Homework seems to be a difficulty for parents and teachers. We always try to balance between the need for homework and the fact that many students just don’t do it. In Science I offer plenty of extra credit opportunities for those students who would do homework anyway but I do not give regular homework. Now there’s a catch. Where homework is essential is when a student does not finish his or her classroom activity, project or lab by the deadline. If I am not giving anymore class time for students to work on something and a student has not finished, then that becomes homework. The parent and the teacher then depend on the student’s own organizational skills, integrity and honesty. If your child comes home and says that he or she has no homework, that might very well be true. I may not be aware that your child has homework until you call, come in or email and then I check through his or her notebook to see if anything is missing. So if your child is organized, by using the planner or just remembering, and completes assignments then your child will pass everything in Science with an A, B or C grade.
Sixth graders know if they didn’t finish their Mount Saint Helens Activity, if they did not draw and write about all five volcano types and all four lava types, then they have homework. Since this is the first real homework assignment for many and Cispus is next week I will accept their late work any day on the week of September 24. I promised them that they would get full credit if it’s all done by then. No points taken off for being late. That’s the only time this year. So kids can work on their drawings and descriptions at home, in the school library, or at the Jefferson County Library with the free homework help. Even if you don’t have Internet at home, your child can still succeed. Please just have your child do their work on a loose sheet of paper, which he or she will bring in to class and glue into their notebook. Science notebooks do not leave the classroom.
Seventh graders reached the deadline for thir paper airplane lab. Those who did not finish the entire lab write-up need to finish it at home. And this one is fun so students can make paper airplanes at home and collect data for their lab write-up. Please encourage them to do so for an A! They can download an inquiry board guide from here to complete their write-ups. They’ve seen it modeled in class so they should know how to do it. And please keep sending the items we need to start our planting projects, we have very soil to work with so if you can spare any please send some with your child.
