Inspired!

I'm an avid reader [and a silent one too!] at Brillkids.com. I found one interesting post from a member, Judy Mendes about her story with her 17mo baby and how she manages between work and spending time teaching her baby. Just wanna share if you Mommies haven't stumbled upon this before. Totally inspiring!

This was his first post:

Hi everyone,
I am a mother of one A daughter who is 17 months.
I took interest in this group as I am being teaching my daughter Glenn Domman progrms all of the below since birth.
"How to teach your baby to read"
"How Smart is your baby"
"How to teach your baby Math"
"How to teach your baby ency."
"How to keep your baby physicaly superb"
"How to teach your baby to swim"

I have being doing all of the above with my daughter since birth, and its amazing how quick they learn. My daughter could float on her back at age 1 month and could walk without support at age 7.5 months, she had a vocabulary of 60 at age 1 year

More importantly what took me to this site is because, knowing there is a software that can help me to faster play around with my BIT materials, saves alot of time.

Then one Mommy asked her, "Where did you learn about the Glenn Domman programs and how far have you got with it all?" She replied:

It was by accident that I heard about Glen Doman. It was one day at Chapters, the book store where I was looking for a scrap book for my new born, accidentally as i was browsing thru the books my eyes fell on one eye catching book "How Smart is your baby" written by Glen Doman. This book happened to me in some extreme corner where barely anyone could see it.

It was from this book that lead me to buy some more books by Glen. I started to prepare all the BIT cards and DOT Cards, Infant stimulation material when i was in my second trimister. Yes, all called me crazy including my parents but all what motivated me the letters from moms who put their children on glen's program. And yes i have seen benefits from it.

Suprisingly my daughter speaks in sentences since age 1. She can say "What happened", "what is this/that" , "whose that", "i love you" and many more, she even says numbers 1-10. But she knows more than 100 numbers by can say just 1-10.

With reading : I do a mix of both single words and phrases. As she learns new things i just add to the list and form phrases

With Encylopedia: I still doing the 100 categories suggested by Glen

With Numbers: Its with 3 step addition, but I have also started to introduce her to French, Chinese, and German numbering.

With Swimming: She goes for swim classes

With physical activities: she goes for gymnastics

The only thing i couldnt do with her is music, that is because i dont any instruments myself. But heard that if you can teach you child 1-9 and A-G they can start to learn piano. Hence I have started to teach alphabets eventhough according to Glen alphabet teaching should be the last on the list. I still do it.

Yes, that's it. But its a big preparation to do all this. One can do it effectively if you are a stay at home. since i work it makes it difficult for me to keep up with it, Hence this software helps me to do it quickly and faster.

Then, another Mommy menyampuk, "I am frustrated most with lesson planning/preparation than anything. What are your experiences and your advice, please?" She added this:

But to start with, i prepare my materials a month in advance, so that i dont fall back in planning and preparing my material. Yes, i do agree it's frustrating when you dont have your materials ready, hence i only start with my child when i have everything in place. [Assie: This is the crucial part in teaching your baby as what Doman said, prepare ahead! and that's the hardest part kot..haha. I'm all over the place now - HELP! MrJ too, the Math Prof who's trying to finish the Math Dot Card Flash Card..huhuh..]

To start with this is what i do:

1. I have an excel sheet that outlines what would i teach my child each week. I have attached a sample of my excel sheet. Hence this gets me to a head start in planning and prepares me in advance of what i need to do. PLAN is the most important thing to achieve what you want

2. Then, once i have outlined all what i need to do, i start to gather material and information, now since i do 9-5 job, i normally prepare my materials every day for 1 hour after my child is off to a good night sleep. Then on weekends i just put all the materials together and make my presentations or i put in Little Reader. Each week I target 2 categories hence by end of the month i have atleast 8 new categories or more to begin for the next month. This keeps me ahead.

About spending time with my daughter and teaching her, I atleast cover 2 sessions in each Maths / Encylopedia / Reading.

This is what I do:

1. At the end of the day, i'll keep my materials ready for the next day, the way i do it, is if i am teaching her BIT Cards, then i'll keep the selected BIT Cards organized in a seperate folder or in a plastic basket. But since now i have the LR lite, i just keep in ready in playback session

2. So, once done this, the next day after work, i just refresh my self and feed my daughter after daycare and spend time in my room playing with her and teaching her, at times she does both sessions together, so which means i am done with my sessions. I dont force her into doing 3 sessions on a weekday as it becomes to stressful. Eventhough Glen recomends 3 sessions, i just follow my daughters mood.

And as such, there is no ground rule that says that only if your child is shown 3 sessions a day, she would learn what she is shown. Hence just follow your childs instincts. Dont get caught up with how many sessions you do with her. Beleive they can even learn in one session a day, I am saying it because my daughter does know things with only one session per day.

Also, not to forget, that as you progress in your teaching, you would be repeating these words / number so many times, hence i am not rigid with number of sessions i do, I can tell when she learnt what she saw, when she shows interest.

Also i try to club encylopdia/reading sessions together, that is when i show the picture i also the words hence in this way i killing 2 birds in one stone. Hence to summarize instead of doing 3 sessions of each in encylopedia / maths / reading, that is 3 +3 + 3 = 9 sessions, i just do 2 sessions where each session is a combination of all 3 hence bringing it down to 2 sessions rather than 9 sessions, and believe my daughter has learnt it this way right from birth (no jokes). It would drive me crazy and stressfull to do 9 short sessions. Hence i just do quick sessions as my daughter can sit with long sessions. I guess she got use to it since birth. But yes there are times that she just looks at few BITs and done with it, then in such situation i would continue with that BIT later during the day or may be next day.

If it's on the weekend then the best time, i do it with my daughter is in the morning after her breakfast, after her nap and evening

Hence this how i manage doing it in short, But yes, there are times that i dont teach her anything for months as they are priorities at home/work, and hence at those times, i just put her on some educational DVDs from "BumbleeBee DVDs", and also as i spend time with her i alway always emphasise speaking to her in short sentences, teaching her atleast one new word orally everyday, this ateast gives me a satisfaction that she learnt something. Also when creates a mess at home with her toys or eating, i'll get her envolved cleaning up the mess. Like eg. If her toys are all around the place, i get her picking up the toys by their names, so i would tell her get the teddy bear, then where is the blue fish, of where is the tall giraffe, hence in this way i am always using short sentences when talking to her, eventhough i am not formally teaching her BIT Cards. And she loves the clean up mess game. Even in the bath tub, i would point to all her parts of the body and believe she knows everypart of her body even her private parts, so this way i am always teaching her be it on / off glen's program.
Also there are times, i'll take her the laundary room and tell her put to the clothes in washer/dryer along with me and at times also name the clothes as i throw it for washing.

My personal experience, is to just enjoy what you do with a child, dont get stuck with the sessions counts you need to them, believe they are born genious. All you need is to create that environment for them and they will follow it. And also most important thing from all, ALWAYS GIVE CREDIT TO YOURSELF, for it is because of you, that your child has the environment.

The best part is, she attached the excel files she used to choreograph the teaching plan with her baby. Impressive! Anyone can download that, from this thread. [Reply #5]

Another thread worth reading is this one here about Daily Reading Schedule. You can download another excel file at reply #17 to have an idea how to schedule the words for your reading session. If you're new with Doman's method on how to teach baby to read, you can click here to find out more!

Welcome to joyous world of learning Mommiess.. All mothers are the best teachers in the world!