4Real Forums: Short Lessons vs. In Depth

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Topic: Short Lessons vs. In Depth

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Sarah
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Posted: June 23 2010 at 3:50pm \| IP Logged

I have had such a hard time doing lots of short lessons in a day with many kids. It often feels disjointed, harried, and chaotic. For example, experts say just spend 20 min on Latin, 5 min on certain flashcards, 10 min here and there. First of all, in our house, nothing takes 5 min. Secondly, there are too many kids for that many subjects. So, here's my question: have any of you ever spent a day just trying to go in depth on one skill? I've heard some families plan Monday as science day, Tuesday as Language Arts day, etc. What do you think? Completely the opposite of CM's short lesson idea??

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JodieLyn
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Posted: June 23 2010 at 3:53pm \| IP Logged

I think you could do short lessons but focus on one subject area..

so that all the lessons on one day are your language arts.. but that doesn't mean it's all one long lesson.

Make sense?

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Becky Parker
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Posted: June 23 2010 at 4:21pm \| IP Logged

I know there are people who schedule in blocks and I did this for my ds. I think you just have to look at the personality of the child and your schedule. This particular son got very frustrated if he was just getting into a subject then had to switch to something else. So, for his list of assignments I would write what had to be accomplished for the week in a subject like history and he would usually do it all in one day. The next day would be science, then Religion...
Math and English are always an every day thing here and so is reading for the younger kids. But alot of the other subjects can be concentrated on for longer periods.
Now, having said that, i know that's not really Charlotte Mason-ish. I love CM but for one of my children, this ds, I had to tweak things to make it work for him.

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Erin
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Posted: June 23 2010 at 4:45pm \| IP Logged

Sarah

I'm one who has done that, for my ds15 in particular he has always worked best focusing on one topic at a time.
Short lessons for him were skimming and he never connected.

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Sarah
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Posted: June 23 2010 at 5:31pm \| IP Logged

Thanks for the input. I think I would always do some math and language arts each day no matter what, but I so like the idea of a block to relax and just see what we accomplish. To give myself permission not to feel guilty we can't get to it all. So maybe it would be 1 math skill, 1 language art thing, and one other subject like history, geography, science, literature, music, etc. Keep the posts coming if you have input! Also, my oldest is outside this problem as he can do many subjects and do them well, and probably should as he will be in 8th grade.at least that is just him - very studious.

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lapazfarm
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Posted: June 23 2010 at 7:41pm \| IP Logged

I've done that before--had a theme for each day. Worked brilliantly while we did it, but we kind of outgrew it after a while. I think for grades 4-7 (approx) it works particularly well. Allows them to really focus and go into depth on a subject, follow their own little rabbit trails. I think they learn a lot more that way, personally.
However, it is still important to keep *lessons* short. Lessons being the time when you are actively feeding them information or questioning them, etc. After a brief lesson with you, then they can read/work independently on the same topic for quite some time.

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