Five Minutes a Day

Have you ever done something with your child for just five minutes a day, every day? If you haven’t you should join my November challenge and see what your kiddo can learn in such a short amount of time.

We all have 5 minutes, and you will be amazed how the consistency of “every day” will help your child learn.

When I used to teach violin lessons I would have students come in having logged 1-2 solid hours of practice all on the same day, or over two days, with nothing on the other days. If they had instead practiced 10-15 minutes each day, they would have been better prepared for their lesson. A little a day is the very best way to keep things solid in our brains, and that’s what this challenge is all about.

{If you don’t follow me on Instagram, go follow thelittleyears account there. I’ll be sharing one 15-second video a day for this 5 minute challenge in November.} Click here: The Little Years On Instagram

The Challenge:

1. Choose a Subject

2. Set a 5 minute timer

3. Do it every day in November

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Choose a subject:

Do not limit what your child can learn based on their age. A 2-year old can find things on a map if you show them where. A 3-year old can learn the periodic table if you have flashcards. A 4-year old can learn the names of all the US Presidents (that’s what my kiddos are going to do), and so on…

A 2-year old can learn to spot California or Indiana or Montana on a map as easily as they can learn their shapes or colors.

So keep that in mind as you choose!

Of course, shapes, colors, numbers, or letters are all good things to know too, so feel free to choose one of those.

Here is a list of things you might consider:

Music Theory Symbols, Presidents, World Map (oceans, continents, countries, etc), State Map (states\capitals), Periodic table, Anatomy, Planets, Constellations, Birds, Flowers, Bugs, Letter sounds, Scripture Memory, Sight Words, Words in a foreign language.
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 Set a Timer:

Set a timer for 5 minutes and get to work. Start easy. For instance, if learning the states, choose 2-3 states to learn on day one, then add 1-2 more states each day.  If they start to confuse the states, take a day or two to review without adding in anything new.  This is how my kids learned the states at a young age. (See the post here: “How to Teach Your 2-Year Old all 50 States”)

Do it every day in November:

Put a little check mark on your calendar, do it at the breakfast table, whatever it takes to remember your 5 minutes every day.

I highly recommend taking a quick video on day one after they have learned their first facts, and then taking another video on day 30 to see all they have learned in the month.

{IN FACT, if you do that, and you send me your Day 1 video + your Day 30 video (send to thelittleyears@gmail.com) I will enter you into a giveaway for a $10 Amazon gift card! If you let me share your videos on my Instagram, I’ll put your name in twice! 🙂 }

I really want everyone to catch the vision for what small children can learn, and that without hours a day put into it.

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Story time!

Kenny started reading one year ago. In November of last year he read his first Bob Book. It was a struggle at first for him, and he didn’t really like it very much. We had him read one Bob Book per day. He could read more if he wanted to (which he never did) but one book was required. It only took a few minutes a day, and he complained sometimes about having to read.

Well, as he built up confidence and speed in reading, he grew to really love it. Soon he was through all the Bob Books and onto other series. Then we signed up for Summer Reading Program at our library. See the review post for that here: “Our Experience with Library Reading Programs.”)

Here we are one year later from when he started. To document his progress, we took a picture of him with every book he read in his first year!  (BTW, I had to check out 200 books from the library to make this picture possible!!)

My goal is not to boast about what my child accomplished, but to show you that any child (even the reluctant type) can learn something well by starting with 5 minutes a day.

November 1st we start the challenge!! If you’re going to join, drop me a comment below, and tell me what you’re going to work on with your children!

My kids have never learned the names of the US Presidents, so that’s what we’ll be doing! Day to Day videos will be up on Instagram Stories, so feel free to follow along! 🙂 I’ll also drop this series of videos into my highlights under the title “5 Minutes.”