- With all of the great Charlotte Mason subjects
that we include in the week,
when do the children have a chance to play?
Let's talk about it.
(cheerful music)
I'm Sonya Shafer with Simply Charlotte Mason,
welcome to another episode of Your Questions Answered.
As usual, my friend and co-worker, Laura Pitney
is joining me and here's the question
we're going to discuss today.
For elementary students, how do you balance all the subjects
and still give them plenty of time to play together?
- That's a good question.
- I think what we want to do is let's try to walk through
a typical day and talk through
what the schedule would be like
and add up how much time is involved
'cause there really is a lot of time to play
in my mind but let's add it up and see.
So I'm gonna give you a calculator
so you don't have to do mental math
right now - I appreciate that.
(both laugh)
- I think there's this misconception
that it takes all day to do these subjects
so I'll be interested to see
the real time. - Yeah let's see.
- If I don't mess up.
- Well we'll find out, okay.
Let's start with, let's say at breakfast
we're gonna do scripture memory,
that takes five minutes.
- Got it.
- Good for you.
And then after that we're gonna sing a hymn,
that usually takes five minutes or less,
so let's just round it up to five,
we'll be generous with this.
After that they're going to do their chores,
which you can count as school work but you don't have to.
- True.
- Then we're all gonna regather
and we're talking just elementary students,
let's say we've got a first grader, a third grader,
and a fifth grader. - Sounds good.
- Just to make it convenient, all right.
So we're gonna all gather together
and do our history and our history is gonna take
about 20 minutes, maybe 30 if I get long winded.
So give it 30 just for wiggle room.
After our history we could do a picture study
and that usually takes 10 minutes.
- Yeah at the most I would say.
- Sure give it 10 minutes for the picture study.
After that maybe we're going to read our science together
so that would be another 20 minutes or so.
- You're doing good over here, I'm gonna stop you.
- Woohoo.
And then we might do our poetry,
let's just review some of the poetry
that we've been working on memorizing
or let's read a new poem,
that will take about five or 10 minutes,
we'll do that.
Now at that point we're gonna send the fifth grader
to go read on his own, some extra history reading
that's he's going to do by himself,
independent work.
While that's happening I'm gonna work
with the first and third grader,
that's right I had a first - Yes, yes.
- and third grader didn't I?
Okay, all right, the baby's crying but you know.
First and third grader,
we're going to work on our math and language arts
'cause those are are the things
we have to do individually.
So let's say I'm gonna work with my first grader initially
and we're going to do a reading lesson,
those are only 10 minutes long,
10 minutes for the reading lesson
and then maybe we will have him do some extra play time
or work and we'll discuss that in a moment
while we then are gonna move to our third grader
and have the third grader practice her reading aloud
for about 10 or 15 minutes, give her 15, sure,
we'll be generous.
And then we're gonna do her math
and that will be 20 minutes,
a 20 minute math lesson.
Now she's basically done.
We're going back to our first grader
to do a 20 minute math lesson,
so give him 20 minutes as well.
All right.
Now they've got free time until lunch
after lunch let's do nature study, shall we?
And we'll take what, you wanna take an hour?
You wanna take 30 minutes?
How much time do you wanna take for nature study?
- We usually take an hour
just 'cause I don't like to feel rushed.
- Give it an hour.
We'll all do that together and then long about snack time,
3 o'clock somewhere in there
we're going to read, as they have their snack
I'll read our family read aloud together.
So what, 30 minutes for a chapter?
At the most.
If we're doing Charles Dickens it might be longer.
So that's a typical day,
how much time have we spent?
- I have almost four hours.
- Four hours.
And if we started at 9 o'clock,
that's pretty generous.
- Yeah.
- Starting at nine going till 12 is three hours.
After that, well if we did our nature study and reading
we could stop actually at like 11:30.
Nine to 11:30 and then after lunch
you'd still have another hour or two.
That leaves a lot of time. - It does.
- For play. - It does.
- Before supper, between supper and bed time,
you should leave a lot of time for play.
- Right.
Now we didn't mention all subjects
that you could possibly do
because you don't all the subjects every day
and that's something important to remember
that what we just gave as a representation
is modeling a typical day
but some of those subjects will rotate in and out.
- Exactly, you're not going to do science every single day
in the elementary years.
We could swap out too.
We did picture study today, in our typical day,
tomorrow we might do music study instead
but it's still gonna just take that same time slot
and you're not doing nature study
every day in the afternoon,
you might do a handcraft one afternoon instead.
So you can swap things out but you still should not be
dragging it out longer than the four hours.
All right now let's back up to,
while I'm working with my first grader,
what's my third grader doing?
My fifth grader--
- Don't you know your own kids?
- No I don't, actually I don't.
They keep changing their ages,
they have birthdays and things.
And don't ask me to remember when their birthdays
are either.
My fifth grader was reading
and doing a written narration
so at some point I would've had to meet with that child
as well so that might've added on 15 minutes
to read their narration,
but still, we're at four hours.
But while we're doing the individual work,
the math and the language arts, individually,
one on one, what's the other child doing?
- That's a great question.
What I've done in my home
is any time I'm one on one with one of the kids
I know what all the other kids are doing.
So the younger ones
I may rotate Mondays, you can get this play box out,
Tuesdays, you can get this play box out.
So those type of situations I would consider them
still doing school type activities that are fun,
that they would probably consider to be play
but technically they're purposeful activities so--
- Yeah talk to me about this play box idea,
what's in this magic box?
- Well it's one of those things where
if your children have access to everything they own
at all times, usually you find them getting bored with it
or not knowing what to do.
So when my children were younger,
I would say, "Okay, on Mondays you can choose from magnets
"or you can choose from Lincoln Logs."
So yes those are toys but I feel like they use
really good skills
to be creative. - Absolutely,
they're exploring science concepts,
they're exploring geometry and how shapes
and architecture if you will, you know, yeah.
- So even though those were my choice,
I felt like it was purposeful for them in that play time
if you will.
So I would have a list for each day of the week
that said, "Okay when you finish early
"or if I'm working with one of the older kids
"you can go choose a play box."
And so it would still give them the freedom
to choose because they like to feel big
but it was things that I wanted them to do.
And so I think there's a distinction
between using that structured school time
and incorporating purposeful play into it
versus saying, "We're done, go do whatever you want,"
kind of thing.
- Yes, yes. - Which is also a good play
'cause they can be creative and play with their siblings
and that kind of thing.
- But it can also distract you from focusing on this child,
who you're doing the math with
when you're saying, "I wonder what they're getting into
"and what they're doing." - Exactly, exactly.
So I still utilize that time for it to be an investment
in that school umbrella if you will.
So I felt like my kids really enjoyed that play time
and they liked being able to choose one of the two things
or maybe three of the things.
For me as the teacher I felt like we weren't wasting time.
- Yes, that's a good point.
We also have the episode we did,
I did one a while ago with ideas for independent work
that is not busy work.
- Yes.
- And so we'll leave a link to that in the show notes
in case people wanted some more ideas as well.
And we'll leave your text number in case
they want more play box ideas.
- Sure. - No I'm kidding.
(both laugh)
- I know that's not a new idea
and I think it goes back to so many of us
are overly blessed with possessions in our home,
almost to the point that it is debilitating.
- Yeah we call it clutter.
- Yes, I was trying to be nice about it.
So again, it's thinking,
"Okay, what do I have already
"that I can pull out of that free access pile
"and utilize as a tool for me
"during their school time hours?"
And I would consider that purposeful play for sure.
- Yes, especially in the elementary years
that we're talking about, yeah, thanks.
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