I'd like to agree with Kat on this too. I found a big part of the time issue (and I'm a full-time working mom with a toddler and a newborn) was not the sessions but being organized. Once I got organized I could actually do all the sessions easily. And the shorter the sessions the longer I held my baby's attention.
So first I got all my equations planned out - I have a link to my math equation schedule in another post which you can download and use if you like. Then every night before going to bed I would organize which cards I"m going to use and lay them out standing up with dividers between each set.
I chose to use the diapering area because when I tried to do the cards in other parts of the house I always got interrupted - by my toddler or my husband or the TV was too loud and it was distracting my daughter.... the only private place that no one ever interrupts is the changing area. Anyhow, I know that even though I'm working everyday - I still change her at least once before I go to work, and once when I get home and several times through the evening. So I always did a quick set at the end of diapering.
This is now a routine and my daughter really enjoys it. Now that we've been doing this for about 2 months she starts cooing and smiling and trying to talk when I lay her down on the changing area. Her little arms and legs start kicking. I sing her a nursery rhyme or talk to her as much as I can while I am changing her and then at the end I do a quick set. I have my equations hanging on the wall and so I just check them off at the end. And it's done!
Sometimes if my daughter was hungry or tired she would start to fuss when I started to show the cards and then I would stop right away. But she does that less and less now - and actually now I have found times when she has fussed and acted like she needed a diaper change when in fact she was dry - but when I laid her down to check - she stopped fussing and was happy - so I can only guess this is her way of telling me she wants to do a set.
It really is a lot of fun. So some days don't always work out perfectly and I might only get 2 sets of quantity in or maybe 2 sets of equations. I figure that it's ok and she won't lack for it - kids get absent from school sometimes and miss info and always get caught up. So I do my best and try to be consistent and if I can't get it all in in one day that's ok. The only thing I did do different than Doman suggested was to do 10 dot cards at a time and shuffle them each time so that I showed 3 sets of 10 and then 3 sets of 3 equations - so a total of 6 math sets. But if I felt that I was losing her attention I would stop. Oh and I made the math program a priority and slowed down on starting the reading only because I know that there is a time issue with starting the math but not the reading.
Hope this helps!
Digg
