Who said that homework cannot be fun? Family Homework projects are great incentives to get the whole family involved in a fun homework activity. My students are always so proud to bring back their completed project. I always hang their creations somewhere in or outside of my classroom, for all to see!Here are some Parent Letters that go along with the projects. I send this home and usually give a 1-2 week deadline for the project to be returned.
Family Homework Project – Transformed Gingerbread
Family Homework Project-Heroes in Our Hearts – Parent Letter
Family Homework Project 100 Days of School – Parent letter
Family Homework Project – Pumpkin Letter
Family Homework Project – Turkey Parent Letter
Family Homework Project- favorite book character
Family Homework Project-birthday hat
This was the first homework project for the school year. Families were asked to help decorate a “little person” cut out to represent their child. Each one that returned back truly looked like each of the kiddos in my class. Aren’t they adorable? (I purchased these body templates from Lakeshore.)
“Decorate the Pumpkin” family homework project. These are so cute and creative! (The pumpkin template was made simply with a Microsoft word pumpkin clipart that I enlarged and then copied onto construction paper).
“Decorate the Snowman” Family Project Student Products (This snowman template was hand drawn by another teacher and then copied onto heavy tag paper.)
“Transformed Gingerbread” Student products (This template was just a simple gingerbread man clipart from Microsoft Word that was copied onto heavy tag paper.)
Turkey Project products (This template was found online by a teacher friend of mine. It ended up taking up 2 8×10 sheets of paper, that had to be taped together.)
100 Day of School Project (The students came up with their own ideas for these!)
Homework Choice “Menu’s” – Each grading period, I stapled a homework choice menu to the inside front cover of a composition notebook (the one without metal spirals). I was unable to locate my 1st and 4th nine weeks choice menu’s-urghh! The notebooks were part of the school supply packs that my school required each year. However several years, they were not and so, the summer before, I stocked up at Wal-Mart and bought them for either 25 cents or 40 cents. Each child only went through 2 notebooks during the entire school year. During “meet-the-teacher” and Open House, I explained the expectations of the homework journal: to engage children in the habit of practicing skills each night, but not for more than 15-20 minutes. I had my students work on their homework each night, but then turn in their journals to me on Friday. It was just easier for me to check only one day a week (at the end) instead of daily. And honestly-I did not check for “correct-ness.” I just gave them credit for DOING their homework and turning it in! That is a major accomplishment for 5 and 6 year old children!!!!
Here are your FREEBIEs!!!!!!
Here is what one looks like: The ones above, look a bit different! I changed them up a bit!
green bean kindergarten 
I, too, do family projects. Like you said-it’s a great way to involve family members in a fun way. I do many of the ones you listed, but am “borrowing” the birthday hat and hero ones. I also liked the decorating the child.That would be cute to send home at meet the teacher. We do a “me” box that is a decorated shoe box that the kids display for 1 week in the library, then it is sent home to use as a home reader box to store books they make and keep.
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I also LOVE family projects. I too, have done an “All About Me” box where I had the child decorate a shoe box and add 3 items items-to tell about themselves. I did this at the start of the year. It worked great too!
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I have recently started to home school my 4 year old twins (boy and girl). I have started to use some of the lesson and worksheet from you site and my son (the difficult of the two, /different learn style) has have much more fun. thank you so much.
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Shanika,
I am so glad to hear that the materials I have shared, are working so well with your children! Wow-homeschooling twins-you sound like a super mom!!!!!! -Andrea
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What a wonderful site! I teach kindergarten and hope to limit the amount of copies that I generate for homework. I am interested in the homework choice menu and how the journal is used. What type of journal is used and are the parents required to replace them throughout the school year? If so, how many do you request. Thank you for the information!
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Hi Darlene,
I change the homework choice menu each year, based on my children’s needs. Normally, I use the composition notebooks and I do have the parents supply them as part of the initial school supplies at the start of the school year. If it is not on the school’s “school supply list” then I wait until Wal-Mart’s “back to school sale” and buy the notebook’s for usually 10-25 cents, sometimes! However, I do not recommend the spiral notebooks because they become un-spiraled very easily (and that just irritated me!) I have the students use the front and back of the pages in the notebooks also and only 2 notebooks/child are needed to last for the entire school year. I hope that helps. I also checked on teacherspayteachers.com and there are some great homework choice menu’s on there and some are free! -Andrea
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Darlene,
I looked through my files and found a Homework menu! I have uploaded it to the “Family Homework Project” section. When I first began my blog, it was because I kept misplacing my paper files and jump drives. Since then I have uploaded everything on my website here! -Andrea
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Thanks so much for sharing!
Sent from my iPad
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My children did family homework when they were in kindergarten. As a mom, I loved doing this project with the whole family. Now, as a teacher, I was so excited to find this site. However, do you have the printout templates that you use for your projects? Or, could you direct me to where I could find them? I work in Chengdu, China.
Thanks!
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Hi Lucy,
Thank you for your nice comments! I’m sorry that I didn’t save and post my templates. I simply made the templates from clipart with Microsoft word and then enlarged them and copied them on to heavy card stock paper. Also, you can look on the website: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com and you most likely will find some there for free. Happy teaching! Happy Summer! -Andrea
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Thanks, Andrea. I will take your suggestions and try to make my own. Or, Maybe I will get lucky on TPT. Have a great summer! Lucy
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I’m a new teacher and am so glad you shared this! If you find the 1st and 4th quarter menu’s, can you please post them?
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Hi Parise! I love your name and spelling of it-how pretty! I am currently searching for those MIA files. Sorry! Hopefully I can find some time to recreate them! Until then, I saw some really nice ones on TpT for free and sale. -Andrea
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