How do you schedule after-school learning?

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

I would like to know how parents on this board schedule after school learning.
Are you hiring tutors or teaching your children yourselves?
What subjects are you teaching after school?   

My son is starting grade 1 this September and would like to have some ideas to set up his learning schedule.
Thanks!!

[Mandabplus3]

We had great success doing study before school but I now start 30 mins earlier and we just don't have time anymore. The morning is a much better time to tackle new concepts and challenges when the kids are fresh if you can manage it.
I afterschool in math, spelling, reading and general knowledge/science.
We tackle a range of topics in the car on the he way to school. During our school and gym runs we listen to classic audio books as well as historical fiction and true history stories. We have at least  4 hours a week of audio learning and that still gives us time to listen to some dance music on our less perky days  as well as stories we listen to educational songs in science and grammar and occasionally math facts. We were listening to French and Japanese audio but gave it up.
When we get home we eat first, the kids have to eat Or apparently they will die  then I gauge their mood and decide if outside running around first or after will work better. It varies a lot day to day.
They all sit together at the table and do math, spelling and their school homework ( of which they get way too much) it takes between 45 mins and 1.5 hours to do it all.  Some days are less other days are the he entire afternoon. 
Then they get to play, free choice til just before dinner when I send them to shower.
After dinner they go to bed basically strait away to read. We use this reading to explore topics of geography, science and vocabulary and reading extension. Careful selection of books makes after schooling so much more efficient! I am careful to make sure we cover both fiction and non fiction as well as all the old stories we all heard as kids. We review topics periodically to ensure they remember them. Some nights I read to them other times they read individually. Every night my son reads to me.
On some days of her he week I have only one child in the car with me at a time ( to and from sports events) I take advantage of this time and they read advanced books to me. This way they get extra practice and I can correct those little errors in pronunciation.
I try to sneak in some writing here and there. It seems to be the hardest for us to after school as they really don't want to write anything after a full day at school.
Oh and we after school art as well but I don't do anything but provide resources and ideas. Art  is what they CHOOSE to do in their free play time. 

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Thanks, Manda. What is your choices of "audio learning"?

It's very challenging for me to get my little one to do stuff in the morning. He is not a morning person, though he goes to bed before 9 every night.

[Mandabplus3]

The options for learning with audio are HUGE! I am constantly surprised by how little effort we put in for the rewards.    it does take some time for me to organise them all though.
To get audio books we use the  library a Lot. Start off with things like the he Rod clement collection. Audios that have multiple books from one author are great. Try Hairy McLeary books and be sure to try lots of different versions of the he old fairytales ales. My kids learnt most of their vocabulary from fairy tales and. They actually use the. Words they hear in audio books. Once the stamina is build up you can try longer ones like magic faraway tree, jungle book, and all the old classics like Nania, the secret garden, 5 children and it,....then once they are complexity hooked  on audio try some historical fiction. This is our favourite at the moment.  At some point I will run out of options at the library and have to buy or subscribe to audible or some such. I do think audible is worth the money so I am happy to pay that but will buy some more science CDs first.
For educational music this site is the best by far
http://www.songsforteaching.com/index.html
They have so many to choose from. Lyrical science is next on my list. We loved Motossori In minutes when my kids were younger. We enjoy grammar rock and have some very old science songs we all love but I have no idea where to get them from (keri gave them to me). Audio songs need to be played regularly and revisited often so your kids will remember them and sing along. I actively teach the Words to any I want them to really learn. (Grammar, some science and all geography) I also sing along like a lunatic to encourage the my to join in. 
We learnt some language from audio but frankly we don't enjoy it enough to commit. We liked ear worms and children nursery rhymes in Japanese Spanish and French. language just takes up more time to an I have  available

[waterdreamer]

My son is in the 3rd grade and we typically do
-Click N Spell Kids in the am before school
THen afterschool
-20mins home reading
-2-4 pages from his touchmath workbook
-2 pages of Handwriting without tears
- piano practice
- Soometimes brainpop jr

[lzp11]

My daughter is in UK reception (aged just turned 5) and we do:
Mornings - 15-30 mins maths on the iPad before school whilst im brushing her hair and getting her brother up and dressed (currently doing Dreambox, Splash math grade 1 and various abacus apps on weekdays, and coding / mazes / logical thinking apps at weekends).

Afterschool - 2 days a week I work a long day so she does a gymnastics class and multi-skills (various ball skills) on these days.

The other days we do around 30 minutes once we get home from school (after a snack!).  This covers different topics spread across the week including: All About Spelling, Bond Verbal Reasoning and English papers, reading non-fiction (currently reading about the human body), Bond Non-verbal reasoning papers, and will soon restart FLL and story smarts ).  We are focusing on writing at the moment as this is quite a long way behind her reading skills, and  might write a paragraph about a particular topic or a summary of a book she has read recently.   We don't manage this every day - if she has a play-date for example then we would not do this.  But we would also do something similar at the weekend after lunch.

Finally we do 20-30 minutes piano (soft mozart) around 4-5 days a week usually around 6.15pm after dinner.

We don't spend much time in the car so don't do a lot of audio learning!

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Thanks for the ideas! We  goes to the library every  Saturday but I never really look into their audio books. This could be something I can do with him before bed or when all lights are off. Just like lzp11, we don't really spend a lot of time in the car. His school is less than 5 minutes drive. I might be able to sneak in LMs lesson during the ride. 

We normally do his abacus homework, speed writing, time table writing, and maybe spelling or Jump Math. All it takes is about 1 hour but if he whines, it could take 1.5 - 2 hours.

[lzp11]

Haha our school is probably about the same distance drive away!!  Although we do try to walk where possible to get a bit of exercise thrown in.

I have a strict whining / complaining / procrastinating / tantruming about work policy.  All activities that she wants to do must be earned (e.g. to watch a programme of her choice or to play with a particular game or occasionally a particular food treat).  This means being co-operative, concentrating, trying hard, listening, being polite, not whinging etc during the afterschool work time.  I also talk this expectation through in advance several times beforehand ("what are we going to do when we get home?  What kind of behaviour do we need to show during this...?") This REALLY helps us. 

I can strongly recommend the books Calmer Happier Easier Parenting and Calmer Easier Happier Homework for improving behaviour around homework / afterschooling. 

[Maquenzie]

Mae_Jakob_Ka, what is speed writing?


These are interesting to read.  You all have inspired me to get some more audio books, or listen to them more.  For those that do audio books, I have a question: how do you stop them and start again later?  I'm certain I could make a better plan, but not having a good one is the honest reason we don't use audio books more frequently.  For instance, I put the Secret Garden on for my son to listen to while he was going to sleep.  I had no idea where he stopped hearing it and the CD is not broken up into many small parts.  I just haven't found the process user-friendly.  Recently, I have considered getting him an iPod shuffle.  Has anyone done this?


Here is our current before/after school learning routine:

Before school
4-year-old:
-handwriting practice (pick one sandpaper letter and make a line of them in her notebook)
-dreambox
7-year-old:
-dreambox
-code academy
Both:
-placemats at breakfast where each can draw or write something they will challenge themselves with that day (parents have them too)
-various apps (mirrored on Apple TV) if we have time

On way to school: (we also have a short commute)
-verbal math games (keeping it light and fun)

After school:
4-year-old:
-handwriting practice
-Singapore math - 4 pages in the workbook
7-year-old:
-writing with ease
-Singapore math - 1 section (text and workbook pages)

At dinner:
-check in with each other about what we each had wanted to challenge ourselves with
-Story of The World (sometimes)

After dinner clean-up:
4-year-old:
-violin practice
-ordinary parents guide to teaching reading, 1 lesson
7-year-old:
-20 minutes of reading (sometimes aloud with parent, sometimes silently)
-school homework (takes 5 minutes)
Both:
-parent reads aloud

Everything else, we just fit in when we can, if we want to.

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

lzp11 - We have similar system at home. My son earns iPad minutes when he's done his homework. However, he is a very very strong willed boy. What work best for me is walking away from him when he whines. 

Maquenzie - Speed writing is part of his soroban/abacus homework.  He has to write  as many lines of "1234567890" and "41322341" as possible in 1 minute. I believe abacus is about speed and accuracy so the kids were asked to practice speeding writing at home. 

[Mandabplus3]

Finding where you are up to on an audio book can be a problem. I imagine  if you don't know when your kid went to sleep it would be quite impossible!    I would just start at the next chapter each night. It can't hurt to hear some of it twice.
We use CDs when we can because they remember where I turned them off and start at the same place next time. Easy! Plus they are free at the library. The library has other options but we don't use/like them much.
We also have an iPhone which  is loaded with about 5 novels at a time. To turn it off I actually have to look at the. Screen and remember the track number and minutes into the track for next time. I don't have an y trouble doing this as we listen every day usually twice. If the breaks were going to be longer I would probably take a screen shot. I only need to remember where we are up to once a day as I switch tracks once the kids get out at school because they get upset if I listen without them and they miss out on many of the story    the iPhone will remember where you are up to if you don't change tracks/ books.
The iPhone plays through the Car stereo. We could load up the iPads too but I haven't needed to yet.

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