Seastar-
Math curriculum is extensive, but we are only doing bits of each right now, and JUST started–at her demand. I hadn’t actually thought about doing a more formal maths program with her at this age, but it came from her. She is one of those kids that does really well with a warning…if you suddenly up stakes and want to leave quickly, serious tantrums ensue…if you say, "okay, A, five minutes and we have to leave…Okay, A, now we have to leave in four minutes…etc…she will say, with a mock sad face,“zewo minutes left, time to go!”
One day I was doing this and I had just given her her four-minute warning…she informs me that soon she will have just three minutes, then, two, then one, then zero! She was desperate for number and time…I bought a MelissaandDoug wooden clock to teach her the time, we transformed a stainless steel timer into “Mr. Dinger” with the help of some doll shoes, a doll hat, a bow tie, and some goggly eyes…
But the masterpiece has been “Tooth Brush Math”…so kiddo is teething molars and will do just about anything to avoid a toothbrush in the mouth! We. Have tried everything from songs to daddy reading a favorite book whilst tooth cleansing is occurring!! Desperate, I bought a cloth chart and put number squares, 0-100 on it. Basically a hundreds board, with red numbers for even numbers, black for odd numbers, purple fo fives and tens…so every night while Daddy scrubs, momm, in a highly animated comical fashion, points at numbers with a spare toothbrush and counts as fast as I can…I mention counting by fives and tens and ones, even and odd, by twos, you name it…she loves it and after THREE days can count to 100!
For flossing time, the Abacus comes out and mommy makes a fool of herself counting on chart whilst A frantically moves beads…
Might feel incredibly idiotic if A hadn’t suppressed me whilst driving in the car by counting to 100 by ones, then by tens when she thought nobody was listening!,
So the point is, I bought these programs because she seems to really want a maths challenge, and we are already well on the reading path…and most importantly, we did a lot of math prep work first…if I was starting out, I would stick to reading programs with home spun math. I think she understands the concepts and ideas I am presenting because she has learned reading And vocabulary FIRST, as well as a love of learning…
One other thing starting out…before I had even heard of BrillKids, I was copying a page of an ongoing strory, a tracing sheet, activities, and animal facts for A everyday. She goes mental for the post, so hubby puts all of the days activities in the mailbox when he heads off to the Uni.we go out to get it and the newspaper, and she FREAKS! It sets the tone for the day…the point is, your LO might not be crazy for the post, but if you find a way to make her daily reading appeal to her personally, she will beg you for it…even whilst in the UK for Xmas, with no mailbox, we had to show her how mail comes through the slot directly into the house. (I thought she was going to wet herself! lol ). And hubby was not thrilled to have to troop from back door to front door at 3 am while she was adjusting to 6-hour-time difference lol Don’t quite know why he was complaining as he got to go back to bed!
So far Jolly Phonics haven’t really appealed to her…
He would have picked up Spanish anyway but I just theorise that it must make it clearer in his little mind when mummy makes the same sign for drink & bebida…