how long to expect of them?

[ki28]

hi, I have a 5yr old boy who is in the pre school and moves up into yr1 in sept.

a typical boy, lazy and much more interested in lego an playing out.
Trying to slowly intoduce some more structured learnig time at home in prep for yr1.
currently we do a few small activites b4 tea time,which last last roughly 5mins each.

how long would you say is 'normal'

Hi ki28. What you are doing now is great. Every child is different and they all have varying attention spans! I am a teacher and when I taught the younger children, around your son's age, I would try not to have them sitting at the same activity for more than 10 minutes or so. It is a long time for them. You will probably find that he will be able to coincentrate for longer periods in school because all the other children will be doing it. I would stick with the 5 minute activities for now if he is coping ok with it. Then in a few weeks you can maybe increase it. But I would not force him to stay at an activity once you can see that he is no longer interested. Good luck!
xxx

thanks for that advice,its great. our activites include paining,and threading,pasta shapes and he doesnt seem to notice the name writing and numbers,sounds and reading that we slip inbetween the'fun learning'. that for that confidence boost nice to hear we are doing right. x

i've always been told that children can normally concentrate for their age plus 1 in minutes.

So 5-6 minutes on an activity which isnt totally self chosen is completely normal.

Good adive from TOK about stopping the activity once they lose interest - no point carrying on once you've lost them