Holiday Activities and Freebies!
Whether your first day of school is in August or after Labor Day, September is a month for building solid classroom procedures and learning routines. Creating a consistent homework routine will go a long way in helping your first graders become more independent and responsible learners. If you’re looking for ideas to use as September homework for first grade, keep reading!
If you’re setting up a homework routine for your first graders, it can be challenging to decide what skills to include. After all, your students just got done learning and growing at lightning speed during kindergarten! There are so many important literacy and math skills that you could have your students review at the beginning of the year with homework activities.
To help you narrow it down, here are some of my favorite skills to include in September homework for first grade:
First and foremost, fall-themed activities are a must for September homework! Adding a touch of seasonal fun to your homework routine can go a long way in motivating students to practice these skills at home. They will be less likely to feel like the homework routine is just an extension of the school day and an interruption of their evening!
For example, this fun fall-themed color by code activity is a fun homework assignment for students! They will complete the subtraction problems to help them fill out the key, then color in the numbered boxes based on the key they’ve just created.
Even though first graders are reading words and even simple sentences at the beginning of the school year, it’s still important for them to maintain their foundation of phonemic awareness skills. The ability to hear and isolate letter sounds will help students throughout the year as they develop their literacy skills. Phonemic awareness skills are especially important as first graders begin to write more and more!
This engaging fall-themed homework activity gives students the chance to listen for the middle vowel sound in words. Students will look at the picture, say the word, and decide which vowel sound is missing from the middle of the word. Once they’ve figured it out, they will color in the apple according to the key. For example, if the missing vowel in the word is “a”, they will color that particular apple red.
Since most kindergarten students end the school year knowing how to decode words, it’s helpful to start first grade with some review. They can use their knowledge of letter sounds to decode both real and nonsense words.
For example, this apple sorting activity is an engaging way for students to get some additional decoding practice. After cutting out the apple tokens from the worksheet, they will decode the word on each apple. If the word is a real word that they’ve heard before, they will put it in the real words basket. If it’s a nonsense word, they will add it to the other basket. You can also add some writing practice to their homework routine by having students write the read words on the lines provided.
There are many elements that go into learning how to read and write sentences, so it’s helpful to review sentences throughout the homework routine. As students practice these skills, they can be more confident in using correct conventions in their writing and they will begin reading with more expression and fluency.
This is another fun apple-themed activity that adds much-needed punctuation review to the homework routine. Students will read each sentence and decide which punctuation mark is missing. They will color in a period, question mark, or exclamation point depending on the sentence. This is a fun way for students to explore things like inflection and tone as they practice reading the sentences. Not only will this improve their reading fluency, but it will also help them develop their writing conventions.
There are many different math skills that you can include in your homework routine in September, since students learned many different skills in kindergarten that they can review. One of these skills is subtraction. You can use seasonal activities to help students explore subtraction and review what they learned last year.
This apple subtraction activity gives students the chance to see subtraction with a real-life example. Students will look at the subtraction problem below the tree and cross off the number of apples indicated, modeling the subtraction equation. Once they have crossed off the apples, they will count the remaining apples and write the number on the line. This is also great practice with one-to-one correspondence as students work to cross off the correct number of apples and count the number remaining.
Would you like to save some time on your homework prep for September? I’ve put together a print-and-go resource filled with engaging homework activities that will last you all month! There are enough math and literacy practice activities to create four weekly homework packets. The resource also includes multiple options for cover sheets, including a checklist so students and families can keep track of the homework as it’s completed.
All of the activities in this resource are designed to be developmentally appropriate for students at the beginning of first grade. As students complete these math and literacy homework activities at home, it will build their confidence and independence. Since students can complete these activities mostly independently, they are also a great option for morning work, centers, or early finisher activities. This is a helpful option if you don’t end up using printable homework for your students.
If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this set of printable worksheets for September homework, you can find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or in my TPT store.
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite first grade Pinterest board. You’ll be able to quickly find these ideas and printables when you’re planning your homework routine for September.
