Hopefully we'll get to most of this (we'll see).
Damien is currently 2 years, 0 months old
Resources:
Other Resources: Patriotic Songs Playlist Learn the 50 State Locations Math: +1's video & game Notes of the 4th Octave Presidents song Planets reading book Color couplets book (coming soon) Family verbs book (coming soon)
2013/06/24 at 9:26 am
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, thank you for this post. I have a few questions though. I noticed that you are planning on doing 6 sets of encyclopedic knowledge sets and according to Doman each set should be repeated 3 times daily. Also, you have at least two reading sets (color couplets and action verbs) and according to Doman each set should be repeated 3x daily. Could you please tell us how you show the sets to Damien? how many bits and reading sets at a time? do you do 3 long sessions a day? How many consecutive sets does he see without losing interest? Also, how long did you spend showing him single words? Sorry for the questions, but you have done a wonderful job with Hunter so whatever you are doing it works perfectly. And the last question…you are supposed to show them as fast as you can, do you always use videos?or also actual bits of intelligence cards? If so, say you are showing 10 bits and your child looks away after seeing 8 consecutive cards, then you show them the remaining 2. Do you count that rep eventhough you did not show all of them at the fastest way possible?? Sorry for having so many questions. I hope you can find the time to answer them all. Thank you once again for everything you share.
2013/06/24 at 6:40 pm
DeleteWith my oldest I was a lot more particular about doing the “exact” amount of repetitions that Doman recommends in his book, but I have become more comfortable and casual with my younger son. I will try to show everything at least once or twice a day, sometimes more. Right now we DON’T usually get to everything three times a day, but that is ok with me. He is still learning and enjoying. Often times we will do things back to back, for example: read our little booklet on planets, then read the color couplets booklet, then do some math counting. He really has a quite long attention span so I found that it is ok to “bend the rules” a bit in how long our sessions are. It really depends on the child and what works for both of you.
I try to gauge his interest in how long to continue doing a material before retiring it. He is very verbal and often lets me know his preferences and what learning materials he wants to do. So we don’t have a very specific length of time before retiring things, just when he isn’t interested in it anymore.
With the videos, I usually just play them, and if he looks away I don’t worry about it as I know he will see it again another time. I do both bit flash cards and videos, depending on what I have on hand. Right now I have a lot of videos, but I like to use paper cards as well!
I hope this was helpful, I’m sorry that I don’t have more specific numbers for you. It is really more about enjoying learning with your child than about an exact formula of repetitions. Let me know if this clarified anything or if you have more questions!
2013/06/24 at 10:01 pm
DeleteElizabeth, thank you for answering. It has helped me a lot. You have given me the confidence to retire them earlier. I am doing things a little bit different than Doman suggests. For instance, I show 10 bit of intelligence cards at a time and after 10 days I put them away and bring out other brand new cards. He suggests to replace only two or three at a time, but Abigail is just not interested if she only sees a few new cards…almost as if she thinks it is the same thing for the most part so why waste my time?? I also noticed that since I deviated a little, I tried to show them for 10 days… but the last two were not that interesting for her. I will only show them for 8 or 7 days and then retire them. I worry because I think if I do not show them the total amount of times you are supposed to, maybe she will forget or somehow screw it up if I customize things. I do reading, math, and bits in spanish and english every day so I cannot do as many sets as I would like to, because there will not be enough time in between for her to “rest” and do other activities and it pretty much seems we only do that for the entire day. Right now we slowed things down a little and she seems to respond better than if we would be doing more sets at a time. We are doing one or two sets of reading, one of bits, and 1 of math. It seems to work well for now. She keeps changing, sometimes she will take more sets for a couple of weeks than wants to slow down. Nevertheless, I feel so much better knowing that you do not do everything 100 % exactly as the book says and still are able to get Damien to learn things. Thank you once again. I enjoy reading your blog and you are my inspiration…whenever I feel tired or consider taking a day off without a real reason to do so I remind myself of you and Hunter…..so much work and time invested that has paid off and then I think oh my and she also has Damien and then I feel lazy and ashamed of myself and instantaneously feel energetic.