I was just wondering, for you “professional parents” doing the Doman program with your little ones, how much time are you spending (or were you spending before Little Reader arrived in your computer) preparing the materials for Doman Reading, Doman Math, Doman Encyclopedic Knowledge, or anything else Doman related? Did you make your materials just like they suggest, (laminated?, poster board?, POIs?) Did you do a full program as they suggested, or something modified? Did you do anything more time saving (like use regular paper, skip the POIs, get pictures off the internet instead of cut from calendars and magazines)?
I’m just very interested to know what your experience has been, what time commitment you made, and whether, looking back, you feel it was time well spent.
We were doing a full program in breadth, but not in depth. For example we were doing two sets of 5 words each 3x a day, one set of dots, and one set of encyclopedic knowledge cards. The EK cards took the longest because I made each one with all the POIs and then laminated it before we started using it. I was doing pretty well until I ran out of ink. I ned a new printer or some other source for my pictures. In particular using the EK for art was great is so wonderful to see your chld recognize great art. Recently we have just focused on reading, math and writing though as he is making great strides in those areas and I want him reading independently before we go back the the EK program. The words did not take long to make, but now we have switched to words on flashcards and LR as he just turned 3.
I have to agree with linzy about word cards. It takes longer to cut the poster board to the right size than it does to write the words. I usually just take a stack of blank cards to work and write them out on my break. The EK cards do take longer. I used both calendars and pictures I printed off the internet. I find my children are more responsive to the cards made from calendar pictures, but both types still get the job done. I made the cards and used many of them before I had the pois done, so I did not laminate them the first time they were used. We started the math program with the dot cards I purchased from IAHP, but only got as far as 1 step multiplication because my husband thought the math stuff was “silly” and wasn’t producing any noticable results. Now I use Little math and he doesnt say anything, but I still don’t see any results from the math.
We do love the EK program though. My kids ask for the cards every day! They love yellling out what things are before I have a chance to say what it is. So all in all, yes it is time very well spent!