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Block scheduling vs 15 min CM style lessons


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I'm just curious about pros and cons, here. Do you prefer you to do a lot of subjects each day, but for short bursts, or fewer subjects for longer? How much does it depend on the kids age or personality (need to do the same thing each day)? I feel like it takes us a long time to transition some days. I feel like both ideas *seem* logical - and yet, they're on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Fwiw, I'm not talking stuff like science, art, or history-I'm talking stuff like reading, math, read alouds, and writing and a second language. Even chores, possibly. Music seems like it needs to be daily, and probably a second language. But I'm just thinking out loud here.

Edited by 4kookiekids
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I think with really young kids, block scheduling makes sense for a lot more kids than not. Because, as you say, transitions can be beasts. Then in the middle years, where' you're feasibly doing: composition, grammar, spelling, history, science, latin, literature, Spanish, piano, painting.... shorter lessons over more days make more sense for many families. And though I don't have high schoolers myself, by the time you are there, "smaller" subjects like spelling fall away and you're going deep into the topics you study, so you're back to taking more time for fewer subjects.

 

IOW you don't have to choose :)

 

ETA-- But even if you're doing things the CM way.... she had things streamlines too, just in different ways. With studied dictation being both a grammar and a spelling exercise, wherein the student gets his handwriting practice too. Things of that nature. So it's not ~15 minutes each of grammar, spelling and handwriting.~ It's just the one 15 minute segment for dictation on the days you're doing it.

Edited by OKBud
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I think for elementary kids, short lessons are infinitely better than long blocks.  They simply don't have the stamina to stay focused for long periods yet and have a need to move more.  We do a lot of subjects, but each one is only 5-20 minutes at a time unless it's something he really enjoys (math, art) or has a lot of movement incorporated (history, science).

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We have always worked on skills in very short, daily lessons. I always tried to do 10-15 min blocks when they were little (K-3rd), and then we started working up to longer blocks. We didn't really have more transitions by keeping it short, because we were still covering the same topics. 

 

My older kids were doing 30 min blocks for math and writing in 5th, but had worked up to 60-min blocks by 7th/8th. By the time they were doing hour-long blocks, I did try to break it up: an hour of Algebra, an hour of Latin, and then a break to practice piano. That sort of thing.

 

We have always done longer blocks for history, science, and art. With my elementary kids, we cover history on M/W, science on T/Th, and art on F. When they got older (5th/6th), we transitioned to doing history and science daily.

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