Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day Part 2

Part 2 of this series is for...

At-Home Parents With School-Age Children

(for Part 1 of the Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day series, click here)

The following are suggestions for times to do learning activities with your school-age children.

Extracurricular Time
One way to set aside time to learn with your kids is to schedule it as an extracurricular. Maybe your child is a basketball player and the winter schedule gets really hectic for the whole family. Could you have him “sign up” for Spring Institute, in which Mom or Dad gives him lots of facetime making learning fun? Or you could set up a Summer Apprenticeship for Junior to shadow someone at work, learn the daily tasks of his parents, go on customized field trips, and make a video portfolio of the whole shebang.

Vacation Time
Kids get plenty of days off school during the year. Learning activities could fit nicely into vacation day mornings and summer vacation. If you keep up with doing them at a set time on days off from school, the kids will take it for granted and you won’t have to battle their ideas of what they want to do on their vacation...until after learning time, at least.

Down Time
Do your kids get a snack as soon as they get home from school? You could lay out the activity at the table in front of them while they eat. Combining snack time with learning time can be an effective wind-down and break after the school day.

TV Time
If your kids get a certain amount of time to watch TV or play computer and video games each day, learning time could be the activity they have to complete in order to start their TV time. If homework already serves this purpose, you could save learning activities for the days when there is little or no homework.

When Your Child Doesn't Like the Activity

You have planned one or more learning activities, assembled the materials, and set aside time to spend with your child. You and your child begin the activity. She makes a half-hearted, quick attempt, then says, "Can I go play now?"

What to do?

In my opinion, there are times to insist on a full, quality effort, and times not to. Times to insist are during homework, chores assigned to the child that he has been fully trained on, and thanking people for gifts of time or material things. Parents, of course, will decide which times require more effort according to their family culture and values.

I think a good time NOT to insist is during learning times with a parent. These should be fun and more of a reward - although children certainly will resist them from time to time because they have other ideas of what to do at the moment.

1. Make sure the time is set apart and that you begin the activity together.
2. Plan activities that are interesting and fun. You will also want to plan activities that give them practice on their weakest skills; for these, try to take special care to make the activity interesting. (For example, the Kumon workbooks motivate my older son to work on things that he resists when it's just me asking him to try them.)
3. If preschoolers or older children do not want to finish, pick a satisfactory stopping point and tell them it will be fine to stop when they get to that point. You will want to use your own discretion with older children. An example of a time NOT to stop is in the middle of a science experiment, unless a waiting phase is built into the experiment.
4. For babies and toddlers, when they move away from one activity, follow them. Move on to the next thing. I find five to ten minutes to be the longest that babies and pretoddlers can last on most learning activities. Toddlers may spend longer amounts of time. Keep activities available on an ongoing basis so they can get more exposure to it.

Should Anyone Learn Cursive Writing?

Recently I read an article in EducationNews about the use - or disuse - of cursive writing. There were many arguments for abandoning cursive now that we have the magic of word processing.

Argument #1: Word processing more efficient

Yes, word processing is much more efficient. When I first learned to use word processing (in college!), it took some time to adjust myself mentally. I thought that I composed messages, stories, essays, and papers better while writing by hand. I later typed up what I had written out by hand, when that was necessary.

Not much time passed before my mental processes caught on to word processing. Eventually I found that I could compose better and more easily when typing in a word processing program, email, or blog post. If I wanted to go back to writing by hand, I would go through another period of adjustment before I was again comfortable with it.

For many purposes, word processing will be the more efficient and effective tool. I can think of one instance when a high level of efficiency makes the message less effective: personal, intimate correspondence. A handwritten letter obviously takes more time and effort - in effect, it's a time out from regular daily life - and so it is much more valuable to the recipient.

Argument #2: No use for it after school

I have found two reasons to use cursive at this point in my life. One is letter and card writing. I want my messages to take more time than typing so that the recipients know they are important to me.

The other reason is taking notes for certain projects. There is something about taking the time to form attractive cursive lettering that gives me a psychological boost. It influences me to put more effort toward quality in all phases of the project. Often, I would rather have my project turn out well than save time doing it. In those cases, starting with neat cursive notes gets me started with the right attitude.

Argument #3: No time, they have to do standardized tests

I wonder how many individuals have gotten any benefit out of the standardized state achievement tests. That is a topic for another (hundred) post(s), but I consider it a weak argument against cursive writing.

Pro-cursive point #1: Cursive helps kids distinguish between words

The way that cursive connects letters in a word gives kids visual and tactile practice distinguishing where one word ends and another begins.

Pro-cursive point #2: Some schools still embrace it; 80% of teachers devote some time to it in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grades

The article in EducationNews did not give the reasons that certain schools still embrace cursive writing. It would be interesting to find out their particular reasons.

Here is an excellent post giving one person's reasons for wanting to hang on to cursive writing.

My own last point is not rational, but I am glad to think that my son will be taught cursive writing like I was. I hate to see any discipline go completely out of use. Trends come and go, and someday children who were never taught cursive writing will learn of its existence and decide to study it on their own. I imagine it being like some of the more esoteric martial arts: Some people will enjoy plunging themselves wholeheartedly into this “lost art.” Oh, right! Like calligraphy.

Storybook Weeks

There was an article in The Mailbox magazine (Preschool, April/May 2009) with ideas for five activities around the book Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham. The activities, contributed by Tricia Brown of Bowling Green, Kentucky, utilized dramatizing, critical thinking, fine-motor, retelling, and participating skills.

I thought this was a great format for making learning fun at home. Thanks to the inspiration from The Mailbox and from Tricia Brown, I will be posting a series of storybook-themed activities that can be spread across a week or done over the weekend.

The books I will use as themes are classic storybooks that should be readily available in the library, in your home, or even as videos. Scholastic has a video collection called Storybook Treasures that includes each of these stories.

Where possible, I will include ideas to adapt the preschool activities for babies, toddlers, and older children.

The books that will form the themes are listed to the right in a sidebar called Storybook Weeks.

Each Monday I will post another "week" for the series. Enjoy! 

Children's Learning Activities Blog

Take a look at the Children's Learning Activities blog. By choosing the label you're looking for, you can find activities geared to preschool, pre-toddlers, toddlers, different holidays, babies, literacy, Montessori, fine motor skills, alphabet, surviving winter, summer activities, and many, many more.

The blog is written by a team of four stay-at-home moms who enjoy creating and rounding up learning activities to share. Three of them are former teachers of ages ranging from kindergarten to junior high school. The fourth teaches her children a preschool curriculum at home and is the author of the Chronicles of a Babywise Mom blog, which is how I found her and, later, the Children's Learning Activities blog.

The activities are easy to set up, especially if you tweak them to suit your own tastes, purposes, and materials. They are eminently tweakable! I have been able to do many of them using things I had around the house. Other activities sounded great, and when I later saw some of the required materials on a good sale, I picked them up and went back to the blog for instructions.

These are some of the activities from the blog that I've used with my 4-year-old and/or toddler:

Stringing Sponges
Homemade Highways
Valentine Dump Truck Card
Surviving Winter: Once There Was A Snowman
Letter Factory
Surviving Winter: Bath Play
Pre-Toddlers/Early Toddlers and Coloring 
Christmas Traditions Around the World
Chalkboard Letter Drills
Snowmen Ornaments
Learning Poster
...and more

Enjoy!

Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day Part 1

Part One of this series is for...
At-Home Parents With Younger Children

This topic needs at least three parts: one for parents who are usually home with their younger children, one for parents who are usually home and have school-age kids, and one for parents who work full-time while their kids are at school or daycare. I can think of a few other categories, too, like parents who work the third shift and parents who homeschool, but I will save those for another time.

You Have All Day, Right?

Ha. Can I leave it at that ? Ha?
Just kidding. I will continue. I am sure those of you who fit this category know that there are many other things you can do with your time, especially with babies or toddlers in the house. So when can you fit in learning time with your children?

Busy Times
You will need to start by considering the things the children have to do every day at certain times. If you are like me in this regard, it will be immensely helpful to write this down or type this up.

Think about: breakfast, lunch, dinner, essential errands, school pick-up/drop-off times for older siblings, playdates, scheduled babysitting, library storytimes, naptimes or rest times, bedtimes, and whatever else is scheduled into your day.
By the way, if you have playdates or library storytimes already plugged into your schedule, those can be prime learning times for young children. Even errands can be turned into learning time, using naming, math, colors, shapes, directions, maps, or writing lists.

Available Times

What times are left? Out of these time slots, which would be best for you to be able to focus on your children? Which would be best for them to focus on you? How much time will you need? (I find that ten minutes is best up to at least twelve months old, and 30 minutes works for older ages up to at least five years old.) Then consider which time slot would be best for getting together the materials and planning what you will do during learning time.

Sample Times

When my younger son was a baby, I did learning time with my older son after his rest time and during his little brother’s afternoon nap. Learning time with the baby took place whenever possible while he was awake, and mainly consisted of listening to different types of music, reading books, smiling at each other, tummy time, and some fun baby props and toys.

When my younger son was a pre-toddler, I tried doing learning time with my older son in the morning while the younger one played with a bag of special “school toys” that were not available at any other time. Learning time with my pre-toddler went along the same lines as when he was a baby.

When my younger son became a toddler and my older son started morning pre-kindergarten, learning activities with the younger one took place during our “alone time” in the morning. Learning time with the older one took place at some point during the younger one’s afternoon nap or snack. I also included more activities that he could do by himself so that I was free to tend to the toddler if necessary.

For Part Two of this series, click here.

Family Scheduling

Setting Your Family’s Priorities

This is not a post to list organizational systems, tactics, or products. It is a post to help you schedule according to your family’s priorities.

What Would You Regret the Most?

I hate to start this on a negative, but for me it is helpful to think about a scenario in which I died. What would I regret NOT doing? What is so important to me that it would cause me grief on my deathbed (other than the grief of leaving this world)?

When you have the answers to that question (and there will probably be many answers to it), you can think about what it is you would regret doing INSTEAD of those things.

Now you have the top and bottom of your list of priorities. The things you would most regret NOT doing are your top priorities. The things you would most regret DOING are saved for the bottom of the list. Or excluded.

Be sure that this step includes all relevant family members. Spouses, for sure. Many of you have children who would be able to participate in this step. I think it would be great for them to do so. This kind of activity will help them with goal setting throughout life.

Okay, What Do You Have To Do?

There are some things we all have to do whether they are inspiring to us or not. These things may have to go at or near the top of your list. You can merge them in with your top priorities as appropriate. (For example, regular meals and brushing teeth are going to have to be near the top whether you like it or not.)

What Do You Wish To Avoid?

Often there are things that are fun that we don’t mind putting into our day...but we want to make sure to limit the time spent on them. There are other things that we want to avoid altogether. For every family these things will be a little bit different. Some families avoid sugar, some TV, and some books that don’t fit in with their values.

For the first type of thing, the things that we enjoy but want to limit, I recommend scheduling it into the week so that you and your family only do it during that time.

For the second type of thing, things to avoid altogether, think about the times when you usually end up doing them. Schedule something more worthwhile in those time slots. I know I am likely to let my kids watch TV at certain points during the day, so instead I (first) pick a time to schedule for TV and (second) schedule outside or independent playtime in the other times that are tempting TV times.

Learning Time!

I don’t know exactly where on your list learning time will fall. For me, it is pretty high up there. I believe it’s important, my husband feels the same way, and I have a background in education. The other reason it will end up high on my list is because it is one of those things I will do by default. We all have things we love to do with our children that we will fit in just because it’s enjoyable. For some it might be playing video games together. For others, bathtime. For others, family camping trips. For still others, reading aloud. I enjoy reading classic children’s books to my children and doing learning activities with them. We almost always fit those things in.

Next Step

Pick a calendar, Excel spreadsheet, or whatever you want to use to plot your schedule. Take your prioritized list and start plugging in activities from top to bottom. Remember to schedule something worthwhile in place of those things you want to avoid. If you can’t get to the end of the list, then there are some things that don’t fit into your schedule. If that is a heartbreaker, think about some weekends, family vacation time, rainy days, snow days, or sick days when you could do some of those optional activities.

Oops

You might be like me and make your list of “absolutely necessary” things to do longer than the time you have available. If that happens, you have to go back to the first step and carefully study your prioritized list. This may take a few days or longer. A schedule does nothing for you if you can’t or won’t follow it.

Sources

I have gained tremendous amounts of scheduling and prioritizing information and insight from these sources:
 
Chronicles of a Babywise Mom
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey
The FlyLady
the wonderful women I've met online from the Chronicles of a Babywise Mom group, The Homemaking Cottage, and other blogs, some of which you can find in my blogs list