The 5-Minute Homeschool
The Goal of the Elementary Years
During the elementary years, it is critical to master foundational academic knowledge and skills. These include reading, spelling, sentence writing, arithmetic, and the most important people, places, terms, and processes in science and social studies. Mastering basic Bible doctrine, a timeline of Biblical history, effective prayer strategies, and a systematic approach to Bible study is also critical and is covered in another section. Moving past elementary without things in place puts a student on the shaky ground of self-doubt and increasing (instead of decreasing) dependence on you in the later years.
Giving elementary aged students the gift of exploring the world, discovering interests and talents, and developing a heart for service is also critical to making sure in later years children have a sense of identity and purpose that they can then channel into worthy projects and goals and into finding friends whom they can work with to change the world! The 5-Minute Homeschool ensures mastery of foundational knowledge and skills and frees up the time to focus on those other areas in life that constitute true education.
Giving elementary aged students the gift of exploring the world, discovering interests and talents, and developing a heart for service is also critical to making sure in later years children have a sense of identity and purpose that they can then channel into worthy projects and goals and into finding friends whom they can work with to change the world! The 5-Minute Homeschool ensures mastery of foundational knowledge and skills and frees up the time to focus on those other areas in life that constitute true education.
What is The 5-Minute Homeschool?
Don't get me wrong, we spend all day in learning mode. But, I do not usually have my children spend more than 5 minutes in "book work" or in "learning time" (where I am actively teaching them) per academic subject per day. I accomplish this by the following...
- No more summer break learning loss. We do school most of the calendar year, but learning tasks take so little time each day, it doesn't feel like a burden at all.
- Forget trying to just finish a curriculum. We only work towards objectives. Yes, we cover all state learning standards for primary subjects (Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies).
- Forget jumping randomly from topic to topic. I organize learning objectives in order of most basic or more essential to more complex or information dependent on previous knowledge.
- Forget inflated textbooks and workbooks. If I use curricula, I use only bare bones curricula to not overwhelm us with unnecessary busy work.
- Forget the teacher planner. We stay laser-focused on the learning objectives, only moving forward to new information when old information is mastered and stored away in long term memory no matter how long it takes to do that.
- Forget constantly changing assignments! We use the same meaningful learning tasks applied to different topics or reading material for the school year in order to master real learning study habits that promote independent learning.
- Forget pouring over lesson plans for hours on end and searching for props. I prep the night before if needed to make sure learning tasks are short, focused, and effective. Since all tasks are short, I usually don't feel any need to fluff them up with games, crafts, etc.
- Forget traditional tests and quizzes! I use only super short assignments that help me assess whether we can move forward or need to revisit again, usually no more than 5 problems per assignment. On a few non-math topics, I may accept 90% mastery level to move on. The only real test taken is the standardized test at the end of the year.
- Forget needing your kids to focus and cooperate with learning for long periods of time. I only give incrementally new information in 1 to 5 minute teaching sessions, and then I allow my children to sleep on it for a night before revisiting it.
- Forget prepping for random experiments and book suggested pointless, hands-on activities. Instead, we develop expertise and deepen knowledge through systematic nature observation, garden cultivation, and working on long-term meaningful projects in areas that are important to us.
The Benefits of the 5-Minute Homeschool
Everyone knows how uncooperative their own kids are. Homeschool kids are no different. Many kids, including mine, have very short attention spans. There is no way I would ever be able to get them to sit down and do math for an hour. Thank God I don't have to! I just need them to sit down for a minute (if I am just demonstrating a new skill or introducing a new concept) to 5 minutes (if they are practicing a new concept with or without me). Overall, everyone's nerves are spared an unnecessary fight. But, there is another important benefit from the 5-Minute Homeschool besides less frustration. The 5-Minute Homeschool supports the way the brain works.
The Not-So-Secret Principle that Drives How the Brain Actually Learns
Even though I studied chemical engineering in college, I realized my real God-given gift was teaching. But, engineering was not lost on me at all. In fact, God used it to give me another gift -- process replication and design. I took my ability to recreate and refine processes to teaching and eventually ran a tutoring company and academic enrichment program. While tutoring, I spent a lot of time researching and refining teaching techniques for the basics and even for more obscure topics, like learning the abacus and mental math. During my research, I came across a book by a reputable researcher who focused on just proven learning theory (Once I can remember the title and author, I will put that here. Sorry!). The book was incredibly anti-climatic, because everything seemed so common sense. But, I decided to reevaluate what I was doing and see how I could incorporate this common sense learning theory into my programs to make them even more effective.
Are you ready for the anti-climatic driving principle behind how we really learn??? Here it is. The brain can only process new information as it puts old information in long term memory storage (i.e automatic retrieval). It seems so common sense, right? Well, that is what the research proves. So, why do we overwhelm the brain with more information than it can process and why on earth do we move forward teaching new concepts when our student has not absolutely mastered and memorized previous essential information or skills? Can you already see why 5-Minute Homeschool fits hand and glove with how the brain actually works?? |
Why the Brain likes the 5-Minute Homeschool
So, I began applying that important principle in my tutoring company with amazing success. For example, even though a student might be struggling with decimal subtraction presently in school, I did not focus on mastering the sequence of steps to borrowing in subtraction. Instead, I focused on freeing up their working memory by taking them back to drilling their single digit additions and subtractions till they were fully memorized. And what always happened seemed miraculous. But, after mastering the kinder skills that the student had neglected, they could easily and quickly master the higher level skill. Every single time. Then my mission became finding ways to help them memorize, but that gets us off topic.
This not-so-secret revelation has become a driving principle in my teaching. Never move forward until mastery is achieved. This makes it very difficult to follow a "lesson planner" where you plan out your whole week, month, or year, so I don't. And it also makes it difficult to follow spiraling curricula that do not follow a logical basic to more complex path, but rather jump around from topic to topic. My teacher planner is my list of learning objectives organized in order of most basic to most advanced with no due dates along the way. Then, I just follow that list. I stay on an objective for however long is necessary for mastery to be achieved, and then I usually allow my child to "simmer" in it till I feel the information has moved into long-term storage for automatic retrieval. You might think that working this way would take longer or delay achievement, but I have witnessed, like I did in tutoring, it only accelerates the student overall because the brain can more efficiently build on previous knowledge.
This not-so-secret revelation has become a driving principle in my teaching. Never move forward until mastery is achieved. This makes it very difficult to follow a "lesson planner" where you plan out your whole week, month, or year, so I don't. And it also makes it difficult to follow spiraling curricula that do not follow a logical basic to more complex path, but rather jump around from topic to topic. My teacher planner is my list of learning objectives organized in order of most basic to most advanced with no due dates along the way. Then, I just follow that list. I stay on an objective for however long is necessary for mastery to be achieved, and then I usually allow my child to "simmer" in it till I feel the information has moved into long-term storage for automatic retrieval. You might think that working this way would take longer or delay achievement, but I have witnessed, like I did in tutoring, it only accelerates the student overall because the brain can more efficiently build on previous knowledge.
But that essential learning principal of processing new information is built on the research that the brain has only a limited amount of space dedicated to "working memory." Working memory is the brain function necessary to process new information or deal with a new situation even if old information must be applied. It's kind of like computer RAM. If you run too many programs at once, you can overwhelm that RAM and cause the computer to freeze up or crash. Well, the brain works the same way.
And this brings me to the 5-Minute Homeschool. Our working memory, or if you want to think of it as that active thinking ability, can only handle but so much information at a time. This is partly why people's brains take automatic breaks every 10 minutes or so into a long speech. Have you noticed that? Your mind kind of fogs over and zones out. So, why spend more than 10 minutes --- or I say 5 minutes for children --- trying to transmit to them vital information? With my children, I have seen that the amount of new information they can actually process is really about 1 minute long. So, I usually only take 1 minute to introduce a new topic the first time. This 1 minute lesson is just enough for the brain to chew on overnight. In summary, Do not overwhelm the working memory with more than 5 minutes of new information to process. And so was born the 5-Minute Homeschool!
You might wonder why it is essential then for athletes to practice for hours a day. They are building MUSCLE memory. And sometimes, there might be essential academic skills that are dependent on muscle memory that might benefit from a little bit more extended practice sessions (if you child can tolerate it), like penmanship, typing and musical instruments. But, to master skills like math and reading, and to memorize information for science and social studies, the brain needs information to be digested in short chunks over short sessions over various days.
And this brings me to the 5-Minute Homeschool. Our working memory, or if you want to think of it as that active thinking ability, can only handle but so much information at a time. This is partly why people's brains take automatic breaks every 10 minutes or so into a long speech. Have you noticed that? Your mind kind of fogs over and zones out. So, why spend more than 10 minutes --- or I say 5 minutes for children --- trying to transmit to them vital information? With my children, I have seen that the amount of new information they can actually process is really about 1 minute long. So, I usually only take 1 minute to introduce a new topic the first time. This 1 minute lesson is just enough for the brain to chew on overnight. In summary, Do not overwhelm the working memory with more than 5 minutes of new information to process. And so was born the 5-Minute Homeschool!
You might wonder why it is essential then for athletes to practice for hours a day. They are building MUSCLE memory. And sometimes, there might be essential academic skills that are dependent on muscle memory that might benefit from a little bit more extended practice sessions (if you child can tolerate it), like penmanship, typing and musical instruments. But, to master skills like math and reading, and to memorize information for science and social studies, the brain needs information to be digested in short chunks over short sessions over various days.
WHEN Your Brain Actually Learns
And now, I arrive at another key component of why the 5-Minute Homeschool works well. But, I want to introduce the principle with my long-time experience tutoring an autistic boy in middle and high school. I used to notice this interesting pattern in our tutoring sessions. The first session when new material was presented would always go very badly and unhappily (lots of sensory overload). I would conclude that for sure I would need to present this information again because it seemed as if he didn't get anything out of our time together. Then, something miraculous seemed to occur. In the next session on the following week, the student was immediately able to do the skill we worked on previously even though he had not worked on that skill in any other setting outside of our time together. You might wonder where did he work on mastering that information? In his sleep! No joke! I saw this same scenario play out again and again with my son.
I came to an important conclusion in how I teach that goes along with what we already learn in basic human anatomy and physiology class about the human body in its most inactive healthy state. When you sleep, your body is actually doing 3 very important tasks - growing (regenerating cells), healing (highest immune system activity), and learning (storing and organizing information). Yes, during the night, your brain continues to work on whatever it was told to learn or figure out from the day before. This is why sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night or the next morning with the aha moment and you suddenly figure something out. This is why in the 5-Minute Homeschool good sleep habits are considered an important component (especially for infant and toddler learning). Space daily bite-sized learning sessions out so that your student has a chance to sleep on the information presented. If a child is well-rested and going to bed at an early time, you might even consider right before bedtime reviewing a few things you want your child to think about as they sleep.
I came to an important conclusion in how I teach that goes along with what we already learn in basic human anatomy and physiology class about the human body in its most inactive healthy state. When you sleep, your body is actually doing 3 very important tasks - growing (regenerating cells), healing (highest immune system activity), and learning (storing and organizing information). Yes, during the night, your brain continues to work on whatever it was told to learn or figure out from the day before. This is why sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night or the next morning with the aha moment and you suddenly figure something out. This is why in the 5-Minute Homeschool good sleep habits are considered an important component (especially for infant and toddler learning). Space daily bite-sized learning sessions out so that your student has a chance to sleep on the information presented. If a child is well-rested and going to bed at an early time, you might even consider right before bedtime reviewing a few things you want your child to think about as they sleep.
We Must Move Beyond Exposure...to Mastery...then Automation
Exposure is a hot buzz word right now that I find is not helpful to learning in the way it is used - spending a small amount of time in a topic so that one is aware of it but does not remember anything about it because you move on to something else -- again, the spiraling curricula model. What does it mean to truly put knowledge or skills in long-term memory storage? Let's go back to the athlete. They practice for insane periods of time in order to help their muscles achieve the status of automatic response to a particular stimuli or situation. Why do you get nervous driving down the highway behind a "Student Driver" sign? Because you know that kid is still having to tell his or her feet and hands and head what to do while going 55 MPH. I always admire the instructors who put themselves in those cars, cause my nerves could never handle it. As a seasoned driver, driving has become an automatic skill. You don't even think about slamming on the breaks if you realize that the cars in front are stopped, you just do it. When you develop an automatic expertise in skill or knowledge, you have moved that information to long-term memory storage.
We can still take a cue from athletes in how to achieve automatic retrieval of academic knowledge. They spend endless hours mastering the exact same skill routines over and over, pushing themselves to perfection, so that when the game comes, they can focus their working memory on adapting to the changing situational problem and trust their body to just do the techniques - whether that is throw a 3-pointer or catch a ball, etc.!
Though I have emphasized short learning sessions, we can promote automation by doing 3 very important things. One, as teachers we must get good at presenting new information or skills in a short, systematic, repeatable, memorable way based on truth. Sometimes, your presentation may need to adjust till your presentation resonates with the student. When we find that same wavelength, then we stick to it. Two, every time we or our student repeats the information or skill, we must do so in the same systematic, repeatable, memorable way so they can master it. And three, we must "simmer" (not just expose) our student in the information we want them to know and use by daily practice till automation is achieved (that is past the mastery level).
So, you might wonder, does that mean for skill automation, we use the same fodder over and over again? No, but you do use the same skill approach for a long time with fodder the student can relate to. This allows working memory to focus on the skill. For example, answering endless reading comprehension questions is an academic skill focused on throughout one's academic career. For some kids, like my daughter, the skill came naturally. For others, like my son, it was a formidable obstacle. So, where did I begin? I started with identifying the characters. We did that exercise over and over and over and over and over again with his Bible stories that he was familiar with. When I knew he could automate that process, then we moved on to asking WHO based questions. Who did this? Who did that? Again, we practiced it for months (yes months) till his mind could sort those questions out with his Bible stories. We continued on to places, then where questions, and so on. Now, my son has a daily exercise he does with his Primary Treasure magazine (a magazine of Christian stories about kids in their daily lives - again very understandable situations) in which he identifies main character, defines the problem, describes the process of how the problem was resolved and what lesson he learned. The questions are the same ALL YEAR LONG. The stories change, but they are very easy to understand. And what is amazing is that by practicing reading comprehension through the skill of using those SAME key questions, my kid, who previously would confuse a who from a where question, can answer ANY reading comprehension question on those standardized tests (situational problem solving)! He is grade levels ahead of his age bracket.
We can still take a cue from athletes in how to achieve automatic retrieval of academic knowledge. They spend endless hours mastering the exact same skill routines over and over, pushing themselves to perfection, so that when the game comes, they can focus their working memory on adapting to the changing situational problem and trust their body to just do the techniques - whether that is throw a 3-pointer or catch a ball, etc.!
Though I have emphasized short learning sessions, we can promote automation by doing 3 very important things. One, as teachers we must get good at presenting new information or skills in a short, systematic, repeatable, memorable way based on truth. Sometimes, your presentation may need to adjust till your presentation resonates with the student. When we find that same wavelength, then we stick to it. Two, every time we or our student repeats the information or skill, we must do so in the same systematic, repeatable, memorable way so they can master it. And three, we must "simmer" (not just expose) our student in the information we want them to know and use by daily practice till automation is achieved (that is past the mastery level).
So, you might wonder, does that mean for skill automation, we use the same fodder over and over again? No, but you do use the same skill approach for a long time with fodder the student can relate to. This allows working memory to focus on the skill. For example, answering endless reading comprehension questions is an academic skill focused on throughout one's academic career. For some kids, like my daughter, the skill came naturally. For others, like my son, it was a formidable obstacle. So, where did I begin? I started with identifying the characters. We did that exercise over and over and over and over and over again with his Bible stories that he was familiar with. When I knew he could automate that process, then we moved on to asking WHO based questions. Who did this? Who did that? Again, we practiced it for months (yes months) till his mind could sort those questions out with his Bible stories. We continued on to places, then where questions, and so on. Now, my son has a daily exercise he does with his Primary Treasure magazine (a magazine of Christian stories about kids in their daily lives - again very understandable situations) in which he identifies main character, defines the problem, describes the process of how the problem was resolved and what lesson he learned. The questions are the same ALL YEAR LONG. The stories change, but they are very easy to understand. And what is amazing is that by practicing reading comprehension through the skill of using those SAME key questions, my kid, who previously would confuse a who from a where question, can answer ANY reading comprehension question on those standardized tests (situational problem solving)! He is grade levels ahead of his age bracket.
Achieving the Desired End of "Critical Reasoning" and "Creativity"
At the end of the day, the point of education is to develop minds that can think critically and creatively in daily life and solve real world problems. What we forget is that critical thinking is not a super simple basic skill to practice. It is the fruit of mastery and automation when they are combined with the traits of curiosity and resourcefulness, i.e. independent learners (More on that in another section). You see, when automation happens with foundational and critical knowledge, then a student has the actual ability and working memory space to take that information to another level through creative manipulation and situational problem solving. (I should note that creativity is really dependent on the ability to quiet the left-brain while the right brain explores ideas. It is easier to do this when the left brain doesn't have to engage in trying to figure out foundational knowledge. But children can be naturally creative because they have less inhibition in expressing themselves whether they have mastered material or not.)
I hate to admit, but I spent 8 years taking piano lessons as a kid. I faithfully practiced all my assigned songs and was playing exclusively Bach and Mozart as a senior in high school, BUT...I could still not just open the hymn book and play a song. I was no use to church service at any of the little churches I attended thereafter. It seemed so pointless. I secretly admired those people who could answer the call in the moment and open that hymn book up and play along while they were not even looking at the book! Did they really spend all day practicing each and every one of the 500 hymns? Did they have some natural ability I didn't have? I wondered what their secret was, especially in light of the prospect of teaching my children music. I knew I had missed the boat on something.
One day, I came across a man's video that claimed to teach you piano in an hour and you could play along with any song. I was intrigued, so I popped in the video and listened along. What I heard made me so angry...at my music teachers and at myself. Most songs, he explained, are usually just a combination of a handful of chords, sometimes as little as 3 chords. If you can master your chords and learn what key something is in, you can play along! No wonder my secret piano crushes were opening the hymn book! They were just checking the key of the song, then off they went! I started wondering if my music teachers had taught me that. And all I could think was that I had a "theory book," but for whatever reason, no one ever helped me make that connection that at the end of the day, those chords are really all I need to be productive at church (obviously you need more than that to be a classical pianist, but most of us are not striving for that!). Instead, all those years, I was just learning to play one song after another. Not mastering the true basics of music meant I could never answer the creative call in the instant and move beyond the songs I had learned.
Armed with this new found knowledge, I determined that my son's music lessons would go a different direction. My son and I had already learned 1 song, but it was the last one we would work on. Instead I focused my instruction of him on scales and chords. For example, I spent many weeks with my little son practicing the D-major song, which was really just the D-major scale, on the piano (after spending many months practicing the C-Major song - the first one always takes the longest to learn!). Thankfully, little kids love repetition and simplicity, so he didn't need me to make the "song" more interesting. Then, we spent many moons practicing the D-major chords. Every now and then, I would hum a tune and play chords to go along to show him what he could creatively do with that rote knowledge. And one day, something amazing happened, my little guy started playing Pachelbel-Canon in D, which he had listened to on the pre-programmed tunes on the keyboard. We spent many many months just mastering the scales and their corresponding chords. As time passed, my son developed his ability to work out tunes he hears by ear recognizing those chords and the key the music is in. And, now, a few years later, he is starting to play with his chords creatively to make his own music!
Don't worry, by focusing on memorization and skill mastery in the early years, your children won't turn into robots. Instead, they will have automatic knowledge that can then be applied to any problem or manipulated in any creative way! And yes, when the call comes for help, they can answer it!
I hate to admit, but I spent 8 years taking piano lessons as a kid. I faithfully practiced all my assigned songs and was playing exclusively Bach and Mozart as a senior in high school, BUT...I could still not just open the hymn book and play a song. I was no use to church service at any of the little churches I attended thereafter. It seemed so pointless. I secretly admired those people who could answer the call in the moment and open that hymn book up and play along while they were not even looking at the book! Did they really spend all day practicing each and every one of the 500 hymns? Did they have some natural ability I didn't have? I wondered what their secret was, especially in light of the prospect of teaching my children music. I knew I had missed the boat on something.
One day, I came across a man's video that claimed to teach you piano in an hour and you could play along with any song. I was intrigued, so I popped in the video and listened along. What I heard made me so angry...at my music teachers and at myself. Most songs, he explained, are usually just a combination of a handful of chords, sometimes as little as 3 chords. If you can master your chords and learn what key something is in, you can play along! No wonder my secret piano crushes were opening the hymn book! They were just checking the key of the song, then off they went! I started wondering if my music teachers had taught me that. And all I could think was that I had a "theory book," but for whatever reason, no one ever helped me make that connection that at the end of the day, those chords are really all I need to be productive at church (obviously you need more than that to be a classical pianist, but most of us are not striving for that!). Instead, all those years, I was just learning to play one song after another. Not mastering the true basics of music meant I could never answer the creative call in the instant and move beyond the songs I had learned.
Armed with this new found knowledge, I determined that my son's music lessons would go a different direction. My son and I had already learned 1 song, but it was the last one we would work on. Instead I focused my instruction of him on scales and chords. For example, I spent many weeks with my little son practicing the D-major song, which was really just the D-major scale, on the piano (after spending many months practicing the C-Major song - the first one always takes the longest to learn!). Thankfully, little kids love repetition and simplicity, so he didn't need me to make the "song" more interesting. Then, we spent many moons practicing the D-major chords. Every now and then, I would hum a tune and play chords to go along to show him what he could creatively do with that rote knowledge. And one day, something amazing happened, my little guy started playing Pachelbel-Canon in D, which he had listened to on the pre-programmed tunes on the keyboard. We spent many many months just mastering the scales and their corresponding chords. As time passed, my son developed his ability to work out tunes he hears by ear recognizing those chords and the key the music is in. And, now, a few years later, he is starting to play with his chords creatively to make his own music!
Don't worry, by focusing on memorization and skill mastery in the early years, your children won't turn into robots. Instead, they will have automatic knowledge that can then be applied to any problem or manipulated in any creative way! And yes, when the call comes for help, they can answer it!
Lay Aside the Pressures and Burdens of Traditional Learning Activities
I hope you can see why the 5-Minute Homeschool is actually an efficient, effective way to learn. It's also comforting because it takes away that pressure to master something right away or to spend an hour drilling new information or the need to "entertain" your student with "fun" activities to make the time go by more enjoyably or to develop or follow intricate, complicated lesson plans. I might finish a little teaching session that didn't go well, and I just think to myself - don't worry, my child is gonna sleep on it and do better tomorrow!
The 5-Minute Homeschool is freeing because you really don't need to spend so much time doing busy work. Which brings me to the next question. If you're not spending hours doing school work, what are you doing as a homeschool? Whatever you want to do! Think about the legacy and memories you want to give your children. There are so many other skills to learn and things to explore in life. There are other worthwhile activities that just promote family bonding and spiritual development. You get to choose those things!
The 5-Minute Homeschool is freeing because you really don't need to spend so much time doing busy work. Which brings me to the next question. If you're not spending hours doing school work, what are you doing as a homeschool? Whatever you want to do! Think about the legacy and memories you want to give your children. There are so many other skills to learn and things to explore in life. There are other worthwhile activities that just promote family bonding and spiritual development. You get to choose those things!
So, What Do We Spend Time on During the Rest of the Day?
With book work and teaching time condensed to 5 minutes per subject per day, my children and I are free to explore God's creation, develop their own interests, work on meaningful projects, go on educational outings, get chores done, and just simply have fun and play. I believe giving the brain a break especially outdoors, helps the brain further absorb necessary information. But these other activities also serve as important opportunities to develop character, gain practical knowledge, inspire curiosity, and practice resourcefulness --- all critical components of becoming independent learners and world changers.
If your current educational model is working for your homeschool, don't feel any pressure to change. Just keep on keeping on! But, if you and your kids are overwhelmed with inflated curricular expectations and long busy work assignments, I hope you will consider stopping the fights and the frustrations and giving the 5-Minute Homeschool a chance. By using this system, I have been able to teach both of my toddlers to read before age 3 and to cover 2 grade levels a year in school.
If your current educational model is working for your homeschool, don't feel any pressure to change. Just keep on keeping on! But, if you and your kids are overwhelmed with inflated curricular expectations and long busy work assignments, I hope you will consider stopping the fights and the frustrations and giving the 5-Minute Homeschool a chance. By using this system, I have been able to teach both of my toddlers to read before age 3 and to cover 2 grade levels a year in school.