Working Parents - What's Your Teaching Routine Like?

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I am just curious - I am a working mother, and I would like to get some insight from all of you on how to balance my time between family and career.  I would, as much as possible, want to have the whole day to spend with my little boy, but seeing as that isn't the case, I do my best at the time when I am home. 

I read the Busy Parents' Guide in BrillBaby, and I gained much insight about the importance of spending time with my baby.  I have found myself using some of my work break time to download Infant Stimulation Cards and when I get home I have some fun showing them to Diego.

If you are a working parent, what is your home teaching routine like?  I am very interested to learn, since I am looking forward to teaching my baby.

Thanks for reading!

[KL]

For me (I'm a dad), I spend time every morning and every night with my daughter, and every Sunday we go swimming and other things.  As much as I can, I would (mostly together with Mom) read her to sleep at night.  Sometimes, she would go on the computer with me and explore the new Little Reader categories. She really loves the paintings sets uploaded by Martina (pupisek)! And really enjoying the new stories too!  Mom takes care of her the rest of the day!

[tina]

For me, I spent my morning and evening on weekdays and weekends for my baby!

In the morning, I will watch the tweedlewink DVD with her, and some books reading.  In the evening, it's more play time, and story time before bed!
For weekends, we go to music class on Sat and swimming on Sunday.  For the rest, we just play together!  My baby likes to play with me and she wants me to be there with her!

[joeycsy]

for me,if my baby wake up early then I will show her brillkids.then once i reach home from work and dinner about 9,again i will show her flash card,books or some DVD-teach your baby read,chinese program etc.sing some nursery rhythms with her before bedtime.

sometimes after let her sleep,I still need to wakeup for my housework till12+.Is exhausted too..hehe.
during weekend,will bring her out for shop or play the burble in the playground with her. :yes:she like it so much.

[mtb999]

I would love to be a stay at home parent, but can't.  All the methods I've read aren't particularly time intenstive but need to be spread through the day.
How are your children responding to the education you're giving them?

[linzy]

I work 70-80 hours a week, with very erratic shifts.  What we try to do when I have a semblance of a normal schedule is:
Pick up my son from his pre-school
Have a little snack
Then sit at the computer and do word flash cards on little reader
If attention permits we then do some math on little math
Read some books
Play a game (i.e Hi Ho cherry-O, chutes and ladders, lucky duck, etc)
Watch a movie/show (Little Einsteins, word factory, math circus, YBCR, Handy Manny)
Draw a little,play doh or work on tracing work book
Of course we eat in there wherever it fits and he usually helps me cook on a little chair next to the stove
As it gets close to bedtime we usually read for a while and then he's off to sleep
We also will listen to Classical Magic in the background while playing

Hope that helps, we try to stay pretty busy, and of course we don't do everything every day.

[mtb999]

Thanks Linzy - sounds like your job is extremely busy!!  How long have you been doing your program for?  How is your son's learning progressing?  Are you able to give more specific info like - how long you spend on flash cards / math / reading / dvds etc?  Thanks again

[hafam]

We flash cards when our baby wakes up and just before sleep. We play classical music in the background whenever we can. We play Little Readers when we can as well, usually during weekend.

When we flash cards, we flash a few sets at the same time, if her attention permits.

We bought Wink to learn "Learning Chinese". Have not really played that one as we only started little more than a week ago for teaching English. After 2 more weeks, we will get our baby watch Learning Chinese twice a day as well, after breakfast and after dinner.

During the day she goes to childcare and we to work.

[purplefungi]

I work 13+ hour shifts every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I can show the boys LR at least twice a day when I am at home during the weekend. My husband can show Dirk (my oldest) LR when he is watching him.

I'm home for the remainder of the week so life probably is similar to that of a SAHM for the majority.

[jemjem]

HI GPJC,

I am also a working mom.  I'm an as400 programmer.  I do planning and prepare the lessons ahead.  Planning is really very important.  Preparing lessons before were very tedious.  Thanks to Little Math and Little Reader.  They made my teaching and planning easier.  I do teach numbers and equations using LM.  I also show the Little Reader.  I combined 5-6 categories (photoeyeplay - for visual stimulation; sight words; other categories) in one playlist so I only have to play it once. I also printed the Fleshcards from DadDude.  I do phonics reading to my toddler.  And he also likes sounding out the letters and how they are put together.  And once in a while I play Little Einsteins DVD.  He really likes Little Einsteins because it is full of music.

[Abu Hurayrah]

Dear GPJC,

I am a very busy working father and help my wife with typing Arabic and making audio sound clips for her that she uses to create .ppt/Little Reader files.   

I speak to my children in Arabic and play little games with them a few times a day.  I also read to them from a few Arabic children's books that we have, and Arabic LR/.ppt sets.  I wish I could do more, and help my wife as much as I can. 

I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that they are beginning to recongize the English words from the YBCR videos, books, and flashcards, and am excited about them learning Arabic also.  This has made me more dedicated in helping my wife create materials in the Arabic language.

- Abu Hurayrah

[heath]

HI, I am a fulltime working mom too.  With two kids, it's really getting impossible.  I usually get up around 4.30 nurse my little one, then pump , exercise, pack lunches and bags. My older one get's up by 7.30, I get him ready. Drop them at day care and am at work by 8.30.  Leave work at 5.30pm.  Go home, cook  and I usually have time to show 1 LR and 1 LM session once (you don't know how many times, I thanked KL for LM, it made my life so much easier).  We play, listen to music and by 10 we are in bed with a book.  Some days we don't do any.
Sometimes I feel bad that I am not able to show them each session three times. But I tell myself that something is better than nothing.  I don't know if they are learning anything or not.  But, I am doing my best.
When I read/see videos about all your kids reading I feel bad and want to stay at home, but the world is not perfect...

[hafam]

HI Health

No the world is not perfect but you have done very well. You should be prowd of yourself. I have 1 baby and feel so busy already, can't even imagine what with 2 babies. And my husband helps a lot.

Good on you.

[linzy]

Yes my job is busy, but although it is long hours I do get some down times at work.  Having a little down time at work lets me be more active at home. 

We've been doing our physical program with our son since birth. He was a confident walker at 9 months! Our math and reading programs have been since about 12 months.  We were quite serious with the program when my son was roughly 18 months and he could recognize many words (using strictly Doman/Titzer methods). But then lives got busy and I got behind in showing cards. Unfortunately I didn't keep up with showing him those words he knew and many of them were words he did not encounter regularly and he seems to have lost the ability to recognize them.

Now that we have little reader it is easy to stay on top of making cards, and our schedule is more reliable. We are mainly focusing on reading right now. For the word flash cards we do anywhere from 1 to 3 sets of 6-10 words a day.  We have moved to more of a phonics method as he is older and was starting to sound out words on his own. The cards we do on little reader are words that can be easily sounded out.  For category ideas we've used DadDude's Fleshcards and also words from our own books that follow the same rules.  My son is definately making progress and he can sound out about 25% of the words we are currently working with (more if I sound them out for him). After we do the cards we read as a reward.  I like to read one of the Bob Books that reinforces the same rule as the cards we did.  I have him try to read the book himself with me filling in words he stumbles over. After that I usually read one or two fun books that are quite over his reading level, but I follow under the words with my finger and let him fill in any words he knows. We also read again before bed, occasionally on request in the morning (time allowing) and on the weekends before naps.

For math we spend a lot of time just counting for fun.  For example I say one, then he says two, I say three, etc...We show at least one little math slide show a day. He loves Hi Ho Cherry-O and that works on counting, addition and subtraction (there are a total of ten apple on each tree to pick, you can pick up to four, dogs and birds make you subtract two...)We tried the doman math method and did not have great results so now we are more focused on rote counting, simple addition/subtraction and one-to-one correspondence.

As far as DVD's/TV shows usally he gets one in the morning while he is waking up and drinking his cup of milk and then one when he gets home from school.

The other thing we try to do daily is a tracing book so that he can learn pencil control for writing.

[helenadrian]

HI All,


I am a working mom and my son is 13 months now. i spend about 30 mins to do some flash cards, ppt on computer and a book or 2 every morning.

then when i leave to work, my helper shows him 30 mins DVD. my son gets to watch another 30 mins DVD at lunch and dinner time. My son's grandmother comes in after lunch and show him some chinese flashcards and books in the afternoon.

when i get back home, i play with him and do some flashcards, brillkids, books, dot cards...etc.

weekends, we do nothing about reading and spend most of our time outdoor.

Daddy only plays with him. 

i think it's alright but i guess it's better for him to go out more. what do you think?

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