Are you "really" able to follow CM 20 min lessons?

[Pster]

....or even just "doing" short lessons in general?

I had time to read a couple CM bks and have kinda tried to come up with a plan to mesh some of those ideas into what I am doing..... I like the idea of the short lessons - esp since I never seem to get thru the subjects I would like to cover.

Anyway... I've written up a schedule and pretty much have stuck to the 20 min lesson idea. But honestly - does it really work? Can you get started in a lesson and actually cover what you need to in 20 min? I have yet to put my written plans in action yet so I am a little skeptical.

I would like to hear from anyone who has been able to implement short lessons to hear how it worked for you.

thanks!

[MelissaMinNC]

For us, keeping the lessons short and alternating between a lesson that needs Mom right there, and one that's independent (like copywork), helps dd stay focused - I explain to her that the lessons are short, but that she's expected to pay very close attention to her work; I know she can do it for a short amount of time.

Also, doing it this way allows me to switch back and forth between her and my 3yo ds. He knows that if he can just play on his own (he's welcome to sit at the table with us, but doesn't always want to) for a few minutes, I'll be able to play with him for a full 15-20 minutes while dd works on her own. He's learning (slooooowly ;) ) that I'll get to him a lot quicker if he doesn't interrupt.

I'm learning to keep reading passages short enough that we can read and narrate within a 20 minute session. This is helping dd to be able to pay closer attention to the reading and narrate in more detail. (15-ish minutes of reading and 5-ish minutes to narrate is working well for us.)

The subjects that do tend to take a little longer are math (I allow up to 30 min or so, it's just harder for her), and any crafty projects we might get involved in. (I try to keep the craft projects as the last thing on my list, so we can keep going and not have to worry about getting back on track.)

Give it a try and see how it goes!

HTH,
Melissa

[Lenora in MD]

Short lessons work great for us. I always use a timer for math and we just finish up the problem we are working on and then move on to something else. If you just plan short lessons to begin with, it usually is not a problem. If they really desire to continue with something, like tangrams which we did recently, I will let them work a little longer, maybe 5-10 minutes, and then we stop. Sometimes they think they would like to go longer, but often they are really ready to stop and stopping when they still want more keeps them excited for the next day.

[Quad Shot Academy]

I am not sure if I have ever done longer than a 20 minute lesson, unless dawdling was involved! We do every subject, every day. If I want to spend a longer time on a subject, like history, I just do two 10 or 20 minute sessions. If the math page is really long and difficult, I have them push it to the side, do something else and come back to it. I think it really cuts down on frustration. I am not a big lesson planner though. We always just do the next page in a workbook, or the next pages in a book to be read. :001_smile:

[nmoira]

We don't do CM per se, but I do keep subjects short, typically 15-20 minutes. History is the one that's impossible to keep short, but since so much of it is read aloud (we're in grammar stage).

Here's what we'd do in a typical day:

1 page Megawords

15-20 minutes Singapore Math

1-3 pages Lively Latin plus flashcards

Learnables Spanish: 1 lesson if Listening (25 minutes), Review + 1-2 pages if Basic Structures (15-20 minutes)

History Odyssey: 1 hour history if reading a novel or contemporary literature (at least one per HO lesson), 20-30 minutes if doing HO Lesson or supplemental picture book reading.

We do school year round and 5 days a week, sometimes with extra Spanish on the weekend if DD asks. Right now grammar, science, geography and who knows what else are out of the rotation to keep days short. I'm in no hurry to add them back in as we seem to be doing a lot of science and geography incidentally. Grammar we cover early in the school year. DD is also doing Power-Glide Elementary Spanish (she likes it, I don't), but it's at will after breakfast.

[Trivium Academy]

It's really a mix of using materials that support shorter lessons and being conscious of the time. I have a friend who helps me, his name Stopwatch. Lol. Let me show you.

For Bible we're using Explorer's Bible Study, dd7 reads the Bible story aloud, I ask her the corresponding questions orally and we pray. 15-20 minutes.

Reading- Selection of books is very important, dd is reading aloud for 20 minutes with my friend, Stopwatch. I keep the time, she reads. If she is close to the end of the chapter she reads until she's done.
When I read aloud I look for clues from the kids that they are done, I might read a chapter from a longer book or a picture book. Ds3 needs short books right now but he'll sit through 3-4 of them with interest. I don't time this.

Math- Isn't this what you really want to know about? Lol. I teach for 15 minutes, I assess the independent work dd7 has to do and eliminate any extra work. If there are 10 addition problems, I have her do 6 and she knows that if she gets them right she won't have to do the other 4. If she doesn't complete the work in about 20 minutes, I assess then whether she needs to. If she does, it happens after the other subjects, sort of like homework.

Primary Language Lessons- it depends on the lesson how much time, it can be 5 minutes or 20 minutes depending on if it is a writing assignment. This supports shorter lessons too.

Poetry- 15 minutes, although today's copywork took 20 minutes b/c dd7 was writing in cursive and being especially careful. Sloppy work is unacceptable. Poetry is only 5 minutes on days she is only reciting.

French- 15 minutes, the program we use supports this.

Piano- 15-20 minutes of practice, book work daily

History- 15-20 minutes 2x a week. I can do this with Tapestry. We typically read the assigned reading, do mapwork, coloring page, art project within 2 days time split up. Longer read alouds are done at another time of the day- during lunch or at bedtime. Anything left over is done on Friday or Saturday

Science- 20 minutes, 2x a week. Reading, possible project/experiment and notebook page. Work is split up between 2 days. Anything left over is done on Friday or Saturday. Longer read aloud done at other times of the day, lunch or bedtime.

Nature Study- everyday after lessons informally, 1x a week formally.

We're about to add Latin as soon as I figure out how to keep it short and effective.

We have lessons Monday-Thursday 7:30/8:00- 12:00 noon, on Friday we have about 2 hours we spend on Bible, Reading, Math, Read Aloud, and French. Usually the kids want to continue something in history or science but I don't count that as 'lesson' time. Our formal Nature Study occurs on Friday or Saturday.

[Closeacademy]

Yes, it works wonderfully here. I have a wiggly worm who does much of her work standing up because she can't always sit and had to learn to tailor the lessons to her attention span.

We do year round school, 4 days a week and do more than the 180 days.

But I go through her curriculum and basically schedule it in bite-sized pieces. So for Singapore Math we will do 3 pages of word problems (6 problems), 1 page of stacked problems (generally 9 problems) or 2 pages of problems in the workbook if it doesn't look like it is a ton of work (generally 6 to 9 problems plus 2-3 word problems).

For Minimus Latin, I pretty much spread a chapter over a 3 to 4 week span and we will either listen to a story, go over the word list, do the grammar activity or do a worksheet. We will only do 1 activity.

For My Pals are Here Science it is the same thing, we either read in the text and do 1 workbook problem or do an activity.

I keep everything short and sweet and to the point. There is not a lot of fluff although I do draw pictures to go with phonics but these are put on the wall or in the book I made that has all the phonograms in order so that we can flip through them for review.

For K and 2nd we generally finish school most days in 1 hour. It takes 2 if we have problems with math or do some sort of large experiement. In a typical day we cover math (3 times--rhythmic drill, exploration and workbook), phonics, copywork/penmanship/composition, story (history or language arts), Latin, and Science with my oldest. Phonics and math with my youngest.

Good luck in your endeavor.:)

[Pster]

~here is a copy of the schedule I have come up with so far...
what do you think? am I missing something? too much?

I want to include more geography but ....maybe we'll just work on states till July when we kinda will start our "next" school year.

It is for the rest of this year - till end of July...

schedule (http://spreadsheets.google.com/ar?id=o11510522151305768237.6314150552625408272.06 874498743193668050.6595102396874469124&hl=en&action=1&tile=0&rpert=20&tfe=bx_171&srow=0&erow=100&fprt=false&scol=0&ecol=7)

I tried REALLY hard to work all 3 of them together (2nd gr, K, pre-sch) - keep them busy & out of trouble while working with the others...

I'm hoping it works!

[King Alfred Academy]

Anyway... I've written up a schedule and pretty much have stuck to the 20 min lesson idea. But honestly - does it really work? Can you get started in a lesson and actually cover what you need to in 20 min? I have yet to put my written plans in action yet so I am a little skeptical.

I would like to hear from anyone who has been able to implement short lessons to hear how it worked for you.

thanks!

The thing that struck me most about your post was..."can you get started in a lesson and actually cover what you need to in 20 min."
I think this is the "pitfall" and what I am still overcoming. This thing of "need"-ing to cover so much in a lesson. I think the important thing to keep in mind is their attention span and how much they really learn after a certain point. I have been playing around with doing short lessons and what I am finding is our day is moving more smoothly, I am not hearing the complaining I use to hear, they are retaining more, and seem more interested in what we are learning. Learning is happening in a gentler way and it's working for us.

Now, I am by no means an expert on this as I am just implementing this myself, but that phrase caught my eye and I thought I would share.

[Trivium Academy]

what I am finding is our day is moving more smoothly, I am not hearing the complaining I use to hear, they are retaining more, and seem more interested in what we are learning. Learning is happening in a gentler way and it's working for us.

Exactly the same experience here. :iagree:

[Plaid Dad]

Yes, it works for us. I have had to rethink my teaching somewhat. If I can get across one idea or have dd practice one skill per lesson, that's enough. Sometimes a lesson will stretch to 30 minutes if we're doing an experiment or project, but that's unusual (mostly because I'm not very hands-on and try to avoid experiments and projects!).

Sometimes dd (6 yo) will ask to do more of a certain subject. This afternoon she did 14 extra pages in her math workbook. But I was perfectly happy with the two pages she did in 10 minutes this morning. Same thing with penmanship. She wanted to learn a new cursive letter, although we'd already done copywork. Fine - here's cursive q. :) But this is at her initiative. The short lessons are enough.

[Sue G in PA]

My ds9 could spend an hour on his lesson, doing all the problems, IF he pays attention and doesn't dawdle. Add another hour to that for pencil tapping, staring into space, whistling, bugging his brother and sister, playing w/ dd2 who is too cute to resist (his words), etc. HOW would you do a Saxon lesson in 20 minutes? UNLESS, he did 20 min. at one time, another 20 later and another 20 later still? Hmm...maybe that would work. History takes us 30 minutes IF we don't do an activity. The other subjects are 30 min. max. Science (when we did it formally) would take 30-45 minutes. Is this 20 min. lesson time supposed to continue through middle and high school? I can't see how. I am so intrigued by the CM method but cannot for the life of me wrap my brain around it! :001_huh:

[Eliana]

With my younger kids, yes, absolutely. After seeing how smoothly and joyfully things went when I first read about this and realized that my own instincts weren't as out there as I had thought and stopped trying to force myself and the kids to do 'more'.. I haven't looked back.

I don't do schedules any more, but having short lessons means that I can cover each child's formal school work either in a compressed period of time, leaving the rest of the day free for reading, thinking, learning (as MFS would say); or the formal lessons can be interspersed throughout the day.

With my teens short lessons mean that their time with me for each subject is short and focused, the work they do on their own is theirs to schedule, but I have a strong instinct now for determining portion sizes. ;)

Hmmm... I'm not sure how to give an accurate picture of how this works for us. The things we sit around and discuss take as long as they take, and we like it when they stretch out and fill an afternoon! Skill-based learning, otoh, gets short, focused lessons.

[LindaOz]

Hi Sue,

I've been reading a lot about the CM method lately, and also looking at some of the timetables she used in her schools, and I'm seeing that the lessons get longer as the child gets older. 15 - 20 min lessons applied to the lower grades (1-3). In approx. grades 4-6, some lessons would increase to 30 mins, math being one of them. I've really built my schedule on these shorter lessons and it is working well. I am finding that my 6th grader who is doing Saxon 65 finishes a lesson in 30 mins, while my 7th grader in Saxon 76 takes 30 - 40 mins as there are more problems in this level.

I wonder whether it would be worth trying setting the timer for 30 mins for your ds then telling him he only has that time to work on his math today. Then allow him to stop and move on to something else when the timer goes. Maybe he won't get it all done, but he will see what you are doing and, after a few days of this, it would be interesting to see if he starts to increase the amount he gets done. I do think there's a lot of value in CM's teaching about being focussed on the task at hand and the habit of attention. It might be worth a try.....

Just throwing thoughts around.

[Eliana]

My ds9 could spend an hour on his lesson, doing all the problems, IF he pays attention and doesn't dawdle. Add another hour to that for pencil tapping, staring into space, whistling, bugging his brother and sister, playing w/ dd2 who is too cute to resist (his words), etc. HOW would you do a Saxon lesson in 20 minutes? UNLESS, he did 20 min. at one time, another 20 later and another 20 later still? Hmm...maybe that would work. History takes us 30 minutes IF we don't do an activity. The other subjects are 30 min. max. Science (when we did it formally) would take 30-45 minutes. Is this 20 min. lesson time supposed to continue through middle and high school? I can't see how. I am so intrigued by the CM method but cannot for the life of me wrap my brain around it! :001_huh:


I go over the lessons with my children (even the older ones); at that age, 10-20 minutes should be more than adequate (including time to show him how to work through the examples).

After doing the math lesson, some kids are all charged up and ready to do the problems, but most of my kids do better if we do another subject for the next block of time.

Some children can do the entire problem set in 20 minutes. Some children do better doing every other problem (Saxon does *not* recommend this, but it has been perfect for some of my kids.). Other children need to do the whole lesson, but need more time. In that case, I split it over two days until s/he has developed the concentration and focus to do it in less time.

If the issue isn't work speed, but dawdling, Charlotte Mason has some nice character training suggestions. The simplest is to schedule math (if you are a scheduler) right before some pleasurable daily activity. Be *certain* that you are assigning a very easy work load at first when you do this - you want to set the kid up for success! Children who finish their duties in that time slot get to move on to the pleasurable activity - others need to finish the remaining work. Work left over beyond that is set aside and we move on to whatever is being done next... but when schoolwork for everyone else is done for the day, it gets brought back out. Even if soccer practice, or a play date, or a fun activity must be missed.

The two key components, imo, are: 1) Set the child up for success, be clearly on his side - *not* punitive! The mindset I convey is crucial.
2) Shift the ownership of the problem. (I love this concept!) Who owns the problem now? Who should? And how can that shift happen lovingly and constructively?

Charlotte Mason had high academic and character standards; her series is a fabulous read.

[Dayle in Guatemala]

We do language arts in about 20 minutes or less, depending on the day and attitude:glare:!

Math I generally divide the lessons into 2 days and that's not been a problem.

History and science we do everyday, but, we do shorter lessons as well, so we cover just as much as others.

It helps us out a lot because it keeps us more focused and when we are enjoying something, it's not a problem to go ahead and spend more time. It's been great for my ds9. It encourages him to pay attention better and it helps to keep it moving for his sake.

[ELaurie]

for this encouraging thread. I'm rethinking certian aspects of our schedule for next year and the remainder of this year, and I think this will work well for us.

[Carol in Cal.]

I think that it is important to know your own child and decide accordingly, though. My Dd has always had a long attention span. I actually avoided Sesame Street when she was preschool age because I was afraid that it would teach her a short attention span. I want to play to her strengths, so even when she was pretty young I would continue a lesson or conversation much longer than 20 minutes if that worked for her.