Looks like I have a lot to digest, thank you much everyone! I love this place and shutter to think where I'd be without it...
Very cool! I wonder how did you know to do these vocalizations with your son? I will definately do the same when we have another.
I'll address this further on down in more depth. The whole thing started with
"Brain Rules for Baby" by John Medina. It was next up on my queue to read when nee1 sent me a quote from it...
What books are you reading to him? I've just been using simple board books but I think I might change to rhyming text.... Are you using music yet? Are there any resources you have found useful for EC?
I'm such a rookie... before PokerCub was born, we bought loads of books and now have several hundred. After learning about Priddy Board books from DadDude, I made sure to accumulate a lot of those. My wife stocked a basket full of them adjacent to our nursing lazyboy - and on day one I realized those, while simple picture & word, are actually too advanced. So I've shifted gears from simple picture board books (of which I have plenty) to more read-a-loud type of books.
My favorite are Curious George books. I don't think PokerCub has a preference yet - except I've found "
Curious George Visits the Zoo" to be just about perfect for where we're at. The story is shorter than a typical George book, there are large pictures that take up the entire page and maybe one or two sentences per picture; my copy says it's adapted from the film series and the pictures look like that way. Incidentally and perhaps one reason I'm favoring the George stories, is that I have a little song I sing before each George story that I stole from the film (cartoon) series back in the 80s when I watched as a child - you can youtube search for the old clips and hear the intro song(s) they use - I think the singing is more for me to get in the proper mood than anything else, but hey... one book we've read countless times is "
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes" lap board book - this one is so simple that now I repeat it verbatim without the book as almost a little nursery rhyme. I've also read some Dr. Suess books to him, and can remember one morning where I was sort of stuck in the chair with him and not wanting to get up, reading "
There's a Wocket in my Pocket" about 10 times straight; and so that one is also one of favorites and I can nearly recite it from memory. We have other books such as Goodnight Moon, etc - but I haven't gotten as diligent in my reading yet to really incorporate more than a handful of books. I do remember early on I'd read him a Disney's version of Three Little Pigs and he seemed to enjoy that one more than I thought he would.
As for music, we listen to a lot of music. Right now, mostly Mozart (Symp 40 & 41 in particular) & Vivaldi (Spring, etc). His aunt just so happen to give us a Baby Einstein Mozart toy that has the same songs on it, and he likes that. One time I was listening to Giorgio Moroder's "Chase" and tapping PokerCub's left hand with the snare beat and bouncing him to the rhythm like a dance.... even if I did nothing, he'll have a knack for music I think, but of course I plan on doing a whole lot more than nothing, ha ha.
With EC, we're only doing the "E" part and not the "C" part yet. We're doing traditional diapering with EC and not EC with diapering as of yet. I think there's a difference in which method you're relying mostly on. Having said that, I found "
Infant Potty Training" to be quite comprehensive. Though, the things I read months before he was born are just some background knowledge now. It seems to me to be an undertaking of experience. Another resource I've found is the EC forum:
http://www.mothering.com/community/f/227/elimination-communicationFirstly your wife is right on board! She is quite open to it all, and I believe is already seeing the benefits
What's interesting is that I find my wife has begun to imitate a few of the things that I do. For example, the vocal game play, she's started to doing vowel sounds with him on her own. Another example I caught her doing this morning - so I've somewhat begun to do labeling and I told her yesterday how when I imitate Cooper making a fist like he does constantly, that I showed him my hand outstretched and said "HAND" and then close it and said "FIST" and repeated this a few times. This morning, I see my wife with a block from a set we bought yesterday and one side of the block is green, the other red... and she starts flashing one side to him and then the other right in his face saying "GREEN.... RED.... GREEN.... RED".... I admit that I cracked a smile. Now that's not to say that she's totally on board. She's finally admitted that EC'ing so far has had its benefits but absolutely refuses to put him on a potty even after poor little PokerCub peed all over her
twice the other day during a diaper change. I can't explain her aversion other than to just chalk it up to perhaps coprophobia... and I wonder what the heck she was planning on doing when he turned 2 anyway.... we also have her dogmatic belief in some of the current education philosophy that I disagree with - but I have a few years before we need to cross those bridges.
You really could consider some music EL starting now. Perfect pitch, nursery rhymes ( key work rhyme!) and classical for music appreciation could fit in nicely..plus you might get to ditch the Christmas tree song
I hadn't really thought of starting music just yet. I think this is a good idea and I'm going to look into it. Do you folks think it's too early for Little Musician? I've started whistling more instead of "singing" tunes. I'm far better at whistling on tune. He's taken to that, and I can shift from the Christmas Tree song to some of the bits from Mozart or Vivaldi that we listen to - and he seems to like it. Though, he can't quite figure out how those sounds are being made when he watches me do it :-)
As for the visualization cards, we started those his first few weeks but I stopped when it seemed he could look at regular pictures. I think this was a mistake, so today I've pulled out the cards and am using them again.
Have you seen the reviews and research on the Music math system? The research is quite interesting, designed for ages birth-2. I purchased it after WaterDreamer reviewed it, although Alex was already nearly two. I wish It had been available when she was younger.
I'm on the website now & WD's blog post about it and will certainly look into this. Thank you!
Hope you've recorded these advancements in his baby book.
Now you've given me ideas to implement with my next baby. My question - the vocalisation you did, was it based on Fowler's 'Talking from Infancy' or Doman's 'How Smart is your Baby'? I intend to follow Fowler's program fully from birth with my next baby. Your thoughts?
I'm documenting in a little journal and on the blog. I'm guessing I'll put together a book at 6mos, 1yr, 2yr, .... etc. We've done his birth one.
As for vocalizations, yes, I'm planning on following Fowler's progression. At this age he talks about vocal game play and turn taking. The only thing I'm doing differently is that I'm purposely trying to use actual sounds that he'll have to master to speak English. Fowler mentions that the whole point of this phase is for the baby to practice sounds needed to speak the language. I took that to mean that perhaps in our turn-taking, my turn should be more directed and purposeful. Hence the vowel sounds I started with on day 1 and am continuing up through now. That's quite a bit of repetition. In general my goal is to follow Fowler's plan through the whole way and add in written text in a few weeks and throughout along with all the other EL goodies that we have today (which Fowler never touched on in his language program).
I've started gathering up objects to use in socio-drama and some of his other activities as listed in the book... so getting ready for the good stuff and can't wait!
nee1, I'm also interested in which program to use. I'm currently reading HSIYB. can you point me in the direction of a summary of Fowler's program as I can't find a copy of the book for sale. Thanks
I have HSIYB and I admit that I'm falling short of the daily plans - actually almost the whole way short. Ouch. We're doing a lot of tummy time (advocated by Doman), crawling track but not as much decline as recommended - and I recall Doman's ideas for getting the baby to vocalize. That's the whole object of the game: get baby to vocalize however you can. I often say something and then ask "What does Cooper say?"... he'll often chime in with a sound or two! I think this is one of Doman's ideas. I also remember rhymes and having the baby fill in the missing rhyme (we haven't gotten to that yet).
As for a summary of Fowler or his book(s); the books are available at AMZN though out of print (early 90s) and therefore expensive. Actually very expensive (as in close to the price we pay for poker books sometimes - in excess of $100). Effectively, his program is for developing language and making it easier for a child to actually acquire language. We typically leave this to happen "naturally," and as could be expected this gives mixed results. So much of this natural acquisition actually works against itself (as discussed at great lengths in books such as Give Your Child a Superior Mind) so that one thing interferes with another making it difficult for a tabula rasa to distinguish and actually learn.
At the early stage, according to Fowler, the objective is to get the baby to vocalize and to assist by introducing sounds while turn-taking. That's the gist of this stage. His other stages are far more complex and in-depth, and I can try to summarize them in a later post (this one has taken me over 3 hrs due to PokerCub not wanting to take any sort of morning or noon (as of yet) nap!)
And then a special thanks to DadDude. Your compliment means a lot. You've done so much for your own kids, and through the power of the internet (ha ha) so much for countless other kids including PokerCub. I wouldn't even know about BK if not for you... so thanks again and am looking forward to more updates when you post them!
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