So… Last year, I had a homework system that worked pretty well. Students read and wrote about the book, practiced their word sort, and worked on a few math facts. They did this every night Monday through Thursday each week. Each day the adults in my room would look over their work and give them feedback. This was great, but it took a deal of time. This year, third grade is going down to two sections so I’m going to have more students. Last year, I co-taught full time with our third-grade instructional strategist. This year, however, we lost our third-grade instructional strategist and so 2nd and 3rd grade will be sharing an instructional strategist. I will have more students and less co-teaching opportunities. Because of this, I am probably going to need to do away with my current homework system so I can use that time somewhere else. 

What does this have to do with my hair you ask? Well, I want to keep my students accountable for reading at home because ALL of my students grew in reading and most had accelerated growth. I attribute at least part of that growth to reading outside of school. So, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how I can do away with the homework bags, but still get them to read outside of school. This is what I came up with:

• Set a class goal to read (X) minutes by the end of the school year.
• Use the school-wide, Read-to-Rides (weekly sheets that track reading, which is signed by adults) to keep track of minutes read.
• When the class goal is met, my students will all get to cut my hair!