This is great and very helpful. I will have a fourth grader this next year, and I felt like it might be the right time to begin an assignment sheet. She is a strong reader and can work fairly independently.
I also will have a first grader, who definitely needs more support, so that factors in as well. I had been considering daily sheets, but I like the idea of weekly as well. I’ll give this some more thought as to what will work best for us and change it up if we need to.
We used assignment sheets in our homeschool. I think my younger daughter started around 4th/5th grade, but she was a strong reader and very independent. I tend to recommend them at least by Year Five/Six, but it definitely depends on the student. I created a very open assignment sheet, since over time I came to realize that this worked best for us...it was very adaptable. My general goal was to give the assignment sheet on Monday morning and expect the work to be completed by Friday afternoon. I liked giving the girls as much flexibility as I could, so they could work on most assignments in whatever order they wanted. Of course, sometimes, there were some assignments that needed to be completed by a more specific date, but I would mark those and point them out when I gave them the sheet on Monday.
There were also many weeks when "life happened" and they could not complete everything on their sheet in a week, so I would add a few things I wanted them to complete for the next week and then give them another week to work on all of it. My goal was to develop organization skills and make sure they had lessons to work on throughout the week (especially for when I was engaged in teaching their sibling), but not to create an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. I'm attaching my assignment sheet here, so that you can see it...in case that helps. :) I wrote it so that assignments could be written on the top and the four main books of which they were independently reading at the time were listed. They were expected to choose one of these four each week and give a written narration for the reading section they had completed. For the remaining three books, they just gave an oral narration. I expected them to rotate through the four books, although I didn't have a regimented schedule for it. I hope that makes sense. Both girls are/were excellent students in college (one has her BA in English already) and have very good organization skills with regard to assignments.
Send me an email through the contact section, and I'll send you my PDF file for Assignment Sheet.
This is great and very helpful. I will have a fourth grader this next year, and I felt like it might be the right time to begin an assignment sheet. She is a strong reader and can work fairly independently.
I also will have a first grader, who definitely needs more support, so that factors in as well. I had been considering daily sheets, but I like the idea of weekly as well. I’ll give this some more thought as to what will work best for us and change it up if we need to.
Hi Amanda,
We used assignment sheets in our homeschool. I think my younger daughter started around 4th/5th grade, but she was a strong reader and very independent. I tend to recommend them at least by Year Five/Six, but it definitely depends on the student. I created a very open assignment sheet, since over time I came to realize that this worked best for us...it was very adaptable. My general goal was to give the assignment sheet on Monday morning and expect the work to be completed by Friday afternoon. I liked giving the girls as much flexibility as I could, so they could work on most assignments in whatever order they wanted. Of course, sometimes, there were some assignments that needed to be completed by a more specific date, but I would mark those and point them out when I gave them the sheet on Monday.
There were also many weeks when "life happened" and they could not complete everything on their sheet in a week, so I would add a few things I wanted them to complete for the next week and then give them another week to work on all of it. My goal was to develop organization skills and make sure they had lessons to work on throughout the week (especially for when I was engaged in teaching their sibling), but not to create an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. I'm attaching my assignment sheet here, so that you can see it...in case that helps. :) I wrote it so that assignments could be written on the top and the four main books of which they were independently reading at the time were listed. They were expected to choose one of these four each week and give a written narration for the reading section they had completed. For the remaining three books, they just gave an oral narration. I expected them to rotate through the four books, although I didn't have a regimented schedule for it. I hope that makes sense. Both girls are/were excellent students in college (one has her BA in English already) and have very good organization skills with regard to assignments.
Send me an email through the contact section, and I'll send you my PDF file for Assignment Sheet.