The Homework Club {FREEBIE}

I had the greatest group of kids my first year teaching. I will always have super fond memories of them and my first year as a 2nd grade teacher. They were a sweet group and I wanted to reward them whenever I could. Sweet yes. Inclined to return homework? Not so much.  I wanted a system that would motivate them to do it; not because I think homework is the most important thing on earth but I do think it's an important lesson in self-discipline. It's hard to go home after a long day at school and do more school work. Especially for some of my kids that didn't have a support system at home. My dream was for them to take charge of their learning and do their best even without expectations from parents to succeed. I found the idea of the Homework Club on Pinterest and ran with it. My students responded really well to it and homework was actually getting turned in for many more days out of the month than before (more on that later). 

Enjoying our monthly Homework Club Lunch!

If students turned both their math and reading homework in everyday that month they got to be in The Homework Club, which ultimately meant they got to eat lunch on the rug, in the classroom with me, and have doughnuts while we watched free television on YouTube. Obviously awesome.

 

As you can see from the picture above, there were only two homework club members in attendance that month BUT 2 out of 16 kids ain't bad when you look at it in the grand scheme of things: the HW Club motivated my most unmotivated students to complete and return more homework than usual. I was also super strict about completely BOTH math and reading. If they only turned in one, I still booted them. Tough love! 

Last year I used magnets to keep track of my students by their numbers. If they didn't return HW, I simply removed their magnet from the whiteboard. I created a new system for the HW Club that I plan to use next school year (since I'm on maternity leave and can't implement it now!). I've added it as a FREEBIE in my TpT shop. Check it out HERE. 

 

I decided to add a few new elements to my HW Club for next year when I return... homework passes, numbers and a sign to use in a pocket chart (instead of magnets), certificates, and a cute ticket to give students that are in the club at the end of the month. The ticket gives them access to the Homework Club Lunch. I want to laminate those so I can reuse all year!  

 

Do you use incentives for Homework?