking and baking at home with your child. Discuss ingredients, measure and make predictions.
- Visit local shops. Talk about weights and money. Encourage your child to match coins to amounts.
- Find opportunities to sing and chant times tables together.
- Create times tables cards and play snap with them or create a board game.
- Create Maths stories about key Maths concepts, like number bonds to 10/20/100 in order for your child to remember the maths more easily.
- Play games involving counting. Use a 100 square to play lots of games.
- Help your child to learn to learn to tell the time. Look at the clock together asking questions like: If the party is at 5 o'clock we need to leave in half an hour. What time will that be? You can also create a clock face using a paper plate.
- Ask your child to investigate what the favourite food or colour of members of your family or friends is and create a table/ tally chart/ block diagram or pictogram to show the results. Then you can ask them questions like: What was the most/ least popular food? How many more/ less liked carrots than tomatoes?