Einstein?    Actually I have no idea what he meant by “imagination is more important than knowledge” but it seems he was pretty good at thinking outside of the box.

The ability to think outside of the box is surely an important skill many of us would wish for our children.  What are your thoughts on the role of creative free play in the development of creative thinking?  I see creative free play as enjoyable and important for general development, but to what extent does it help us think outside the box as adults, either in our general life, or specifically in certain careers? 

How does development of imagination fit in?  Last time I caved in and bought my kids a McDonald’s Happy Meal it had an activity on the side of the box that claimed to develop the kids’ imagination.  So the desire for kids to develop their imaginations has evidently gone fairly main stream. 

Thanks for the recommendations!

Any recommendations for CDs with Chinese songs to listen to in the car?  My kids often lose interest in watching language DVDs but they’ll almost always be happy listening to Boca Beth Spanish CDs while we drive in the car.  Any thoughts on a Boca Beth-style Chinese CD?  We haven’t tried any Japanese yet, but if someone could make a recommendation for a fun Japanese Song CD we’d give it a try too.  Thanks!

Hello KL
I’d love to get in on the LMs beta testing.  My DD just turned 3.  Does that make her too old?
I played violin in elementary school, high school orchestra and college orchestra.  I haven’t been playing violin since college but I do play harp.
I bought Kinderbach and am considering starting violin or piano lessons for DD.
Thanks for your consideration!

This forum is an excellent source of information about early learning resources.  Before I stumbled on this forum YBCR and some phonics songs on YouTube were the only resources I was aware of.  From this forum I’ve found out about great reading, writing, spelling, math, foreign language, music resources etc etc.   However, I think I often miss out on hearing about recommendations because the threads get buried fairly quickly. 

It would be awesome if there was an easy to find relatively comprehensive list of early learning resources that are recommended and rated by forum members.  Perhaps the list could be organized by (or searchable by?) categories, such as reading, math, etc, and/or type of resources, such as DVD, iPad app, free website etc.  Granted it might take too much time to set up….

I took violin lessons as a kid and was taught to read music, but I was never any good at playing by ear, which was very frustrating.  So I am all for a program that teaches children to play by ear.   Most moms I know have their kids take Suzuki music lessons.  Suzuki apparently emphasizes learning music by ear over reading music, at least initially.

However, I had read that the reason Suzuki teachers think children should learn by ear before they read music is because children learn to speak before they learn to read.  Since my daughter learned to read words before she could say them I thought maybe babies could learn to read music before they could play it or even sing it?  Is Little Musician going to teach skills for playing by ear and reading music?  I’m eager to try it, just a little confused about how it combines the Do Re Mi with the note names. 

My DD will be 3 in a couple months.  She is surprisingly proficient with the mouse! Coupled with her ability to read and type a few words she has become fairly independent on the computer.  She’ll sit down and open programs on the desktop (such as Little Reader, Readeez etc), or even programs that we don’t have desktop icons for, such as Paint, in which case she’ll click on the start icon first and then select a program.  She also knows how to click on Internet Explorer and click on the pull down arrow at the top to access recent websites, such as MoreStarFall.com and PBSkids.com and IXL.com (when she is online I really have to make sure she doesn’t end up somewhere inappropriate). She does watch videos too, but I personally like the idea of her doing interactive educational games.  I think she may get more out of say, selecting and clicking on rhyming words, than just being shown rhyming words?

She first learned to use the mouse by clicking through a PowerPoint presentation I made for her – she just had to click, she didn’t have to click on something.  Around 18 months she got into watching phonics songs on YouTube, such as Apple Apple AAA, and would want to watch one of the recommended videos that come up on the side but she had trouble communicating which one it was she wanted to watch so I gave her the mouse and showed her how it worked to move the cursor.  We used to let her use a computer my husband used for work – bad idea.  Now we have a “kids” computer with a full warrantee.

Somewhat off topic, but given the debate over the definition of “reading” and whether YBCR kids are really “reading” I thought it was interesting that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services considers reading sight words to be really reading.
I know someone who recently took the Naturalization Test and became a US citizen.  The Naturalization Test includes an English Test with a Reading Portion.   You must be able to read a sentence correctly to demonstrate an ability to read English and be eligible for naturalization.  To help you prepare, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services provides a Reading Vocabulary List containing ALL the words found in the English Reading Portion of the Naturalization Test.  There are about 70 words on the Reading Vocabulary List.

My kids (2 and 5) enjoy Boca Beth.  I think it is a good introductory Spanish program for us.  We listen to the CDs in the car and I’m able to learn some words and phrases myself.    Also, I was very impressed with Beth’s customer service.  My first order took longer than she expected to arrive.  Even though I had NOT complained, apparently Beth was tracking the order herself and thought it took too long to arrive, so she sent me a free DVD of my choice.  You may even be able to get a free sample bilingual CD from Beth if you contact her.

Maybe I don’t understand what you mean by anti-whole world – is she opposed to presenting words in word families or phonics groupings, such as looking at a group of words that rhyme or have the same beginning sound?

I recently got the Your Child Can Read, the companion to Your Baby Can Read and it has lots of creative ideas for introducing phonics groupings someone could do themselves without a screen.  For example, they have letter finger puppets, say 2 fingers on one hand will have A and T and then fingers on the other hand will switch from say C or H to make CAT, HAT etc.  They also hang up letters cut out of pretty patterned material on a clothesline and then change some of them, such as the beginning letters or vowel or end letters. They have bean bag letters, stamp letters, play dough letters, alphabet soup letter etc.  They have some catchy songs.  There is one with the words ending in AP that is great.  A kid is throwing off cards from a big pile of AP words and singing a song -  toes go TAP, fingers start to SNAP, now it’s time for everyone to CLAP CLAP CLAP etc.

We have a Hooked on Phonics game on the computer in which Pop Fox is doing magic tricks.  For example he’ll have a CAT and then the user selects a B or H etc and Pop Fox puts a cloth over the CAT and says a magic word and it changes into a BAT or HAT etc.  I tried doing that myself.  But it takes a bit of time to get all stuffed animals and other items together. 

We have a Leap Frog video that shows a word factory that puts words together.  The vowels are the sticky letters that hold the words together and get covered in glue etc.  The letters go down slides and get put together.  We made our own word factory and slid letters down little slides etc.   I like the way this Leap Frog video introduces the short vowel sounds.  For example for A, someone scares the A and it runs away going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  My kids thought that was hilarious so I had one of the kids hold a big letter A and the other do something scary and the kid with the A would run away going AAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  The letter i gets covered in itchy goo and goes iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Your friend could consider buying some of the reading programs and watching them herself and then using the ideas with her daughter (or there are probably lots of books out there).   I think I would do that myself if I had the time and energy – but most of the time it is so much easier to let them watch a DVD.  Now I’m feeling somewhat guilty.  Good luck to your friend!

I think the attack on YBCR may spread to other educational products:

Are Little Pim, Your Baby Can Read or any other educational products used in your home? If so, and you live in the tri-state area and are willing to be interviewed in a taped spot, e-mail us and you might be featured in a future segment on TODAY.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36718102/ns/today-today_participate/

My kids (ages 2 and 5) love Readeez.  I liked it so much that I showed it to Grandma, who is generally strongly opposed to educational DVDs for little kids.  Grandma liked it so much she wants to buy it for her other grandchild!

Does anyone know how YBCR is fighting this?  The link in the previous post goes to a petition to the FTC asking them to act against YBCR.  Would it be helpful to sign a petition to the FTC in SUPPORT of YBCR?  Does anyone know how to set this up online?  Or maybe this wouldn’t be helpful/necessary?

My DD started learning to read with YBCR.  By the time she turned 2 years old she was reading new words she hadn’t seen before.  I agree the infomercials could be less pushy, but I really do believe the product can work.  It drives me crazy when the Harvard experts say it isn’t possible for toddlers to read because their brains haven’t developed enough.

What can we do to improve the image of early learning? What aspects of early learning might appeal to our friends and family if presented in the right way?  Showing babies and toddlers enjoying early learning programs is a great start.  I thought showing early learning in a creative context might help too.  This is just my second video.  Maybe those of you with more experience could up load something more “creative” or “feel good” etc.

http://youtu.be/vE2yX2_yn4I