This week a part our our learning goal list is learning about the animals of the Polar Regions. I have been making my own EK card and I have to say that I am SHOCKED by the amount of work necessary!! I have 28 different species that we are covering, I’ve done the BO for 16 tonight, and it’s taken me over two hours so far! I would say all together when you include finding the images, compiling the BOI, and putting the cards together, this ONE set of cards is going to take me close to 10 hours to complete! Holy heck! No wonder people buy EK cards!
Now, on the plus side, I’m learning an amazing amount about Arctic and Antarctic animals!!
This is exactly why I personally use TW for EK, and are looking to introduce some similar DVD based programs. I simply don’t have the time or inclination. We also use “national geographic” type kids books of baby animals and things. I just got a few of the first DVDs in the Growing Up Wild series too, and I think Nat Geo also makes a similar one. Bill Nye has an entire line of DVDs at my library, and so forth. There are lots of educational DVDs.
For me, it’s just not feasible to hand make BITS. Not gonna happen. In DadDude’s essay he posted a link to some great powerpoints (no voice though) and I think there are some on myclassicalmommy too. Also, You tube is a big favorite in my house, you can find tons of learning songs for continents, countries, etc. www.keepvid.com lets you watch them later with no ads and so forth, and create your own filing system for favorites.
While too much screen time is not ideal, I would rather my kids have some EK exposure than none at all.
Since starting EK with my daughter when she was 18 months old, I have made exactly ONE set of bits with POIs (Composers). Since then I have mostly relied on TW and what was available from this forum. It was just not realistic to be working full-time, run a full early learning program (which includes much more than EK topics), make my own EK cards, and still expect to get a decent amount of sleep. The fact that my daughter was never enthusiastic about flashcards did nothing for my motivation to make them either. Anyway, since then, I have gradually been using more and more of the Montessori materials for EK topics. They pretty much cover the same topics - they are just smaller and have a hands-on interactive component. In this sense, they are probably not as right-brain as the bits but that’s what I use TW for. My daughter also likes working with them better - she can play with them, match them, read them, etc rather than just sitting passively looking at them. I am amazed at the breadth of topics covered - I was even able to get cards for French, Spanish, and Chinese! If she wants to learn more about a certain topic, I just supplement with books from the library and, this way, she also learns to read things up for herself rather than expecting to be spoonfed information from EK bits. Also, the reason it works well for us is because she is at an age where the size of the images and words do not matter too much anymore. I expect that if you’re working with a younger baby, then the Montessori cards will be too small and too fragile for them.
EK - Encyclopedic Knowledge
Bits - Bits of Intelligence
POI - Points of Intellect/Intelligence
All of them, I believe, are essentially the same thing flash cards with large pictures of one thing on the front, with some facts on the back that parents read to the child, a couple of facts at a time over a period of a few days, but I’m not 100% sure about that because I haven’t had the chance to read “How To Give Your Child Encyclopedic Knowledge” by Glenn Doman and I haven’t delved to deeply into it, I’ve been more interested in the reading, language and maths programmes.
Sarah,
It’s true that it takes a lot of time to prepare EK cards. Sometimes it’s better to present just a few at one time and enjoy them with your baby then overwhelm yourself and being discouraged by preparing so many. Also, like you said you learn a lot about new stuff when you prepare EK. It’s easier and more fun to present these facts once you prepared them by yourself. I’m speaking from my experience!
I found http://www.wikipedia.org/ very helpful. Many times I just copy and paste all of the info.
I hope you find balance between your personal time and preparing EK cards.
Are there any already made EK cards? Is this similar to the videos from Wink to Learn ( the animal videos?)
I’ve just got done reading Your Baby Can Read by Doman. I’ll have to see if our library has the “: How to Give your child Encyclopedic Knowledge.”
Also does anyone have any ‘samples’ online on how they put the cards together? I need a visual. :clown:
May I add that Marta has an awesome blog where she graciously shares the learning materials she makes for her son: http://earlylearning-eaton.blogspot.com/. My daughter loved all of the Gingerbread Man activities this past Christmas and has learned to count to 100 by playing with the construction vehicle number puzzles that Marta made.
The premade EK cards from IAHP routinely go on sale. If you get on their mailing list, you should get a sale notice about once a month. Even on sale, however, they are still too pricey for my budget. I do have the 10 Doman picture dictionary CD-ROMs and it is in 5 languages. But they only have the BOIs on them and not the POIs.
I LOVE Marta’s blog! We’re going to try her tropical wildflower file folder games soon!
As for EK cards, it just so happens that my Lily and Violet both LOVE flashcards! I am glad already that I took the time to make them because I used the Arctic animal ones today and now BOTH of the girls can identify all of the animals that I’ve shown them!
Even Violet, who is only 11m old when I held up the Beluga Whale and another card grabbed the Beluga and actually SAID, “Be-lu-gaaaa!!” before I even got a chance to ask which was which! (Yes, I “test”…my girls love it and CRY when I stop! For us, it’s a fun game!)
I got so discouraged with the EK cards I assumed I couldn’t do them until I found LR. Less time making all those reading word cards = more for other things. Now that I make most of my Bits on LR it seems to go so much faster. Even if I print them out there is no cutting and pasting and I don’t have to waste ink on pictures that appear one size on the screen but print differently.
For POIs I have two methods. For some things, like many wild animals, I have found it easy to find a national geographic article or something similar and print the whole thing and highlight my 10 facts. That way the facts are clear and easy to remember and when she gets older she can read it as an article which I assume will be a more interesting format. The articles for kids are great because they are full of interesting concrete facts but I don’t have to adjust the wording.
For bits that require more research I am cutting and pasting separate facts from various websites or copying them from books. I am only bothering to change the wording of the first few facts. I then file the fact sheets in the order I plan to do them and will add facts to my bit cards as we go through them. That way I can adjust them at the time to be appropriate for my daughters development but I don’t have to go through all the grunt work every time. Also if I don’t find all ten facts I don’t worry, just as long as we can keep moving forward.
I haven’t decided yet exactly how to go about adding all the POIs to the sets of BOIs that I don’t print as I don’t plan to print most of them, at least not right away.
I love the idea of a thorough and tailored education made by and specific to the interests of the family. I’m aiming to do the full program but I gave myself the goal of 50 sets to begin with instead of 100. So far I’m at about 35 sets of 5-10 BOIs and about 200 separate facts (again only possible for me with the help of LR). I feel like I’m getting somewhere but I have a long way to go to get to the ultimate goal of10,000 facts! I just keep telling myself something is better than nothing. And I keep hoping that I can keep refining to process to make it more doable and efficient.
And one more thing- I’ve put the Doman flash cards and LR products on every wish list for every relative ex employer and close friend! They could buy a stuffed animal for $20 or they could buy 100 brain building facts for $20. (So far I have one set of Doman cards- still, that’s 100 facts I don’t have to do!)
In LR, you can record all the facts for a specific animal for example linked to that animal, you can put also different pictures to go with the facts ( which is real fun) and then every time you play your animal category your kid would hear a new fact about each animal, or whatever topic you teach. It works the fastest for us. We also use National Geographic facts.
Skylark I had never thaught to do that! I actually wondered today why LR doesn’t have more BOI in it, I know it has some but “don’t draw on the wall” although valuable, doesn’t count as EK! You have opened my mind to the possibilities
Gindy, yes keep thinking that…something is better than nothing. And thanks for sending us to national goegrahic, havnt used it in digital format always just magazines. You are doing a comendable job!
Thanks Skylark!
That is a fantastic idea! Alex loves LR but isn’t really learning new words, but does quote the ‘one-liners’ frequently…what a great way to slip in some additional EK and extend the LR capabilities even more.
