Homework: what one school's summer sheet asks, and what parents are told to check

Summer homework arrives as its own sheet, often beside the grade newsletter. At Sakuraoka Elementary in Yokohama (横浜市立桜岡小学校), the 2024 sheet is a grid, one column per grade, plus a note for classes 5 and 6 (５・６組). Every column names the same first morning back: Tuesday 27 August, the opening ceremony (始業式, shigyōshiki). Your school's year will name a different Tuesday. Read the column for your child's grade, then the bring-list under it.

What each grade's column lists

Grade	On the sheet
1	One drill booklet (サマー１６), a "this happened" sheet, a sea hide-and-seek card, a reading-and-calculation card (おんどくけいさんカード, ondoku keisan kādo), a "please bloom, my flower" sheet. A further free task is marked 取り組みは、自由です。 Book-report contests are the ones named in the separate summer-work flyer.
2	A summer skill book. Mark it at home and correct the misses. Skip the pages for "measuring the volume of water": that lesson is after the holiday, though a child may preview it. Two picture diaries, one picture book-report, two observation cards of the summer vegetables (another plant or an insect if the vegetables have died). Free research and crafts 必ず提出するというものではありません — bringing them to show the class is welcome.
3	A set of study prints: mark them, then retry the misses. Kanji skill book to page 53, the character 両, and 〇はつけない (do not mark it). Recorder care, a sound diary, and practice. One observation card of the plant the child is growing. Free research is できたらやろう ("if you can").
4	A summer drill (サマー３２) plus a kanji and calculation book. The school has collected the answer pages and will mark them after the holiday. A book report on two or three sheets of genkō yōshi; the drill includes a how-to and three sheets. Free research may also be the summer-contest entry. Recorder work. An "eco life" check sheet. The first day includes a review test in Japanese, social studies, maths and science.
5	Five days of self-study (自主学習, jishu gakushū), a book report of two or three sheets, free research that may also be the contest entry, recorder work, and a home-economics look at jobs around the house.
6	The same shape as grade 5, with a home-economics print instead of the jobs research.
5・6組	Japanese and maths prints that differ for each child, one picture diary, and two observation cards only for grades 1–3 in those classes. The class newsletter has the detail. Japanese and maths that morning are individual study.

The first-day bag is on the same column: the homework, indoor shoes (上ばき), the pencil case, a cleaning cloth (ぞうきん), and a personal-information envelope. Grade 1 also lists a water bottle and two cloths, one named and one not. Grade 2 lists the Japanese and maths textbooks and notebooks. Grade 4 lists a clothespin. Grade 5 lists the tool box.

What the sheet tells a parent to check

The column says when you mark and when you leave the pencil alone.

• Grade 2: mark the skill book and fix the errors. Check the pencil case (five pencils, one red pencil, one eraser, a ruler of about 15 cm) and the tool box (glue, pastels, coloured pencils, origami, tape). Refill what is missing.
• Grade 3 prints: mark, then have the child try the missed questions again. The kanji skill book stays unmarked.
• Grade 4: do not mark the drill. The school kept the answers and will mark them on the first morning, before the review test.
• Grade 1's extra task, grade 3's free research, and grade 2's free research and crafts are the lines that say the work is free or need not be handed in. The numbered drills sit in the homework list without that phrase.
• Contest pieces that a family enters itself stay with the family. Pieces the school submits come to school (grade 2's note).
• Grade 2 leaves the exploration bag, disaster helmet, scissors, calligraphy and moral textbooks, the PE book, and cloth clips at school over the holiday. Flower pots stay at home; throw the soil away there. The September newsletter will name the day the empty pot comes back. Grade 3 wants the pots back, as they are, between 27 and 30 August.

A closure packet, and one school's daily line

At Eda Elementary in Yokohama, a grade-3 packet for the temporary closure, dated in the file 7 May 2020, asked for about an hour of Japanese and an hour of maths on school days, with parents helping because the work was new grade-3 material. The kanji skill book went to page 30 with no marking; the note asks you to check that the writing is careful. A reading-aloud card (音読カード, ondoku kādo) was daily, the child choosing passages up to page 46. The maths skill book went to page 16 and was to be marked. The work came back when school reopened. That packet is a closure plan from 2020, so treat it as a picture of what a school printed then, and use this year's paper for your child.

At Nanzan Elementary in Minato, the ward school guide's learning standard includes doing the homework and home study, and having the things for learning ready the day before. The guide does not list the assignments.

What to do now

• Find your child's grade column, or the class note for ５・６組, and copy only that list.
• Mark a booklet only where the column says to mark it.
• Put the first-day items in a bag the night before, including the personal-information envelope.
• Treat free research as the line that says "if you can" or "you need not submit it". The other numbered lines are the homework the column lists.
• None of these pages prints a price. A drill the school handed out is already paid for by whoever issued it; a shop workbook is a different purchase, and this sheet does not ask for one.