Early Learning For 9 Month Old - .:Early Learning Community:.

My biggest advice is, don't try to do too much at once! It's wonderful to think about all the things you want to do, but it can be paralyzing to try to start too many right away.

So you're starting with reading, LR and reading aloud. That's fabulous! Keep it up!

The things I would recommend looking into at that age are math, physical excellence, encyclopedic knowledge, foreign language, and music. Math is almost as foundational as reading. Physical excellence can assist in learning everything else. And babies' brains are incredibly receptive to EK, language, and music.

I will give you lots of initial ideas about these areas; DON'T try to start them all at once! Pick ONE that seems interesting and try it for a week or two. If it fits your schedule easily, add another. And these ideas are only the tip of the iceberg; once you read them and choose one to focus on, post in the specific area you're interested in to find out more and/or search the archives; there have been lots of threads on all of these topics in the past few years. That will allow you to get a better sense of how to start incorporating it.

If you can afford Little Math, it's an easy way to get some math started, but just like you have to read aloud to have LR work, and you can teach a child to read without LR, you must make math a part of daily life for LM to have any effect, and you can do it without LM. The basic thing at this age is familiarity with numbers and quantities. "Look! I gave you three cheerios. Now you're eating one cheerio. There are two cheerios left on your plate." Or "You have two cuddly toys. One is a llama and one is a giraffe. One and one is two." That kind of thing. My goal right now is to talk math as many times a day as I read. My long-term goal is to spend equal amounts of time talking math and reading, but that will take lots of practice. Some theories suggesting counting, some de-emphasize counting; we count a lot. We hang from the monkey bars and count down from twenty to zero before letting go. We count while we're waiting for things. (This is me and my two year old counting together, but my seven month old is being addressed and we interact with her while we're counting.) Count forwards and backwards.

Can you get a copy of "How Smart is Your Baby?" or "How to Teach Your Baby to be Physically Superb," maybe from the library? Those have all the details of a Doman physical excellence program. Otherwise, encourage moving, give lots of time on the floor, emphasize crawling even after your baby learns to stand. Any sort of moving through the air, like holding Baby while you dance around or clean, will improve balance. If you have a dowel mounted somewhere like in a doorway, teach Baby to hang from it.

EK can be taught through LR; download free files from the download section of this site.

Foreign language: if you speak one, speak it! Otherwise, you can use CDs and DVDs; you can search for recommendations or start a post in the "Teach your child - signing, speaking, other languages" area asking for ideas for the language you want. I bet there are LR files in the download section too. Or just label everything in your house using a foreign dictionary and talk about things with the new words. It's a start.

Music, well, there's nothing like LMs. But if you can't afford it right now, play music and sing along. Buy Tamsyn's Solfege Train and teach yourself Moveable Do, if your language has letter names for the notes. When you know how to read music with Moveable Do, you can plunk out any tune on that plastic xylophone I bet someone gave your baby and sing along in Solfege. Use LR files, again.

And don't be overwhelmed! You are embarking on a wonderful, fun journey. You don't have to teach everything right now. Take it slow, have fun together, focus on how much you can expose your child to without worrying about the results. One bit of early learning is better than none, so be thankful for every bit you do. It will be amazing for you and your child.

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