http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader-library-downloads-(foreign)/t5732/#msg33322

Hope this is first in many! Thank you Joan!

Thank you, Joan!

That was fast! I am sure others will appreciate your files as much as we do. I am not able to use it yet ( due to my LR problem that hopefully being resolved soon  but I did take a sneak peek in preview!), but so happy you started creating these files. I am sure they will be a great help to all of us who do not speak Mandarin ourselves.

Keep us posted with more! 

K to you!

Joan, thank you so much! That sounds great, keep us posted. K to you!

Joha, glad you liked those links, my daughter seem to really like and pay attention to the dramas there on chinese as well ( different voices, tones, etc.). It is neat to see that you also going to be teaching Chinese, even though not a Mandarine speaker yourself. I am looking forward to exchanging tips and sharing progress! 

Thank you, huizhilanxin, its great to have you here and thank you for your help and ideas! I probably would have some questions to ask, since I do not speak Mandarin, but hoping my daughter will  

You can look at some info on this thread

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-signing-speaking-foreign-languages/chinese-children-audio-stories-songs-dramas-classical-pieces/msg33241/?topicseen#new

Just did not want to re-type it.

Hope it helps

Thank you for sharing it, very helpful!

I started using songs in different languages. (Right now in Mandarin and in Russian). To get my daughter's ear used to the language. One thing I notice, that sinse songs have catchy melodies, and are fun, it is easier to use them in a way. Great way to expose your child to the sound and accent, while having fun.

We usually dance, or have some other activity while the songs are playing. And she loves it and looking forward to the song time.

So far I only use Songs, Stories, and Learning Center.

I am still trying to get around to figuring it out. My computer has a hard time with Chinese Interface ( it shows only little boxes instead of characters  ), and since I do not read Chinese, characters would not help me much either 

Just wondering, can you get stories for children in MP3 from there? If you can, would there be a couple that you would recommend ( and give just a short synopsis, outline of?), so I can use them to put for my daughter? At this point I only would need 1 story every couple of weeks, so was wondering if you would have a suggestion for the first one? Or if you can help me in getting it from the website, and sending it in PM attachment, Naming it in english? I think my biggest problem with files that are named in chinese, and my computer has a hard time reading that....

Thank you for sharing it!

I found another site with great children songs with values in Chinese ( Mandarin). The fun part is that you can find the same songs in English (and some even in Spanish) on the same site. So it is a neat, because you can have an idea what the song is about, even if you do not speak Chinese ( like me      )

Some are Christian and Bible songs, others are songs with values, stories or just for fun.

I tried playing them to my daughter, she loved them! I did not expect she would show that much interest. Right now, I just playing them in Chinese, and checked out the lyrics in English to know what they are about. I think it is a great idea as it is getting her used to the sound of Chinese, so when we will start teaching it to her, she will be more familiar with it.

Here are some of the links:

http://nubeat.org/ABCNsj.html

http://nubeat.org/ABCNbf.html

http://nubeat.org/ABCNctw.html

http://nubeat.org/ABCNbh.html

http://nubeat.org/ABCNdm.html

The way I found english versions of the songs ( with lyrics), I just took the name of each song that I wanted to find and looked it up in the alphabetical list of english songs. It takes a bit of time, but it worked.

Hope others will enjoy these as much as we did! 

Just a question to those who read Doman's book on physical excelence about crawling track. What ages does he refer to? My daughter is 4 months, and is very active, she wants to crawl, but not succeding yet, would it be beneficial for us to use a crawling track for her? What other exercises does he recommends?

I am using Bootcamp on MAC, thus Windows XP SP2. LM works great, so did LR, till something happened a few weeks ago, and we still trying to work on resolving it ( Thank you Shuki for working on it!).

From what I know, when you are using Bootcamp on Mac, Windows works as a native platform, so there should not be any problems with that. It worked great for me with all different programs which I could not use in Mac.

It will be nice though to have the possibility to use Little Learner in MAc, however with an option of Bootcamp, it is not really a priority, I think

[Project Gutenberg]

Here are some ideas...

I have more ideas about Russian ones, but these are the ones that I used for English books at one time or another:

Project Gutenberg 

 This is free digital library of books no longer in copyright. So you'll find a great many classic texts here. The full Gutenberg collection I think over 5,000 books.  Good collection.

The problem with this one is that it is tad bit difficult to find your way around there ( I guess that is the downside of a large collection, ha!), and you need to know exactly what you are looking for. However if you have an idea and just want to get a copy, that is a great place. 

Their books are usually in plain text (ASCII) format so it is not easy to read “as is” and it is better to copy and paste them into more user friendly program, like Word.

 http://www.gutenberg.net

Adelaide University Electronic Texts Collection ( but I think you found that one already, I just realised ) Their collection of e-texts continually growing- currently more than 700 – includes some classic works of Literature
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au


And then, this is my favourite:

The Harvard Classics

 Here is a short description in their own words:

 
“The most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time comprises both the 50-volume “5-foot shelf of books” and the the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction. Together they cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century.”

This is found on http://www.bartleby.com/

This is the the easiest to search, well organized site. There are reference, fiction, poetry and non-fiction divisions. I used this resource in my classical curriculum in the private christian school that we managed in South America, as well as in some english teaching and found it helpful.

And here are just a few ideas to start with:

Æsop
 
Legendary Greek fabulist. According to Herodotus, he was a slave who lived in Samos in the 6th cent. B.C. and eventually was freed by his master. Here is collection of his 82 fables - tales of caution veiled in the actions of animals and other character types.

Fun and educational, you can make plays out of these ones

http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/

Hans Christian Andersen
 
1805–75, Danish poet, novelist, and writer of fairy tales. His sense of fantasy, power of description, and acute sensitivity contributed to his mastery of the genre. Among his many widely beloved stories are “The Fir-Tree,” “The Little Match Girl,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Snow Queen,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “The Red Shoes

http://www.bartleby.com/17/3/

 
Stories from the Thousand and One Nights
 
Translated by Edward William Lane
Revised by Stanley Lane-Poole
 
The desperate entertainments of a wife delaying execution by her husband, this translation of 42 stories from a much larger collection has become the most well-known of folk tales for younger readers: Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp, the Voyages of Sinbad, and Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves.
http://www.bartleby.com/16/

John Bunyan
 
1628–88, English author, b. Elstow, Bedfordshire.… Bunyan wrote nine books,  his masterpiece The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come, published in 1678
 
http://www.bartleby.com/people/Bunyan-J.html

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
 
1547–1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet, author of Don Quixote de la Mancha, b. Alcalá de Henares.
http://www.bartleby.com/people/Cervante.html


Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
 
1785–1863, German philologist and folklorist, He is best known for his work on German folk tales, known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812–15), which he collected with his brother, Wilhelm Grimm, 1786–1859, and which did much to encourage the romantic revival of folklore
 
http://www.bartleby.com/17/2/

William Shakespeare
 
Here is collection of his works. I used some excerpts for young students about 11-12 years, the trick was to keep it short and fun, we actually watched some excerpts from plays and then read some… and acted
 
http://www.bartleby.com/70/

Robert Louis Stevenson
 
(1850–94) Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, b. Edinburgh. At an early age he had begun to write, and gradually he devoted himself to literature.… His first popular books were Treasure Island (1883), a swashbuckling adventure story of a search for Captain Kidd’s buried treasure, and the fantasy Prince Otto (1885). A Child’s Garden of Verses appeared in 1885

http://www.bartleby.com/188/ , some other works you can get from Project Guttenberg

Mark Twain
 
pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910, American author, b. Florida, Mo. As humorist, narrator, and social observer, Twain is unsurpassed in American literature. His novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a masterpiece of humor, characterization, and realism, has been called the first (and sometimes the best) modern American novel. You can get it from Project Guttenbergs site…

Another good one, but I don’t think you can find it for free on line, as it is a later edition is the Christian Mother Goose Big Book by Marjorie Ainsborough Decker. Some of our nephews and nieces were raised on these poems, and it was highly recommended to me by my husband’s mom ( and she has very high standard for children’s reading materials). I just found it, and was looking through some of the poems, -- really good quality ( gives children a sense of good rhyme), but at the same time with very good high morals ( most of the poems not just make sense ( differently from original Mother Goose) but also have some really good lessons.


These are just a few ideas. Depending on what you are looking for, you might find some of them helpful. And I am sure, others will have some other great ideas to share 

Hope it helps.

I got some advice on it here from others...


http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/progression-of-introducing-new-subjects/15/

Hope it helps

Vaginal water birth! It was my first one ( even though I assisted at births before). It was an amaizing experience. Actual labor was pretty long, hard work, but not unbearable.

 When people heard that I was planning on natural (no medication/intervention) birth, I got variety of comments, mainly along the lines "you would not be able to bear the pain", "you just dont know what you are talking about, when it will come you will have to take painkillers", "its impossible", "most first time mothers HAVE to have episiotomy", etc. Apart from many other reasons why I wanted to have all natural birth, I also had an important one, -- I am highly allergic, and having any medication might bring on life-threatening condition. ( I almost died in the hospital after miscarriage, because of the meds). Of course most people who commented did not know that.

All that to say, I took my preparation for labor seriously. We re-took Natural Childbirth Classes ( I have studied before in order to assist others, but this time we wanted to have a refresher and really apply ourselves  )

I had to move countries just weeks before the birth. So we did not have midwife till 11 days before I went into labor. It was a bit scary, as we thought I might go into labor earlier. But God was in control, I carried my baby till 42 weeks, we found excellent midwife, who supported our every wish.

And... desire of my heart, -- I had a water birth. Most of my labor we walked and enjoyed the garden, did some relaxation, I listened to meditation music, used essential oils ( by the way, Jasmin brings on contractions while taking away some of the pain, it works great!). Then once I felt like pushing, I was given a few choices, and I definetly felt like water. There were no checking dialation, putting me on clock, pressuring. Once I felt like pushing, and got in the water, it felt very nice and ralaxing, awesome sensation and to my surprise, no pain. And 2 hours after I got in the pool there was born our baby girl. My husband caught her and helped me to nurse her right there in the pool. She was really alert. We were discharged to go home 5 hours later. No tearing, no interventions and she was 8 Lb.

Would I do it again? Definetly! Even though the actual labor was quite long and laborous  , hard, hard work, and even though I felt like giving up in transition stage ( which was unusually long in my case) I would not trade it for the faster one with interventions... And the actual birth was one of those experiences that I want to re-live!

Thank you, Nikolett, I hope my LR will start working soon, so I can check those out!

Thank you everyone for your tips and ideas!

Really helpful info, TrinityPapa, I probably will have more questions as we go along.

In general we just taking it a day at a time, and slowly introducing new activities. Some things I would love to do right away, but it does take time to get things and naterials ready, so I just encourage myself, that whatever we do she learns a lot every day. And it does not have to be an "official" learning session to be counted as a progress.

So, some conclusions I came to:

- I will be starting signing with her ( just daddy and me showing signs, but not videos just yet) -- Thank you Nikki and Tornado for your insight on that!

- We will be doing some flashcards ( introducing new words progressively)

- We continuing listening to classical music, sing and play music together, but we are looking into starting the PP training as well, using great links TrinityPapa shared with us ( Definetly looking forward to Little Musician!)

- Continuing LM

- We are playing short kids audio stories and songs in Russian ( to get her used to the language and to the fact that I am not the only person in the world who speaks it  ) and are planning to introduce listening to Chinese audio stories and songs (did not start that yet, trying to get materials for that)

- We read books in English and Russian, as well as nurcery rhymes and other poetry in both languages

- We do other educational/play activities, some ideas I got from the Natural Education book that was mentioned earlier

Thank you, everyone for your input and ideas and as more questions will arise, I will be looking forward to get your help again!