Recording maths explanations for the evenings I'm on call. Has this worked for anyone longer term?

sage_sketch_707818 Aug 2026

In my on-call weeks I'm often not home until after my daughter is asleep. Our caregiver is wonderful with her but can't help with class 6 maths, and this term is decimals and fractions, where she gets stuck on one step and then just sits there. So I've started recording short voice notes the night before: two or three minutes on the type of sum she'll probably get, worked through slowly. She plays them on the caregiver's phone when she's stuck. Two weeks in, it helps on some days. On others she waits for me to get home instead. Has anyone kept something like this going for a whole year? Did it hold up, or did the child stop listening once the novelty wore off?

1 comment

mint_window_784118 Aug 2026
My son is only in UKG, but I have the opposite problem. I am at home with him all day, but my English is not strong, so when his homework has English sentences I cannot always explain. His father records small videos on the phone before leaving for work and my son watches them with me. It works when the video is short. Long ones he stops after a minute.
- sage_sketch_707820 Aug 2026
  Short is the lesson I'm taking from this too. My first notes were five minutes and she skipped through them; the two-minute ones get listened to. I like that your son watches with you. I've asked our caregiver to sit with her while a note plays, even though she can't follow the maths, and that seems to keep her at the table.