Aangeles and Nadia, can you share your right brain activities?

[arvi]

Though I have read a ton about right brain training and the associated activities, I have not started doing it for my son. It is because I am overwhelmed with the task of creating so many cards and finding additional resources. How do you guys do it? Aangeles, you mentioned in one of your posts that you do 1-1.5 hrs of right brain activities. Do you create all the materials in advance? Do you keep changing them frequently to keep the activities fresh?

Btw, have you guys done the Wink overview course?

[nadia0801]

Hi Arvi! I know what you mean, it is overwhelming to create materials, research curricula, prepare manipulatives, etc! That's why we do away with programs or parts of programs that requires much preparations. Most of the right-brain activities that we do includes rapid-flashing of custom lessons in LR and imagination "trips" from Wink (we don't do the after-imaging because Cammie is full of drama and she said she's afraid of the after-image she is seeing). I haven't also begun mandalas and Magic-Eye with her.

In my opinion, the most important right-brain training she's receiving from me is how I engage her in imaginative conversations. For example, after we went to the mall, I will let her re-live her experience, make her try to remember the sights, sound, smell, and her feelings. Even in studying math, we rarely use pen and paper. I let her solve math problems using her imagination. She actually prefers this over having to write equations because at her age, she finds handwriting boring and tedious. Imagining how the beads move (anzan) and the integers change their signs is more "enjoyable" to her.

We have very very little time to study so our method works for us. I don't have much time to sit with her because I do all the housechores and so I just talk to her in this "right-brain way" almost all day. Thanks for listening

[lzp11]

Nadia - thank you for that reply, it is really fascinating to hear.
It makes me feel quite excited and relieved to realise that many right brained activities do not require expensive or very time consuming preparations.  We also have very limited time - I am so amazed to hear how much you have achieved with limited time!  You must truly be working smart 
Anyhow, I love the idea of visualisations 'on the go'.  We can do them in the car, whilst walking, whilst transitioning from one activity to another.  I need to get creative and start working this into our daily routine along with some mindfulness and awareness activities which I think will compliment each other really well.

[Mandabplus3]

We do our visualizations quite often during their story book read. As i have 3 kids only 2 really fit well in a snuggle while looking at the pictures and words. The third child ( which we rotate) sits at the end of the bed/couch and visualises the story. We stop here and their to compare book pictures with mind pictures.
It is quite easy to do this if you are already reading novels. It's just a case of asking questions to encourage a deeper more specific mind image. Encourage them to imagine smells and sounds too. My kids have no trouble imagining smells but sounds they find more difficult.
I also have them imagine in their heads any funny stories they are telling each other. Comments like " oh i can picture that expression on Jenny face! Giggle" or " can you see how Kelly would react to that?" and I close my eyes for a second to encourage them to create the image.
Same with cooking. On the way home I might say " I made you some lovely chocolate muffins today, they smell......" then pause, smell and sigh. Works every time
So Cammie is afraid of her own mind?  So very cute. The good news is in order to actually be Adair of the images she must actually be able to see them fairly well. Does she have a special interest? Flowers, fairies, a rainbow? You could try using imaging cards for something she loves, but i would say she will get past it in her own good time anyway.

[aangeles]

Arvi,

We don't do our right brain activities as a whole block for 1.5 hours a day. We split it up into many sessions throughout the day, and that is just my estimate of the total amount of time we spend on them for the day. I would typically squeeze in short RB activities in between her "school work" (handwriting, spelling, math, etc) to balance out the left-brain tendencies of her lessons. She also likes these short RB interludes since she treats them as playing, fun, and games. I think they refresh her mind and sort of resets her attention span.

I also did not have a lot of time to do research, prepare materials, or plan our curriculum until recently, when I took a long sabbatical from work. It was a very difficult choice for me to make given the nature of my career, but I felt I had to make it, because I couldn't do everything I wanted to do for Ella in the short time (2-3 hours at most) that I had with her after coming home from work. I am very fortunate in that my hubby fully supported my decision and that we are financially able to do it. Which is why I am now doing everything I can to collate materials, finish preparing stuff, and plan curricula in advance before I use up my leave and have to go back to work full-time.

As for my "research" into RB education, I really have not done much of it myself, heheh, because another forum member, Shen-Li, has done it all for us and has very generously shared all her knowledge in her blog. If you haven't come across her wonderful, very well-organized blog chock-full of RB research, list of resources/materials, and suggestions for home activities for busy moms, you really should go over and read it. Really! She is probably a hundred times more knowledgeable about this topic than anybody else on this forum!

Here is a quick link to her page on RB education: http://www.figur8.net/articles/right-brain-education/

As for the specific RB activities that we do, here is a list. We don't do all of them everyday, but I do try to rotate the activities around so she doesn't tire of them.

1. Eye Exercises and Photoeyeplay
2. Rapid Flashing
3. Linking Memory
4. Space Memory or Memory Grid
5. Photographic Memory (both visual and auditory) and Observation Training
6. Mental Imaging - we do this both as a purely imaging activity and as part of our "school work," specifically anzan and geography. She loves visualizing and imagining the sights, sounds, and smells of all the places we are learning about in geography.
7. Mandalas
8. Tangrams
9. Puzzles and Building Toys
10. RB Ipad Apps

The only things I haven't done much of are Magic Eye and ESP Games because, surprisingly, I've found that we currently have more than enough RB activities and it is really quite easy to do an hour or so's worth of them - and I am not even counting reading, listening to classical music, and perfect pitch activities!

Hope this helps! 

[A_BC]

Thank you ladies for sharing your experience. I would also like to know if anyone used the wink program and memory magic software. If yes, when did you start and how did you adapt the material to your tots? Also, are there any iPad apps that are equivalent to these programs?

[aangeles]

Yes, we are using both Wink and Memory Magic, among other RB programs. We started Wink when Ella was 3.5 or so, and Memory Magic a little after that. I didn't have to adapt it much as she was already able to follow the instructions and play the games at that point. The recommended age for Wink is 4 and I have heard Wennie of RB kids say that it is not advisable to start any earlier than 3.5 to 4 as the Wink activities are designed for older kids and adults who have bridged over to the left brain already, and if used too early, especially Memory Train or Linking Memory, will actually cause the child to bridge and shorten the period of their right-brain absorbent state. The activities in Memory Magic are pretty similar to some components of Wink, so I would imagine the age recommendation applies for MM as well.

[A_BC]

Thanks a lot Aangeles! So I think I'll stick to my homemade LR presentations à la Tweedlewink, LM, puzzles, tangrams, mandalas, relaxation, and few other games suggested by Shen-Li. I think this will be good enough for the coming 2 years

[arvi]

Thank you all for sharing your ideas. Nadia, I like your imaginative conversations on the fly... I will try this as it seems very much doable. Aangeles, I had forgotten about ShenLi's blog and thanks for reminding it.

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