Managing the learning routine with the Recorder-Diary-Grid method

[DadDude]

I've written before about how I manage my little boy's learning "routine."  It's not really a routine, but I'm not sure what else to call it.  Many months ago I was ambitiously trying to track detailed lists of topics, possible tasks, and so forth.  After a lot of trial and error, I have settled on something that has worked extremely well for me for the last month.  It's a lot simpler, and probably more effective than the more ambitious method.

This might be more useful if you don’t have an agreeable angel of a baby, who does whatever you want.  If, like our boy, he has a mind of his own and you’ve decided, as I have, not to insist on anything but only make suggestions, then the following might be helpful.

Call it the Recorder-Diary-Grid method.

(1) As we go through the day (I work from home, so we do small educational activities throughout the day), I have a voice recorder in my pocket.  When we do something educational, or when I notice my boy reading or otherwise doing something educational like with his Mama, then I make a quick voice record of it.

(2) At night, I transfer the voice records into a written diary (it helps that I type fast).  At the same time, I make a few remarks about things I've observed, how he seems to be improving or having trouble in some area, or whatever.

(3) As I write diary items, I fill in the day's column in a grid.  The grid is set up like this.  Across the top are dates.  Along the side is a list of general topic areas that I’d like us to be studying.  (This changes frequently, but some examples are: Chapter Books; Shorter Stories; Poetry; History; Physical World; Biology; Math; etc.)  Then in each square, I put down an “o” for a lot of work (that day); “x” for some; and “-” for a little.  So if we read two or more chapters of a chapter book, or one long chapter, I’d put down an “o” across from “Chapter Books.”  If we read a couple medium-length poems, I would put down “x” across from “Poetry.”  If we did one aborted game of “War,” I might put down “-” across from “Math.”  Just as a reminder to myself, with the study grid I also write down the names of long books we’re working through, and goals to remember.  I don’t look at those things too much though; mostly I look at the grid.

(4) The grid gives me an instant “overview” of where we’re at with regard to all the different subjects I’d like us o be studying.  I might notice, for instance, that we haven’t practiced writing letters or numbers (that’s one of the categories) in five days.  So then I leave myself a voice message for the next day (you could just as easily just write this down), simply listing the subjects that we haven’t studied much.  Then the next day those are the things that I suggest we do.

This has worked very well so far.  When it’s been a long time since we’ve done some subject or skill, I find he’s usually game for it.  And when I see he’s done a certain thing a lot recently, I know not to push that, or not worry if he hasn’t done it.  The result is that, though we don’t follow any specific plan or schedule, we still manage to cover everything I could expect, in roughly the proportions I can reasonably shoot for.  If I worry that we haven’t done anything from one of his previous favorite subjects lately, I can see that we’re learning a lot about other things, so it all works out.

So far, keeping the diary has been more fun than a chore, and it’s best to think of it as a diary/journal/log, not anything more formal.  At the end of many days I’m surprised at how much we’ve done.  This helps motivate me.  Several times I’ve noticed that I made a subject/skill, but we’ve basically never practiced it.  Then I decide to either drop it or consolidate it with some other one.  (So there’s no “Physiology” subject, that’s included with “Biology” now.)

Well, I hope this helps someone.

[akalori]

DadDude,

Nice idea.  I was just about to start a new entry about feeling stuck.  I've been wondering how others manage to keep moving along on their programs.  I barely feel that I have a program but perhaps if I wrote it down I would be doing better at guiding us.  Maybe I would even see the progress.  I have a horrible habit.  I read what everyone else is doing with their kid in comparison we seem stagnant.  My daughter is reading but we've gone from reading sentences back to just reading words.  I do alot of nonfiction concept books so I hope she is learning, but it just feels disorganized.  Like yourself, I let my daughter's interest level guide us, which contributes to me feeling out of control with the whole learning process.  If I had it written down maybe I could guide it better.

Anyway, back on topic, what software do you use to keep your diary?  Any other helpful pointers on this topic would be greatly appreciated because I am truely impressed.  You have done an amazing job teaching your son.

Lori

[DadDude]

Thanks Lori!

Give it a try.  I have often felt the same way--not sure that we're making any progress, because we're not "going through" anything (other than math, and some chapter books).  Definitely the advantage of the Recorder-Diary-Grid method, to my mind, is being able to see progress & then "planning" new activities accordingly.

I just use MS Word for the diary.  I made a grid using MS Word's built-in table function, although I cut and paste the dates from Excel...

[linzy]

I just write on the calender the things we do. For use anything too complicated gets forgotten.  I like your idea DadDude because it is almost a journal you can look back on.  My question for you or anyone else with kids about 3.5 is what categories you use.  We use:
1. Reading
   a. Lesson
   b. Reading aloud from book
   c. Being read to by parent
   d. Reading Eggs
2. Math
   a. Lesson (Right Start)
   b. Practice counting to 100 by rote with use of hundreds chart
   c. Worksheets (right now we are using the small quantities one from worksheetworks.com as they focus on numbers to 20 as well as writing)
3. Manual
  a. The Second Kumon Cut and Paste book
  b. Practice writing the Alphabet/Letter to family or friends

We've really cut back on other subjects to just focus on the basics although alot of our reading is on history/science topics.

[DadDude]

Chapter books; Storybooks, tales, and fables; Poetry; Vocabulary (incl. OPD [=Oxford Picture Dictionary] and presentations); Writing letters and numbers; Math; History; Geography; Social studies (e.g., World cultures, Religion, Gov’t); Ethics; Biology and Physiology; Chemistry [mostly chemistry experiments from a book]; Astronomy; Classical music listening; Piano and other instruments [very casual "practice" at this point]; Art history; Drawing and art skills; Practical skills; Chess; Sports and exercise

Obviously, we don't do everything every day.  In fact, we don't do any of the categories every day religiously, and some categories (like chemistry and chess) can go unpracticed for a week or more.  Chapter books, Storybooks, Writing letters & numbers, Math, and Biology are things that we've been doing at least every other day.

We don't have a "reading" category anymore, per se.  He doesn't like reading for me at length, and prefers to "hide away" his reading to himself.  I am still able to observe excellent progress.  Recently he was absolutely fascinated by this vocabulary flip-book which I bought, like, 18 months ago.  At was too advanced for him at the time, but now it is absolutely perfect.  He read it cover to cover, practically.

[Anastasiya]

Hello, DadDude!
Could you please say a couple of words about what kind of material you give in the next disciplines.
 

History; Geography; Social studies (e.g., World cultures, Religion, Gov’t); Ethics; Biology and Physiology; Chemistry; Astronomy; Art history;

I try to tell smth to my son but I haven't any plan or pattern of the material sequence.
Or could you give some tips of how to manage these lessons.

[DadDude]

No "lessons" per se.  I wish we could follow a systematic topic list and schedule, but I'd have to force my boy to follow it, and I don't think he'd learn nearly as much.  We're learning a lot without such a list & schedule.  I pay attention of course to what we have done a lot of and what we haven't done so much.

For history, I make presentations and we read books, especially "Magic Tree House" books, and occasionally find some simple good ones at bookstores & library.  We tried "The Story of the World" -- low level of interest at this point.

For geography, we've gone back to doing geography puzzles lately.  We've spent most of our time looking at maps and globes.  We also explore around Google Earth, we did that quite a bit today actually.

Ethics -- well, that's just my presentations plus a selection of about a dozen books about ethics (Berenstain Bears is a good source here, but there are many others that are good).

Biology and physiology, that's just lots of books, some presentations, visits to the zoo.  (And a skeleton model & no doubt more models later.)

Chemistry -- a book of simple home experiments + my three presentations (so far).

Astronomy -- we have many books about this, I've made many presentations, and we have a great home planetarium.

Art history -- once again, lots of books and some presentations from me.

[mirra]

You are so well organized and I m learning from you. Thanks for this superb post.

[Anastasiya]

I wish

Thanks!!

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