Super Fast Mini Lessons
I have become a real fan of mini lessons! You can teach a lot in a short amount of time and knowing that we don't have to sit four hours and hours definitely helps the boys concentrate and try harder too.
We started reading Tonight on the Titanic. I told Ian that if he read one chapter I'd read the next but I wouldn't read the whole thing. I explained that even though he doesn't enjoy reading as much when he's the one reading it's very important to practice everyday. He grudgingly agreed and before I knew it Alec was wrapped up in the book too. We finally ended at chapter five for the day.
We'll have that book done in no time I'm sure!
Ian did another page in his math book; quite happy that he knew what he was doing and it was once again a quick and easy activity. I'm sure we could skip ahead since most of this is review but he just loves it! I'm so happy to find something he enjoys doing without complaining.
Plus today he did learn that when you add two odd numbers or two even numbers together your answer is always an even. He made one computation mistake on the subtraction review and instead of telling him which one was wrong I asked him to find it. He knew right away it was the odd minus the odd since that would have to be an even answer.
While we were doing this lesson Alec asked what odd and even meant so I explained that even numbers can be divided into two equal groups and then going through the number line I asked him odd or even.. He got them all right and called out "it's a pattern!" by the time we reached 10.
So even though he didn't technically do "math" today he sure learned!
While I cooked dinner I handed the boys some assorted activity sheets and they chose to do some mad libs . I love that they're learning spelling, English terminology and even getting some reading practice in with such a fun, quick activity.
Once the mad libs were over they worked together on a word scramble about camping words. They were quickly able to unscramble the work "tent" but many others were quite challenging. But they worked together and figured most of them out by the time dinner was over.
Each activity didn't take any more than a few minutes but as this learning piles up over time it really does add up. It's so much easier to find time for mini lessons throughout our day and they boys are eager to participate.
We started reading Tonight on the Titanic. I told Ian that if he read one chapter I'd read the next but I wouldn't read the whole thing. I explained that even though he doesn't enjoy reading as much when he's the one reading it's very important to practice everyday. He grudgingly agreed and before I knew it Alec was wrapped up in the book too. We finally ended at chapter five for the day.
We'll have that book done in no time I'm sure!
Ian did another page in his math book; quite happy that he knew what he was doing and it was once again a quick and easy activity. I'm sure we could skip ahead since most of this is review but he just loves it! I'm so happy to find something he enjoys doing without complaining.
Plus today he did learn that when you add two odd numbers or two even numbers together your answer is always an even. He made one computation mistake on the subtraction review and instead of telling him which one was wrong I asked him to find it. He knew right away it was the odd minus the odd since that would have to be an even answer.
While we were doing this lesson Alec asked what odd and even meant so I explained that even numbers can be divided into two equal groups and then going through the number line I asked him odd or even.. He got them all right and called out "it's a pattern!" by the time we reached 10.
So even though he didn't technically do "math" today he sure learned!
While I cooked dinner I handed the boys some assorted activity sheets and they chose to do some mad libs . I love that they're learning spelling, English terminology and even getting some reading practice in with such a fun, quick activity.
Once the mad libs were over they worked together on a word scramble about camping words. They were quickly able to unscramble the work "tent" but many others were quite challenging. But they worked together and figured most of them out by the time dinner was over.
Each activity didn't take any more than a few minutes but as this learning piles up over time it really does add up. It's so much easier to find time for mini lessons throughout our day and they boys are eager to participate.
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