Mrs. Thorp’s Third Grade Blog

What can you expect from your third grader when it comes to being responsible with his/her backpack?

First of all it is your third grader’s responsibility to take care of his own backpack. What does this mean in every day life? Your child should

• put into his backpack what he needs for his day at school. It is not Mom or Dad’s job to do this. If your child forgets to put something into his bag, let him take the consequences at school. He will remember next time.
• remember to give to you any communications that his teacher sends home. Parents can ask if there is any notes from the teacher, but parents should refrain from going through the backpack searching for any communications from school.
• be responsible to hand in his homework when he gets to school and put into his homework folder any papers that need to be done at home for homework.
• put homework into his backpack as soon as he finishes it.
• have his backpack ready to go and sitting by the door (or other designated place) before he goes to bed, so that it is ready for the morning rush.

I know that this seems like a lot for some third graders to do and that it may take a few months to get into this habit. However, if your third grader can learn these simple steps to being organized with his/her backpack, it will carry over into all of his school years and you will be surprised how responsible your child will become.

I used to tell my third graders that when they followed the above steps that the Backpack Monster would not get their homework and eat it. It is amazing how many children loose their work to that hungry Backpack Monster when the homework is not taken care of in a responsible way!!

Let me know how this works for you or if you have any other ideas that have worked for you!