Wow!  This project is quite popular!  I'm very pleased, at this rate everyone will only have to contribute one country's images and we're done!

@seastar - We are thinking about swapping one of the countries on the list for Ireland, just for you     But we've got enough facts and anthems to for two of these courses, so there's always the possibility of having Ireland in a potential Country Course 2.

Just to clear some things out.  This is not a BrillKids official project and not at the same scale as the BrillKids courses.  We will not include voice recordings for all the slides, only the ones used in games.  We would love for all our slides to have multiple images, but we only guarantee one quality image per slide  (whereas BrillKids products often include 5 images.)  We have beautiful sound files for the anthems, but unfortunately no video whatsoever.  So this is just a  homemade community project, moms and dads who are already spread thin giving what time we have

I mentioned at one stage that team members are welcome to add and remove facts to the country categories they are working on (as long as there's still 20 researched facts in you category,)  but this is not what is expected of our team members.  The deal is, you receive a Little Reader file with 20 facts and you add at least one image (preferably more than one) to each of the 20 facts.

Keep the new members coming, we can't really have too many.

@Stodd, I am so sorry to say no.   The entire project is done in Little Reader.  You will be able to search for images to help us in that way, but then you will not really have anything to gain, except for images and documents with raw facts.  The reason we chose Little Reader (and not PowerPoint or something similar) is because of Little Reader's course builder - it really makes life easier.

I sent all our new members a PM, if I somehow missed you, please let me know.  If there's more people who'd like to join, please do, the more members the less work for all of us.

Looks like we've got a very good team!  I'll be contacting everyone shortly with some more info.

@E8080, you are more than welcome to make suggestions, we value everyone's ideas.  We pretty much know what's going into the course, we've got lists of facts ready and a bit of a course outline, but nothing is set in stone.  I'm also currently working on a prototype course that everyone in our team will immediately have access to, just so you can get excited with us and so we can improve on our current ideas.  The files that you will be working on will be your's to do with as you please, add or remove facts and pictures etc. as long as there's 20 researched facts each with a quality image.

[Outline of the Country Course:]

To all the Little Reader fans out there, wouldn't you just love a well put together course on countries, with picture flash, encyclopedic knowledge, anthems and games, covering 40 of the world’s well loved countries?  A small group of us would love to finish this course that we have been working on, but we need your help to make it happen.

Outline of the Country Course:
Countries: Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Greece, UK, Russia, China, India, Mongolia, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran,  Armenia, South Africa, Madagascar, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Canada, Greenland, USA, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand.
Picture Flash:  Flags, Currencies, Country Map Outlines, Country Locations, Landmarks, Capitals and Biggest Cities.
Encyclopedic Knowledge: 20 Researched facts on each country, including history, famous persons, nature, architecture, etc.  Each fact is displayed with at least one quality image.  (That is 800 facts!)
Anthems: The national anthem of each of these 40 countries, played while displaying one of many of the images associated with that country.
Games:  Match the correct flag, country outline or other iconic image to the country in question or the anthem being played.
Review:  Revision cycles are built into this course, the viewer will see new content  3 days in a row, then again a week later, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks and 16 weeks.  This course is designed to run over 160 days or about 32 weeks, but once you have the course, you can always tailor it to your specific needs.


Here is how you can be part of the team, gain access to all our content and to the Little Reader Country Course:

1.   Respond to this post saying you’re in.
2.   You will receive a Little Reader category file via email, it has a .cat extension.  Download the .cat file, open your Little Reader and double click on the .cat file to import it.
3.   The category will now be visible to you in Little Reader and will contain 20 facts without any pictures.  Double click on a fact to add pictures (at least one.)
4.   Search for images on the internet (http://www.sxc.hu/,  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page,  http://images.google.com/hosted/life)
5.   Images should be at least 800x600 dpi and thought should be put into the discussion possibilities of the chosen images with small children and the given fact in mind.
6.   Some images might require some form of standard editing, combining images*, adding arrows or labels, etc.
7.   Export the category and send it back to us via email.  (You’ll find the export tool under Little Reader’s tools tab.)
8.   Depending on the number of people on our team, you might be required to help add images to about 4 country fact categories, that is roughly 8 to 12 hours of your time spread over 6 months.
9.   If you don’t manage to finish a category withing 1 month of receiving it without any explanation, we will assume that you have lost interest and you will only have access to a smaller portion of the content. (You gain 25% of the course content for every category you complete.)
10.   This project is scheduled to be finished by the end of November 2013 and only team members will have access to the content and the course.

*One way of merging two images is to use PowerPoint.  Open PowerPoint and insert the images.  Re-size and crop images as needed. Save as .jpg – a file format accepted by Little Reader.

This is what the fact categories look like:
Brazil     http://user.brillkids.com/download_library/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=9349
China     http://user.brillkids.com/download_library/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=9396
Russia   http://user.brillkids.com/download_library/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=9399
Ukraine  http://user.brillkids.com/download_library/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=9416
Canada  http://user.brillkids.com/download_library/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=9417
India      http://user.brillkids.com/download_library/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=9419

So in short, you get 800 Encyclopedic Facts to present to your child in a memory aiding, systematic way, for the price of searching for 80 images on the net.

Kevin Trudeau (Mega Memory) suggests to his students to watch cartoons to get them thinking in an illogical fashion.  Sometimes ludicrous things are easier for the mind to remember and thinking up cartoonish situations is also a good brain exercise. 

Personally, I don't agree that TV (educational or otherwise) is good for the little ones, so it's like candy, I only allow a little bit.  I suppose if the child can learn from the TV viewing, it's a bonus, but too much is still harmful, even if it was all educational (so says Brain Rules for Baby).

One idea is to talk to your child about what you are seeing while viewing the cartoons, that will turn a passive experience into an active one.

Many children today still love the classic cartoons such as Micky and Bugs.

I never want my boy to feel like a complete outcast when among other kids, I wish for him to be able to relate to other kids.  His interests might be in car engines, human body systems and classical art, but his friend's might be spiderman, spungebob and star wars.  Somewhere they'll have to meet common ground or they might not feel interested in each other.

If you are teaching a foreign language, then maybe consider only allowing cartoon watching in the foreign language.

My boy's favorite animated films are Cars, WallE, Ice Age, Iron Giant, The Gruffalo and Gruffalo's Child.

Somebody said something about teaching their son to play drums the other day, so when I saw this little kid, I thought I'll post it:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/23n5icFvqf8&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/23n5icFvqf8&rel=1</a>

Looks like a lot of fun and great physical work out too.

I am Afrikaans, my hubby English.  The choices for languages Xhosa, Zulu, Spedi, Tswana and Sotho are because they are the most spoken languages in our country - South Africa - we often have contact with people who speak these languages, they are not dialects but are all related languages.  For the African languages, I'm in the process of creating 3000 slides in each language in LR, about a thrid of the work is already done, with professional voice recordings.  I'll gradually introduce these languages, with a little bit of help from native speakers.

For Chinese, Spanish and French I'm counting on BrillKids, we've only been doing LR Chinese since he turned 18 months, the other two I plan for the future.

Because my boy is using Afrikaans and English well, he understands Dutch and German too, and since Dutch and German are world languages and Afrikaans is not, I would like him to get exposure in them too.

I'm thinking of using Rosetta Stone for the European Languages.

English and Afrikaans are Wilhelm's primary languages and I only aim to introduce him to the other 10, I want him to understand it and have a foundation for later language development if he chooses to.

We also have an option of sending him to a French immersion school, we'll see...

I only speak English and Afrikaans, I've read and spoken to him in these languages from pregnancy.

10 is possible!  I think if you said something like 50 only then the BrillKids people will tell you to slow down.  It will definitely cost lots of hard work, and time for other learning areas might be very little, your time and hard work that is.  I admire you for taking on such a big challenge.  Personally, I'm only doing 4 (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Mandarin) at the moment (2 serious and 2 very mildly) but we're touching on many learning areas including History, Science, Geography, Biology, Maths, Music, Chess and many more.  My boy surely has more time in his day for learning (this type of learning in any case), but I'm the one not organized enough for it.  In the long run I want to introduce many more languages (Xhosa, Sotho, Spedi, Twana, French, Spanish, German, Dutch)  but I'm not aiming for fluency in any of them.  That's 12 languages!  True, you're doing a much better job, but we've got similar goals and you'll find many here on the forum do.

All the best!!

Thank you Kezia

Hello BrillKids Team,

I have some Little Reader category files I would like to share, but they make more sense when they are built into a course.  Can you make it possible for me to upload the lrc files instead of the cat files?  I mean, on the upload page, can you set the file format check to allow lrc files as well?   After all, the imported course can be deleted (if not wanted) and the category will still be there to use, but seen the other way around, looking at the category alone, how it was meant to be used might not be obvious without information on how the course looks like.

I also wouldn't mind allowance for slightly bigger files, I have many stuff I have not shared because I'm too lazy to split the file up before exporting and uploading individually, then I just never do it.

Kind regards,
Carla

It sounds like you are doing great!!  Keep in mind that many babies learn a lot from a program like LR, but they don't show you what they know.  For me it is the hardest part because it feels like my 2 year old has become an expert at showing me he has learnt nothing, yet there are times when he reads amazingly well, and recalls tons of facts and even does a bit of math and music.  He shares what he knows spontaneously, at the most unexpected times.  Some babies deliberately answer incorrectly to see what your response will be.  There are 8 month old babies who will point to the correct answers so maybe it's got more to do with you baby's personality than his age.

I'd say that you can play the games the way you've been doing or skip them all together (the games and phonics weren't always a part of LR, yet tons of babies learned to read with it.)

My son also didn't like any part of the program that didn't have pictures, same for the colors category, but I played them anyway.  Some days  we would go through them quickly, others I would really make an effort of clowning about and finding objects to mach the words etc, but he generally just looked the other way.     Much later on (maybe after 8 months using LR) he started to warm up to word flash and pattern phonics.

About 6 years ago, I wanted to have a baby very badly but my hubby wasn't too keen, so I just read a lot about the topic of raising children.  During that time I first found GD's "Teach your baby to swim,"  then went on to buy "Physically Superb" and "Increase Your Babies Intelligence."   Before I gave birth I imagined myself teaching my baby everything!! But once he was there I realized I knew nothing about raising babies and I found it to be very time consuming and exhausting (also rewarding but that bit I was hoping for from the start.)  The hole first year went by and I felt like I didn't do a thing EL related. (Looking back I wasn't doing too bad, I think my goals and expectations were just way too high.)  Then when my baby turned one, I found BrillKids, bought LR, started reading all you-guys' posts and things, and finally started to feel like an EL-mommy.

I'm just writing a short message so you don't rule out positive discipline all together.

I don't punish or fight at all, I except that my child is a child and curious etc.  I repeat rules and reasons over and over for as long as it takes.  If he does something he's not allowed I try to find a clever solution to prevent him from doing so. 

He is under 2.5, he's no angle but he's learning the rules slowly and peacefully. Best part for me is, when playing with other kids and he gets smacked or treated in a way he doesn't like, he talks to the friend in a calm way, for instance "please don't smack, not nice, not nice." 

Yes, sometimes he cries because the only solution I can think of is one that he does not agree with, and then I comfort him  for as long as it takes.  I suppose my method only works because I have a lot of time for him, but my hubby and I are happy.  I think EL has also taught me a thing or two about how my child learns and I keep that in mind when teaching him anything, including "rules."  Teaching takes consistency, patience, repetition, faith, respect and many more such words.

Good luck, I hope you find a solution that works for you.

Hello Krista,

Here's a short description:

1.  Click on the "Play & Edit" button right at the top, it has a pencil on it.
2.  Click on the "Categories" button just below it.
3.  Click on the "New" button, almost at the bottom of the screen and on the left.

Now you have a new category, you can rename it, drag it to a particular folder etc, on the left hand panel.  Notice that the left hand panel contains a list of all categories, but when clicking on one specific one, you'll view all the slides of that particular category on the right hand panel.

4.  To add a slide to your new category, make sure you have the correct category selected on the left panel, now click on the "New" button on the right hand panel (it will be somewhere in the middle near the bottom of the screen.)
5.  Start by typing your word / phrase and then add any sound or image files.  There are many options...
6.  Select a preset (near the top on the right of the screen.) or create your own preset and select that one.  (Again, here are many options for the display of the slides.)

I really hope this helps you and your lovely family
All the best