Should You Get Rid of Homework?

Is It Time to Get Rid of Homework?

YES!

I was on the homework struggle bus. Some students were completing it correctly, some were just writing something, and others were not doing anything at all. I noticed that the only students completing homework successfully were the ones who really didn’t need the extra practice OR were getting a lot of support at home.  

Why Should You Get Rid of Homework?

I had to ask myself, why do I need them to complete homework?  And the answer was that teachers at my school have always required homework.  Is that really a good reason?  I thought about it more.

Is Homework Actually Necessary?

My philosophy on homework began to shift.  Many of my students do not have the support at home to get their homework done.  They may not have someone reminding them to do it. They may not have a pencil or a quiet place to do homework. Or, even worse, students might not be able to complete the assignment without help. 

What really changed my mind though?  I put in 8-9 hours at work every day.  I don’t want to go home and do more school-related work.

My students are working for nearly 6 hours at school every day. Why should THEY go home and do more schoolwork?  Being at home should be the time to relax, play, and connect with family and NOT stress over schoolwork.  

Homework that is Not Homework

I decided to assign “UnHomework” tasks weekly to my students. The tasks are designed to promote kindness, healthy habits, creativity, and math and science activities related to real-world observations or problems.

I created weekly tasks in four different categories: 

Acts of Kindness, Good Habits, Create, and Real-World Math & Science.

The unhomework category changes weekly, so students usually do one task from each category each month.

How Does UnHomework Work?

A new task is assigned every Monday.  I print out a small task card and have my students glue the card into their “UnHomework” notebook (I use a spiral or composition notebook).  We discuss the task as a class and shared tips on how to organize the information.  For most tasks, such as recording how much fruit you eat during a week or recording how long it takes to get ready for school each day, we choose to record directly in our planners.  Other tasks, may require students to use a separate piece of paper to draw, write, or create a table to complete the task and some tasks require students to interview, help, or do an activity with a family member.

Tasks are due on Friday and we talk briefly about the task each morning as we discuss our agenda for the day.

On Fridays, we have a morning meeting and include a discussion of the Un-Homework task.  If students were asked to collect data, we might put together a class graph or chart of the data collected.  If students had to draw a picture or write a comic strip, they would be given a chance to share their creations.  If a math task was assigned, for example, “Keep track of how many hours you sleep this week”, we might decide to extend the task by calculating how many hours each student sleeps in a year.  We might also discuss why sleep is important and talk about how many hours of sleep we should try to get each night.

Here is a chart we made while discussing how many times students helped their families at home during the week.  My students loved this task and they really enjoyed how much positive feedback they received from their families for helping! My students turned it into a bit of a competition. Competing to be kind? Oh yes!

I hope that assigning acts of kindness or good habit tracking as a task, will help students to keep on performing the task without it being assigned – a win-win for everyone!

UnHomework Success

Guess what happened to the UNhomework completion rate in my classroom?

It went up. By a lot.  I still have several students that don’t complete the tasks each week but it’s not the same students each week – sometimes they’re just busy at home, forget, or don’t care for the task.  The great thing is that they can participate in the discussion anyway; they can still share a chore they did at home to help out, what time they usually go to bed or an observation they made about the moon.  Students love to share their task results on Fridays and look forward to our Friday morning meetings.  My students’ families LOVE being involved as well.  

UnHomework is Fun for Everyone

My students now enjoy UNhomework and love to share the tasks with their families and the results with their classmates on Fridays.  I love that the tasks are helping us build a classroom community and allowing students to get to know each other better, talk about good habits, discuss real-world data and observations, and share their creativity! I also LOVE how the tasks help to build a home-school connection.  

My families love participating in the activities – it’s fun, and easy, and allows families to engage in a school-related activity that is meaningful, enjoyable, and stress-free.

 Think about meaningful tasks you could assign to your students instead of traditional homework.  You could create your own UnHomework!  

Or save time and use a set that is ready to print and go. I have created a resource with 40 different tasks with 4 different categories to last the WHOLE school year.  Check out my Un-Homework Weekly Tasks, here.  You can rotate through the 4 different categories or assign the tasks in any order you choose.  A checklist is provided so that you can keep track of the tasks assigned.

Not sure if this routine will work for you? Try it for free! 

How do you really feel about homework?

Want to read about how I engage my students in reading?

Read “How to Use Book Talks”.