Taylored 5-Minute Learning

See the Homepage for answers to these 5 questions:

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What is Taylored 5-Minute  Learning?

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What is the Taylored 5-Minute Learning method?

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Why is Taylored 5-Minute Learning different from other toddler activities?

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How can I do these Taylored 5-Minute mini lessons with my own kids?

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What was my inspiration for Taylored 5-Minute Learning and why did I create this website?

 

See the About page for a full explanation of how Taylored 5-Minute Learning started!​

 

Who is Taylored 5-Minute Learning for?

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This website is for any busy parent/guardian looking for ideas on some educational activities they would like to help their children with, or for any who want to try teaching a toddler a particular academic or household skill. There are 5-minute mini lessons to choose from here, but you can apply the same core philosophy (of helping a toddler repeatedly practice small parts of a skill until the whole skill is mastered) to any skill you're interested in teaching.

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Can each of the learning activities / mini lessons be done in 5 minutes or less? Do you always repeat something 3 times?

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While all of the activities and mini lessons that I created had the goal of trying to repeat a skill (preferably 3 times) in 5 minutes, some of them do take longer than 5 minutes, especially for older toddlers. Most of the activities and mini lessons I created usually do take 5 minutes or less once the child is familiar with the activity or mini lesson, but can sometimes take longer depending on the content covered (especially in the beginning when the child is still learning the activity), or the mood of your child. 

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Sometimes it's possible to repeat a task 3 times, but sometimes it isn't. So while my goal in creating each activity was to make it small and short enough that it could be repeated in 5 minutes, that wasn't always the case, so there are some activities / mini lessons where only 1 or 2 repetitions are done in the 5-10 minute timespan. In those cases, repetitions for repeated practice come from doing the activity every day or every other day.

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The learning programs that I bought rather than created also were part of our 5-minute learning time. Jim Yang's Children Learning Reading program inspired 5-minute learning in the first place, and most of his lessons are about 5 minutes but can sometimes take between 5-10 minutes as they get further in the reading program. The mathematics Elephant Learning program recommends 10 minutes a day, so while these and a few other activities can take longer than 5 minutes a day, I've found them to be very effective still, which is why I still included them in our learning routine.

 

How long does it take for a toddler to learn some of these skills using the Taylored 5-Minute Learning method?​

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There is no set timeline or rush for any of the skills taught, so I can't say that your child will be able to do a particular skill in x amount of weeks/months. I just like to do educational activities and mini lessons with my kids, and wanted to share what worked for my kids with anyone else interested. I didn't create Taylored 5-Minute Learning to guarantee results in a set amount of time, rather, I did it to help my kids realize their potential for their particular age or developmental stage, and help other parents do the same.

 

I've found that how fast a toddler learns is a function of:​

 

How consistent you are​. The more consistently you do the 5-minute activity / mini lesson, the more regular repetitions your child will get, and the faster they can practice and build on their skills. If you do the 5-minute mini lesson one day, and then skip several days/weeks before the next one, your child doesn't get many opportunities to practice their current skill level, and will have a harder time building on it.

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How often you incrementally increase the difficulty level of the activity. Sometimes I wouldn't move on from the current activity even after the Little Mr. had mastered it because I didn't have the time or energy to figure out or learn how to make it incrementally more difficult. That was another purpose of this website: by recording what I did with the Little Mr., by the time the Copycat is old enough for these activities I'll be able to just look up what the next activity is rather than having to try and figure it out again.

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Whether your child is developmentally ready for the activity. If you're attempting a skill that is beyond the ability of your child, they will progress slowly simply because they aren't ready yet. I've tried to offset this by putting the "Developmental Milestones Reached" before each activity or mini lesson: once your child is able to do the developmental things listed, they may have the ability to start that particular mini lesson. These are the milestones I'll be watching for with the Copycat so I have an idea of when to start his activities.

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I can't get my toddler to pay attention for even 5 minutes. What can I do?

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Here are some potential options that have worked for us that you can try:

 

Booster seat: If your child is still in a booster seat, schedule the 5-minute activity / mini lesson right after eating while they're still in their booster seat. This way they're motivated to finish their activity so they can get unbuckled to get down and play.

 

Do the activity right before a favorite thing: Schedule the 5-minute mini lesson right before one of their favorite parts of their existing routine. For example, my kids get one video a day, and their one afternoon activity is right before the video: once they finish their activity, then they watch their video.

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Phase out a reward: Try thinking of something they like (whether it be a special snack/treat, a sticker, etc) that you can give them after they do their mini lesson to motivate them to finish it. After they've been doing activities/mini lessons for a while, they'll be so used to their activities being part of the daily routine that you can phase out the reward because you "ran out" of whatever it was.

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How old does my toddler need to be to do these learning activities / mini lessons?​

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Instead of basing when to start an activity or mini lesson based on age, I recommend deciding to start based on how developmentally ready they are. This is because toddlers of the same age can be at very different physical and cognitive developmental levels. Look at the "Developmental Milestones Reached" listed before each mini lesson, and if your toddler can do those things, they should be developmentally ready enough to try the activity. But if you want to browse through age-specific mini lessons, I have age categories for each activity that you can select if you want to see which activities are most appropriate for your toddler's current age.  

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My toddler was able to do the 5-minute mini lesson before but can't anymore. What happened?

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Regressions are normal when it comes to learning, especially in children, who's minds are still developing. It's happened many times where I'm very excited that my toddler can consistently do something, only to have them forget how to do it a few days/weeks/months later. Going through all the activities will feel like you're going two steps forward, one step back at times. You can either decide to go back to doing the previous activity to get their confidence back up, or you can try explaining the current activity again in a slightly different way. Eventually it will click with your toddler again so you can progress onto the next activity. 

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My toddler doesn't want to do the 5-minute activity. How do I get them to do it without it becoming a battle?

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Here are a few things that have worked for us that you could try:

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Frame it as cool, new and exciting. When first introducing the mini lesson (or the next progression of a mini lesson), tell your toddler that you have a cool, new activity you're excited to do with them. This gets them excited to do it in the first place. This is why I refer to these mini lessons as "activities" rather than "lessons" with my toddlers. While they don't know what lessons are yet, they do know that activities are fun, so I wanted to frame these daily parts of our routine as a fun activity we get to do everyday.

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Do the activity after / before the same thing every day. When the mini lessons are built into your routine, it won't be a battle to get your toddler to do the activity because they're expecting it, used to it, and looking forward to it. In our case, sometimes Little Mr. would look at our schedule and tell me he's either ready to do his activities, what's the next activity, or correct me if I accidentally forget to do something on the schedule!

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Schedule the activity when your toddler is likely to be in a good mood. If you schedule the mini lesson at a time when they're usually hungry or tired, chances are you'll have a harder time getting your child excited to do the activity because their base needs haven't been addressed yet. The reason we have so many morning mini lessons with our current routine is because they've already gotten to play (they play while I sleep in a little), they've just eaten their breakfast (so their stomachs are satisfied), and their minds are most awake because they just woke up a couple of hours ago.

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Make it clear that they can't move onto their favorite part of the routine until the activity is done. If they don't want to do the learning activity, when they get upset that they can't do their favorite part of the routine, sympathize with them and/or put the ball in their court - you can say things like, "I'm really sad too because I really want to watch the video also, but we can't until your activity is done.", or, "You did your activity so fast yesterday! Do you think you can do it again today so we can watch your video?". 

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Give your toddler a choice between two things you're OK with. In our case, the few times when I can tell my toddler is dawdling in the morning, trying to put off starting his activities, I'll ask him: "Do you want to do your activities with me now, or would you prefer I do what I need to do (my chores) first?". This almost always works - they usually prefer having my attention, so they'll choose to do their activity. In the rare case it doesn't work immediately, I'll start doing my morning chores (which I usually do after doing their mini lessons while they play, but I don't mind doing my chores before the kids mini lessons either). This will prompt them to say they want to do their activities, and they'll need to wait for me to finish whatever I'm doing before I can do their activities with them. So next time, they'll choose activities right away because they won't want to wait for you.

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Ignore comments like "I won't do it". The Little Mr. had been doing morning mini lessons for a few months when he suddenly started spouting off comments like "I won't do it", or "I don't want to do it". What worked best for me was ignoring these comments and continuing on with whatever I was doing at the time as if his comments didn't phase me at all. When he didn't get a reaction from me, he didn't get the payoff of attention that he was looking for, and he started to do the activity by himself anyway (in this example, he started to play the piano). When he did, I gave him a lot of positive praise so he got attention for starting the activity rather than saying he wouldn't do it.

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Ultimately, these 5-minute mini lessons are supposed to be fun as well as educational activities. The fact that most of these mini lessons take 5 minutes or less once your toddler is familiar with them, should make it easier to encourage your child to do them regularly because they don't take much time. However, if your child really doesn't want to do it, you can choose to skip it for that day (as well as skip the favored part of the routine that comes after it if your activity is scheduled that way). It happened only once with us that the Little Mr. chose to play with his downstairs toys instead of do his afternoon activity before his one video of the day. So we didn't do the activity and he didn't get his video. But clearly he prefers to have his daily movie because that never happened again. I would just avoid resorting to skipping the activity too often: skipping the activity should be the rarity, and doing the activity regularly should be the norm. If skipping the activity becomes the norm, it breaks the consistency of the activities.

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Is "Taylored 5-Minute  Learning" a school program?

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No, I've just found that 5-minute learning is a concept that works great for toddlers, and I wanted to share what worked for me with others. I've only taught college students before, so I actually wasn't aware of the 10-15 minute mini lessons done in kindergarten, and I came up with the idea of 5-minute activities or quick lessons independently. In being a stay-at-home mom, I realized that my natural way of parenting did seem suspiciously like school with all the educational activities I like to do with my kids, but the biggest difference between Taylored 5-Minute Learning and school is that I don't have a time requirement. I use completing part of skill (preferably 3 times in 5 minutes if possible) as the requirement, rather than needing to spend 8 hours a day on something. This way, all my activities take a total of maybe 30 minutes maximum spread throughout a day (eg. 10-15 minutes after breakfast, about 10 minutes after morning chores, and 5 minutes after naps). I thought it important not to sacrifice my toddlers playtime because they learn so much through just playing. I just wanted to do what I could to give them a head start when they did get to school.

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What's the difference between a 5-minute "learning activity" and a 5-minute "mini lesson"?​

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They are honestly interchangeable. I've always called our 5-minute learning time "activities" with my kids: even though they aren't familiar with the negative connotations kids associate with "lessons", I've always framed our learning time as fun activities time. I've just called some activities "mini lessons" on this website instead because to an outsider, it's more of a mini lesson rather than an activity to do with a child. This is especially true for the activities for older toddlers, who are able to understand more and have a longer attention span.

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