BabyMum-
Alex has done really, really well with the Memorize in Minutes material because the stories are so cute! In the very beginning, I tried to go slowly and make sure she could do on the RS abacus what she was memorizing...but she just wanted to get on with it
I did do demos with her on the abacus the first time we read each story, and she does see it as repeated addition (yes, I know some will disagree strongly with this, and we have taught her that it works that way for whole numbers
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Occasionally during a math playtime, I will have her show me on the abacus the multiplication, but really, that will come in time if you didn't strictly check understanding as you taught. My kid just always wants to know the why of it......
I also have the Times Tales material that my mom sent, but, as MandaB said, they are far more complicated. Even the pictures themselves are more complicated! Since this is a very RB way of learning them, I also had her close her eyes to visualize the pictures (and to re-tell the stories to me!). I can't imagine she would have learned as fully or cohesively with a DVD, even if the stories/pictures were more enticing... But again, that could be due to her age.
Also, as we did the reading of the stories, it was cuddle time/reading time with mom, which I think she learns from much faster (of course, that too is a RB way of teaching, so they go hand-in-hand)
One thing I did do: since I started these with Alex just after age 2.5, I showed her the number association cards several times over the course of a week. I wanted to make sure she didn't struggle to associate, but I am not sure this was strictly necessary-but it did make the process flow a bit better for us!
Digg
