How Many Hours?

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
1

I’ve been working on several plans for our EL schedule this year, and it made me wonder how long everyone dedicates to EL on a daily basis?

If I put in everything I wanted to do every day it works out around 6 hours! This seems really extreme, even taking into account around 1/3 of that is read-together time, and there are crafts/experiments/exercises included.

At the moment we do about an hour plus bedtime reading, which I want to increase now that he’s interested/able to participate in a lot of more complicated activities/games.
Right now, I’ve got my planning head on - which means the whiteboard is getting a workout :smiley: I just can’t decide how much of what I want to do is really necessary :rolleyes:

So what about you? How many hours do you consider ‘enough’ in your EL homes?

2

I think each child is different. With my baby and my 7 year old I add in one thing at a time, starting with the most important items first. That way its a smooth transition and I can tell right away what pushes them over the edge. If I make a huge todo list and try to start it all at one time I land up failing because its too overwhelming for even me.

3

I know what you mean - at the moment we are really only working on Maths and reading, but I don’t feel like it is enough :rolleyes:

I will be adding things gradually, but when I worked out the total hours I wanted us to build to, I suddenly thought that it was too much and maybe I should aim to spread things differently. It also made me curious what others are doing :slight_smile:

4

I do reading and math 1-2 hours of each most days. I use dead time in the car or waiting at the Gym for everything else. If it doesn’t fit into our dead time it doesn’t get added to our life. Reading is bedtime routine reading plus one other session with me each. Math is 1 Saxon unit or two pages of whatever else. My speedy daughter is often finished in 20 mins. :smiley: my other daydreamer is often still going 3 hours later!
In the car we do science DVDs, story of the world, iPad apps, educational music and discussions.
The children do artlier and other art program’s by choice on the weekend mornings. usually while I am in bed still at 4:30 am! I am woken up to a beautiful creation and quite often the resulting mess! Lol
At kindy we do probably a total of 1.5 hours of solid learning time ( with lots of breaks and that includes at least one story)

5

James turned 3 last month. So 3 is our magic number for everything. Just ask James. :slight_smile: If I open a bag of chips he knows he is only allowed 3 chippies. I set the warning time for bedtime, he likes it to be set for 3 more minutes of playtime. He earns 3 coins daily for his hard work on a Teach Me app he plays. And be is limited to 3 episodes of Number Crew (his latest addiction) a day. Thankfully each episode is only 10 minutes!

So I think ideally at 3 I aiming for 3 hours of dedicated learning time a day. Now this does not include math via play, discussion and cooking. Or any other little learning moment we throw in. And if does not include me reading to him.
And yes, 3 hours is not enough time to do everything I want to do. But I feel it is enough for James.

Here is a little breakdown of things we do each day, and how long. James has playtime between all these activities.

CalendarTime 5-10 minutes max.
We sings days of the week and months of the year songs. We read yesterday’s date, cross it off the calendar. Read today’s date. Then sing a song about weather. James runs to the window to check the weather. We write it on the calendar. Then we read tomorrow’s date. We talk about yesterday, tomorrow and today. We check the calendar for any upcoming events.

Phonics Instruction. 15-30 minutes. Once a day.
Lately I am just focusing on strengthening James’ phonics. We play games. He matches words to cards. I write words in the boards even nonsense words and James crosses or erases them.
Eventually I will add spelling into this.

Maths: 15-30 minutes. Twice a day.
Right now James is doing this in about 15 minute spurts. I am working on increasing his attention stamina gradually. Math consists of lots of games and a few pages on a work sheet.

Fine motor: 15-30 minutes in several segments.
This includes, cutting, pasting, and lots of drawing on the chalkboard. Stamping, puzzles, any craft. I do include a little Letter School App with a stylus here. This is not included in app time.

Gross motor… Ummm always happening. He is a 3 year old rambunctious boy.

James reading to me: 15-30 minutes. Twice a day.
James has to read to me before naptime and bedtime, daily. I will then read to him (more about this in a minute)

Music. However long it takes to do a Little Musician lesson.

Ipad apps. 30 minutes max and/or 3 stars.
James has strict access to educational apps only. Right now he is completing Teach Me toddler. And he is doing EuroTalks math app. And Letter School. He hasn’t opened any other apps for a while.

Character building: 15 minutes.
We do a weekly virtue. I write it on the whiteboard and have James read it at least twice a day. He often reads it when he acts against that virtue. For 2 weeks we had to do gentleness as James went through an extremely rough phase. He read that virtue a lot. This week it was patience, something I never have had an issue with and he read it very little.
Sitting still. I believe in self regulation and sitting still, which in turn leads to attentiveness. So we have started sitting still for a few minutes each day. Thus far James can only do a whopping 4:36 seconds. His record. :slight_smile: but I hope to increase that over time.
James also has to take care of himself. He takes his dishes to the sink, his clothes to the washer etc. He can prepare a snack. He cleans up messes he makes.

Science/History/Geography/ general knowledge etc.
This one I don’t really count as part of our structured time. James will learn via play. He loves doing puzzles and he will do puzzles of the United States. Or we do mini flash card sessions that last less than a minute with cards of the presidents. We play with his plastic animals and discuss biomes, the food chain/web and different types of animals. We build buildings with blocks and talk about architecture. This is just general dialog and discussion that we have each day.
I also read to James for 15-30 minutes twice a day after he has read to me. I will cover fiction as well as non fiction. And sometimes this reading is filled with lengthy discussion.

I think that is about it.

6

Oh! And I have a cheat board. :slight_smile:
I use Story of the World as our history spine. And BFSU as our science spine. I write down weekly lessons and concepts on a white board. I then check back to this whiteboard throughout the day as guidance for discussion.
Through out the week I add things when I think James needs help with something. For example when we do math I might realize that James is struggling with the concept of in front and behind. Instead of pushing it during a math lesson, I will write a note on my whiteboard. Later that day while we are playing trains I will glance at my whiteboard and see my note and suddenly the discussion will include me saying things like. “Where is Emily. Do you see her? She is right there in front of her tender. Oh and look James is now behind Emily and her tender. Can you put James in front of Emily?”

7

That whiteboard idea is great! I can definitely see myself using one. :smiley: