We call our app the Online Tutor for a reason. It patiently teaches like a top-notch tutor would. Why waste this resource when it can be assigned as a very valuable and easy-to-check-on homework assignment? You don’t have papers for the dog to eat, or papers to correct, but students will greatly benefit from more time spent each day practicing math facts. You have already paid for it, so make the most of this resource.
Three ways to access the Rocket Math Online Tutor at home
Of course,
the first way is to log into a web browser such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge (anything other than Apple’s Safari which is not compatible with our app) and go to https://play.rocketmath.com . You can play from there, but if the student is using a mobile device the apps work better and are free.
Rocket Math has a mobile app that parents can download for free. The apps can run on a phone as well as other mobile devices, so it is not necessary that children have a computer available at home. On the Enter page there are two buttons to access the mobile apps. We have two versions:
one on the Apple App store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rocket-math-online-tutor/id1538196379 and
one on Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rocketmath&pli=1
You can send these links home so that students can work with the Online Tutor on any mobile device.
Use the Parent Letter to send home login credentials.
You can find the Parent letter on tab (i) Parent Letter on the rainbow navigation bar of the admin account or here. Print enough copies for your whole class. Enter the student’s name at the top and the Username and your Account number on the lines provided. (If it were me, I’d then copy them all to have another set for lost copies). Then you can send these home with students so parents know how students can logon and do a 10-minute session. The letter explains about the “Session Completed” screen so that students can be encouraged to show that to their parents each evening to prove they have “done their homework.” 
On the Parent Letter shows that on the enter page (play.rocketmath.com) parents can access the mobile apps which they can download for free onto their phone or their child’s mobile device.
Promote homework during Back-to-school night.
It will take a little effort to build in this expectation, but it will be well worth it. Working with the Online Tutor, students can’t help but develop math fact fluency and they never practice errors. You don’t have papers to grade, so this will be the best homework ever. There is nothing other than reading fluency that is more important to future academic success than math fact fluency. Why not add some additional practice as homework?
On Back-to-school night, bring in a couple of students to demonstrate a session for parents, so they can see how the app works to correct errors. You can have parents access the links to download the app right onto their phones and give them the Parent Letter. (See why I would make copies?) If during conferences, you can download the app onto their phone and have their child login and use the app right then and there. Seeing is believing, and parents will see that their children can learn their math facts by using this app.
How do you know which students do Rocket Math as homework?
We’ve got that handled for you. Simply go to the blue “Enable Daily Progress Report” button on the Review Progress tab on your admin site. Click on that button and you’ll get a pop-up asking you to verify the email to which the reports should be sent and expecting you to hit the green “Enable” button to get these started.
The Daily Progress Report tells you how many sessions students started and how many they completed yesterday. So if you had students do a session in school (And you made sure they completed it, right?) they would have a “1” by sessions completed. If they went home and completed another session they would have a “2” by their name. So you can tell who did homework and who didn’t, right on this report. It also tells you who passed which levels. (And therefore earned the right to color those levels in on their Rocket chart.)
How can you motivate your students to do the Online Tutor as homework?
First, you should assign it. Put it on the board. Send home notes. Send home the parent letters–again. (Aren’t you glad you made copies?) You need to convince your students that this is important and that you expect them to do it. That’s the start.
But then you need to show them you are impressed by the students who do it as homework. You may have to read from the daily progress report with disappointment, that nobody did it as homework yet. But then one day, you’ll have someone who does it as homework. Have them stand up and give a cheer and get a round of applause. The next day, do it again. And the day after that. Eventually you’ll have a few doing it. Put their names on the board as math superstars. Keep praising them. Make up a note to send home with the reminder to do Rocket Math as homework, praising the ones who have been doing it. Keep acting like you care and are impressed by the ones who are “doing their homework” and eventually almost all of your students will be doing it at home regularly. Their progress will take off and they will become math success stories. It’s a lot of work, but it is your mission, right?