Offer her a choice between two very similar vegetables. Do you want sweet potato or carrots? Beans or peas. Spinach or chard. Etc.

Toddlers like to express their autonomy and test limits. Food can quickly become a power struggle if you let it. As long as it's clear that she must eat some vegetable but that she has the choice (between two you're okay with) she should have fewer issues.

I have to say his work is impressive for a child his age.

Image thoughtlessly stolen via google images. (http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/amazing-paintings-by-six-year)

Between Nestle and Heinz, I would choose Heinz simply because Nestle is decidedly unethical. As for the quality of product they are likely identical.

One inch should be plenty large enough for a child that age. Have you had his vision checked?

If his eyes are fine, maybe it's the jump from 3" words to 1" words. Try making a few words that are in between and see if they work better. I believe a 150pt font is 2" tall (I could be mistaken).

Yes, he is walking. Almost as soon as he started crawling, he started pulling up to standing. Shortly after he was walking around the furniture, and then started creeping. And for the last couple of weeks he's been walking if he has something in his hands that won't fit in his mouth. If he's playing with something small he puts it into his mouth and creeps across the room. He creeps very quickly now.

I am not looking forward to chasing him once he figures out running.

We did not start with cereal: we started with table food. But oatmeal is a good starter cereal. I have no idea what brands are available there though, sorry.

That's quite ingenious. I wonder how much it would cost to contract him to redo an entire apartment building similarly? That would certainly improve many of the apartments near me.

I outlined what we're doing in another post. (http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/minimum-methods-for-maximum-of-benefit/msg54331/#msg54331)

Basically one language per day with as much immersion as possible.

I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it. as long as you're consistent.

I have read both HSIYB (we own it as well) and HTTYBT Be Physically Superb. The former is only relevant for the first year (longer if you did not follow the program from birth), and the latter covers the first 6 years.

In terms of equipment, it's pretty much all optional except the money bars (brachiation ladder) and most playgrounds have them.

Any smooth floor works instead of a track (you cannot, however, incline the floor), Not that I regret building one, it just was used much less than I expected. Zed is 7 (and a half) months now and walking.

There are two intermediary steps between thumbs and a full-size brachiation ladder. I haven't found either necessary. We went from thumbs to the jungle gym outside. We're at the stage that he can hang by himself and swing back and forth very gently. I'm actually surprised by this because he's a big boy.

The other equipment suggested is a balance beam (could easily just be marked out on the floor with masking tape) and a trapeze (which I don't remember the point of except the kid might like it)

Most of the program is details of how much of each activity the child should do before moving onto the next. So many yards of crawling before creeping; so many yards of creeping before walking. Once the child is running the plan is to work up to a 3 mile run every morning. There are also balance activities. Those that are explained in HSIYB plus active balance (tumbling, jumping, etc) for when the child is capable of performing them.

We think it will be worth it to get the Physically Superb book in a few months, but for now we're still in HSIYB and there's no sense in having another book sitting around collecting dust.

Hope this helps Ouroboros1.

I'm leaning towards the Charlotte Mason approach for Zed. It has everything we're looking for: it's intense, diverse and yet still leaves a lot of room for physical activity and getting out in the world in general. I've been reading the curriculum on Ambleside Online (http://www.amblesideonline.org/index.shtml) and the only part I disagree with is how late Mason proposes one start educating a child. She recommends waiting until the child is 6 or older.

Based on his current development, Zed will be 4 at the latest when he's ready for year 1. And that assumes he starts developing at a slightly below average rate, rather than continuing at his current rate. If he starts reading earlier, we may start very young, but we're likely going to start year 0 the January after he turns 3.

As with most curricula, this one is not year-round. It is 36 weeks divided into trimesters. We plan on taking a week off after every trimester, and an extra week between years. Hopefully this isn't too rigorous. It means that we can send him to "real school" (like his grandmothers would like) for grades 9-12 after completing 11 or 12 years of homeschooling. In advanced placement or IB classes likely.

We are doing the Physically Superb program, but my boy is only 7 months old, so I'm no help.

TmS Great idea about standing on uneven surfaces.

2010BEBES: try this link www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/chts_boys_p.pdf for some reason the url is adding "http://" twice.

The World Health Organization has growth charts as well.  (Boys percentiles [pdf 10.57Mb] ) So you can look up his percentiles yourself. If I'm not mistaken he's around 97th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for height. Which is healthy, he's just a big boy. Mine is 72cm and 8.86 kilos.

What do you mean by crawl? On the belly, like an army crawl, or on hands and knees which Doman calls creeping?

When Zed was doing his superman thing, he would still [belly] crawl in a crawling track. However it was almost 2 months between then and when he started creeping.

We did not help him at all. We put him on the floor on his tummy and gave him some things to go towards. We often just put nesting cups in a row one every foot or so, with the biggest one closest to him. He wouldn't be able to see any other until he picked one up, then he could see the next one a foot away. He would drop the one he had and move on.

It is not on the chart.

"Vital release" is 1 month (superior), 2.5 months (average) and 5 months (slow). The next stage is "Prehensile grasp" at 3.5, 7 and 14 months. After that is "Cortical opposition" (AKA pincer grasp) at 6, 12 and 24 months.

Voluntary release, I think, develops with the prehensile grasp, or shortly after. I don't ever remember Zed picking things up and not dropping them at will.

HTH