About 1000 cards now. We do it daily. It's often just a few cards per day, so it takes 1-5 minutes.
Spelling is the biggest category. I record myself saying a word that I've seen him spell wrong. The answer is the written word.
Many of his old life-memories are saved. A picture of a playground he loved, where we used to live. A frame from a movie he liked. Asking for the name of the hero in a book he loved. Anki makes him recognize these things, which keep his memories of them alive. Often ilicits an "Oh yeah!" nostalgia.
Recognizing countries on the map is not trivial. On the playground, he met a kid from Syria. He asked the boy if he lived closer to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, or Lebanon. My jaw dropped, but the boy was touched and yelled, "Mom! He knows where it is!" and they became friends (for the day). Other times he'll decide out of the blue that he wants to know more about Azerbaijan or some other country that he only knows by shape.
The rest, he's just really proud to know. A kid at school says the moon is a million miles away. He was proud to know the more accurate distance. He wants to know the actual distance to the beach from our house, instead of just "takes forever".
> About 1000 cards now. We do it daily. It's often just a few cards per day, so it takes 1-5 minutes.
1000 cards over 5-6 years is 160-200 per year, so on average less than one a day. Did you start out slow and increased the pace as he grew, or is it more of chunking (e.g. add a few cards per day for some days, then just review for days before adding more)?
I'm sure whatever approach you did was organic and not planned the way I'm writing it, but am curious how it actually evolved.
> Recognizing countries on the map is not trivial. On the playground, he met a kid from Syria. He asked the boy if he lived closer to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, or Lebanon.
OK, this is beyond simply recognizing the country from its shape. How did he encode what the neighboring countries are?
When learning the countries, does the card show only the outline of that country, or is it more like a map with all countries, and the one under review is highlighted? If the latter, then it makes sense.
> The rest, he's just really proud to know. A kid at school says the moon is a million miles away. He was proud to know the more accurate distance.
Psst... Everyone knows it's 300,000 km away.
<checks>
OK, fine. I memorized it wrong as a kid. Need to add it to my Anki deck ;-)
That map of the globe is what we use as the front of the card
He sees that and knows the answer is Syria.
But because we also do that for the other countries around it, he knows Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, etc. He knows where that country is, in context of its neighbors.
We have some little mnemonics to remember things like, "I packed my bags in Pakistan. After that, Afghanistan. Then Iraaaan all the way til I hit a rock in Iraq."
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Spelling is the biggest category. I record myself saying a word that I've seen him spell wrong. The answer is the written word.
Many of his old life-memories are saved. A picture of a playground he loved, where we used to live. A frame from a movie he liked. Asking for the name of the hero in a book he loved. Anki makes him recognize these things, which keep his memories of them alive. Often ilicits an "Oh yeah!" nostalgia.
Recognizing countries on the map is not trivial. On the playground, he met a kid from Syria. He asked the boy if he lived closer to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, or Lebanon. My jaw dropped, but the boy was touched and yelled, "Mom! He knows where it is!" and they became friends (for the day). Other times he'll decide out of the blue that he wants to know more about Azerbaijan or some other country that he only knows by shape.
The rest, he's just really proud to know. A kid at school says the moon is a million miles away. He was proud to know the more accurate distance. He wants to know the actual distance to the beach from our house, instead of just "takes forever".