Persuasive Writing, Homophones and a Class Consequence

We've been busy at school and have a well deserved break. Hopefully when the kiddos come back they are ready to totally pick up the pace since we will be moving quickly!!

\ This year, I have a few kids who are chronic homework forgetters. They have SO MANY assignments missing that I can't even keep up. It's difficult because I have yard duty everyday. From the time the kids come in in the mornings to turn in their hw and morning recess, I have no time to check their work. I start teaching ASAP and while morning business is going on I'm submitting attendance and getting my SPED kids ready to leave for their class. That means by the time its morning recess I haven't even had time to see who did their homework or not. It's quite frustrating. We talked about this and the kids came up with their own consequence. They said that if they did not do their work or complete it, it is their responsibility to take it (when I have yard duty) or to stay in to finish it (without me having to remind ANYBODY). If they do go out to recess and later in the day after I've checked homework and I find they are missing their assignment, they are to flip their behavior card and write a note home to their parents. I have to admit, I was very impressed with this consequence the kids came up with.  I've tried homework monitors in the past where I had this beautiful template and my monitors would check off the assignments but that didn't work for me. I had some kids being checked off if they were only partially done or even if the quality was horrible (or all wrong). How do you handle this homework dilemma? 

Last week, I purchased this super cute Homophone and Homograph unit from Christina Cottongame. This unit has so many wonderful activities and worksheets for students, I haven't even got a chance to do them all. I only introduced homophones and we pretended to be talking on our phones and read words from our homophone list. We talked about how all of the words sound the same on the phone but since we can see the list we know that they don't mean the same thing. We then made the connections that homophones sound the same but have different spelling and meanings. The kids created these cute silly homophone sentences:

The toad and his toad car got towed away.

Noah was running away from a hare with green hair.

My pet bunny was very weak this week, he didn't move.

Spongebob flew over to Patricks with a bowl of stew because Patrick had the flu.

We also have been working on writing personal narratives. I got this idea from the wonderful Amy Lemons.  I did this last year with my kids and it was a total hit both years. They loved writing about their best friend and everyone has something to write about!!

This is ME!

Aren't the pictures just adorable?? One of my students wrote about her best friend, Courtney M and went on to describe her friend. At the very end she writes she is not only my friend but she is my Teacher!! How cute and sweet is that?? That totally brought a bright smile to my face. I love how in both her writing and picture she managed to capture my 'brown hair with yellowish highlights' lol. 

Have a great week!