Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion time management in 3rd grade and beyond

Ds8 recently completed a nice project to read a book near his reading level, do a rough draft description of 4 events, and illustrations to match, and then do a final draft of same. 3 weeks were given before it was due.

This seemed like a great project, but when I found out the book ds had picked, which was large for him to try, I was a little worried. I decided this project was partially about time management and would not go well if he waited until the last minute. We worked out a plan to read x chapters a night, when to start in on the rough draft and final draft.

He was a little under the weather about 1 week in and fell a bit behind in reading - I think he was also intimidated by the size of the book.
The one or two days he ended up spending a lot of time reading and writing to catch up were uncomfortable for him (and me). We discussed trying to stick to the plan better next time.
In the end he did a really nice job and completed it in time (but not what I would call 'ahead of time' which is what I have grown to prefer).

I hope he learned a bit about why sticking to a plan matters, but I am not sure this won't be repeated many times between now and age 20 something. (He does tend to do ok in a rush, but I don't want him to rely on that.)

What are ways you have used to try to instill a sense of planning and sticking to plan, for larger projects?

(I would also add that the difference between his rough draft and final draft were pretty dramatic - even he could not dispute that it was worthy rewriting and redrawing. So, good project, good lessons!)

Sometimes kids learn more from failure (or at least not raging success) than they do from raging successes.

After it was all over, did you do what we in the business call a "debriefing," which is an analysis of how it went, what he'd do again and/or differently, and what he learned? That's where most of the learning really takes place in any experience.

If he has to put into words how the experience went and has to analyze what worked and what didn't and WHY, he might learn everything he needs to learn. Then the next time he has a big project, you can just remind him about this one.

Just a thought... (Said the former Girl Scout Leader trainer and college instructor. )

Time management falls under that nebulous heading of "Executive Function". According to the experts, most children don't develop in this area until their late teens. For our kids who knows how much sooner?

I ask DS to define what went wrong when he doesn't keep a schedule, but he's still at an age where the blame must fall everywhere except upon himself. I agree with Kris that alot of the learning comes after the fact, but it depends alot on the child.

I think practice is key. Small pieces first (like, "all your toys on the floor need to be picked up by dinner time," or, "please read two chapters today") and then bigger pieces as he gets better at judging his own pace.

And with DS, I've given him responsibility for specific types of things (like his book group reading) while helping to schedule others for him, just so it doesn't get completely overwhelming. That way he can work on keeping up with bigger and more nebulous assignments, but not have to keep up with many of them. As of last year he was almost-independently scheduling his science fair projects... multi-part and enormous, but also really well-defined.

I do think this is developmental to a great extent, but once they're developmentally capable of it I think it also requires a lot of practice and sometimes direct instruction.

Yup, I believe your DS will learn from this experience. Mine will always try to leave his work till Sunday once in awhile. When night time comes, he will get all panicky and try to complete everything and also trying to aim for a early bedtime. He will on track for the next few weeks / months but there will always be one Sunday when he finds himself in the same spot again. I think at this age, they are still learning....

Great point, Erica. (You're on a roll tonight! Every time I've read one of your posts, I've wanted to write, "Yeah! What she said!" )

In Girl Scouts, we called this "progression": start small and manageable. Take baby steps forward, but always keep asking a little bit more of the kids.

Over time, those baby steps lead to big growth. And usually you won't have big failures. Minor setbacks at worst.

So Kriston what you're saying is now would be the time for me to bring up my "selling the Brooklyn Bridge" scheme?

I call it the "low simmer" point -- never so much that they're boiling over (frustrated), but not all the way down at lukewarm (easy).

How did you know I've been in the market for a bridge? It's just what our backyard needs!

I like the cooking analogy. Good one!

Hey, thanks folks for the responses. Sorry it took me a while to respond myself...
this is really the very first time I've felt ds had any opportunity to stretch himself time-management wise (for school), so I didn't feel too bad that the whole thing was orchestrated by me.
I did have a mid-way discussion of some not-so-ideal decisions (procrastination) but will try to chat again about the whole thing and how it worked/didn't work.