Oh wow, thank you for replying! That seems really great!

Ah! Thank you thank you thank you!!

That's interesting about video classes. I have no idea where we'll go with Japanese. She's so interested, I can just never answer her questions.

Are Suzuki violin lessons boring? Definitely not! Though I imagine it cam depend on the teacher. She is learning games and songs, everything is fun right now! The fun factor has definitely not been an issue. The only thing I've worried about is lack of note reading, so I supplement. Right now, she has a rhythm (with words) that she plays almost exclusively. The notes are hanging in the fridge at her eye height with those notes. She'll stop and point in rhythm to the notes. I figure I can slowly add more. I make sure to make note reading separate from violin practice though, as to not interfere with the sukuki plan. Hopefully it'll all be ok.

As for teaching violin yourself or getting a teacher, I can see pros/cons either way. One major con to lessons we have (and yours will be worse with closer spaced siblings and one almost ready, right?) is keeping the ones not taking lessons occupied while you do the lesson with the older one(s). I love that dd2 is absorbing it all, but it can make lesson time fairly difficult and I can't take notes as much as I'd like, but rather write everything down in the car once everyone is strapped in. I do like the fresh-ness that a teacher can bring to the relationship though. She reacts differently with her teacher than she does to me.

I don't think there is really a "wrong" answer though. I'm jealous you can play violin!

Will you only teach violin young? Or do you plan to teach any other instruments?

We have at home: piano, acoustic guitar, electric bass guitars, drum set, clarinet, violins (rented), and a trombone. Right now we are only doing violin, but my husband and I play the other instruments and the kids fiddle with them (besides guitars, no one can play them, but we all fiddle :p)

I do not speak any other language, well at least. I can understand a lot of Spanish. I'm so sad about it though. I feel like it's the one area I can never really give my kids what I would like. DD1 is so very interested in languages too. She's been interested in Spanish for a long time and some words/phrases she will only say in Spanish (like De nada, she never chooses English if she knows how to say it in Spanish).

Japanese, she is just insesently asking for more Japanese words, or numbers. She learned 1, 2, and 3 in her violin lessons (Suzuki), and her interest has snowballed from there.

I just found out some Little Pim DVDs are available through Netflix, so we may exhaust those and then get some more. Until those show up, I just look online for words and audio pronunciations. I hope to find something better than we are doing now. I feel like I'm really failing her in this department.


Violin - no, I don't teach her. She takes Suzuki lessons. But then has daily practice with me as well. I also have a violin I am learning to play at the same time. Between my husband and I, we can play most band instruments...except anything with strings (though we own guitars and cannot play ). That was a long-winded answer. I'm not her "teacher", but I do daily practice with her. I also have a strong background in music, just not violin.

[MATHEMATICS]

Okay, here are my goals for my oldest dd (3).  I haven't done this before, you inspired me!     So I have no idea if this is realistic or not. 

*some of these I wasn't sure if she could *quite* do it or not, so they are more or less tests to see if she can, and some are just stretching her (such as counting to 12 in Spanish, she can count to 10 easily now).

MATHEMATICS
1. Count in sequence by 1s to 30 (done)
2. Counting backwards from 10 to 0
3. Identify numerals to 20

LANGUAGE ARTS
1. Knowledge of all phonetic letter sounds
2. Proficiency in first set of Flesch Cards
3. Identify Upper and Lower Case letters

TECHNOLOGY
1. Identify various input and output devices
2. Learn to type name in 'Pages'

PHYSICAL EDUCATION
1. Use correct form while marching (done)
2. Throw ball overhand and underhand
3. Catch a ball before it bounces twice

SPANISH
1. Learn 5 descriptive words
2. Learn one set of directions
3. Count to 12

JAPANESE
1. Learn 2 descriptive words
2. Learn one set of directions
3. Count to 5

SOCIAL STUDIES
1. Learn "long ago" as before "yesterday"
2. Learn about families of the past
3. Learn about Martin Luther King

SCIENCE
1. Classify Solids and Liquids
2. Identify the sun as earth's light & heat, predict occurrence of shadows
3. Identify properties of motion, including change of position and change of speed

HEALTH
1. Name major health care professions (done)
2. Identify ways to encourage a healthy environment (done)
3. Recognize Environmental Hazards (oil spill, downed power line)

ART
1. Understand primary and secondary colors, texture in art, and repetition (patterns)
2. Recognize and name 5 works of art by Van Gogh (may do next week, ordered Van Gogh Bits of Intelligence, but they may not arrive this week)

THEATRE ARTS
1. Identity body, mind, and voice as 3 tools of classroom drama
2. Identify appropriate audience behavior (done)
3. Pantomime animals

VIOLIN
1. Continue to work on correct bowing, pizzicato, and rhythms.
2. Have a lesson and learn something new!
3. Identify quarter notes and eighth notes (done)

MUSIC
1. Imitate a steady beat (done)

DANCE
1. Create movements depicting emotions





We actually did more today than I realized, but still a LOT to go if we are going to make a dent in this plan this week.

We've only been doing this about a month. My dd2 is 12 months.

I started with printed doman style cards, but she got bored so quickly, I changed over to Keynote (like PowerPoint) presentations.

Today she started to say "crab" a millisecond before the presentation did. It may have been memorization of the order. But that's impressive!

Anyhow, this is fun, I just had to share.

And specifically with Little Reader/Little Math as I may be purchasing one of these in the next month or so. Do you need to press a button to advance on them?  How do you coordinate that?

For those that use computer media, how do you handle your baby wanting to touch the keyboard? I have a laptop so hiding the keyboard isn't an option and her motor skills are just banging on the keyboard (not pressing a button that would be useful, or there would be no problem).

What do you all do?

I do! I wrote them out. I may get a chance to post them later. I did not start very early education with my oldest, so some of your babies may know some of the things I'm teaching her. For my 1 year old, I'm showing her power point presentations and I don't really have specific "goals" for that as I just get new ones when she starts getting bored. With her, every day, I've been trying to-

Read counting book and letter sound book
5 PowerPoint shows, 3 times each - 3 reading ones, 1 number dots, 1 addition

I think that's it. Lots of other stuff happens, just naturally.

If I get a chance, I'll post my goals for my oldest.

If money was not a factor and you were starting at pregnancy, what would be your education plan for the first few years?

Wow! Lots of neat ideas!

And I'm impressed and depressed too. :P

I didn't start early education with my children quite as early as most of you, but I've recently printed out the learning objectives for Kindergarten in my state. I'm hoping to frame some lesson plans for my 3 year old using those as a starting point.

Thanks!

Thanks. I tried a PowerPoint show last night with her. I had been resisting screen time with her. She seemed to like it, so I may start doing it that way. It's hard to keep up with her, and if she's going to go that fast, maybe I shouldn't waste all that cardstock.

My DD2 enjoys the doman-style words and math cards, for a few days, then she gets upset.

For example:

I made cards with our family member's names on them. Showed them 3/day. I also made some color cards (with names on color and big rectangle box showing the color - 6 colors each on one letter size piece of cardstock). She enjoyed these for 3 days each, then got fussy at the sight of them (so, I'd pick something different, each time she was okay with something else so I don't think it was the cards themselves bothering her).

I perservered through showing the family names for 9 days (just kept offering, and doing one at a time if I needed to), thinking I need to do 10 days.

I made some Doman dots sheets and she LOVED them...for 1 day (3 showings).

Is this normal? What do you do, persevere with repetition or move on? Or something else?

I just can't believe she'd be absorbing it that quickly (even in 10 days with 3 showings it's extremely hard to believe). So, what to do?

I'll be interested to hear your responses as well.

My oldest (add 3 years to the stats on the left, I can't seem to get the year correct), started Suzuki violin shortly after she turned 3. We listen to suzuki CDs everyday. If I had known before, I would have gone ahead and played them earlier. There is also a Suzuki baby cd, I think.

Are you planning to start lessons on an instrument some day or do you play any instruments? You can seek out music played by those instruments. Much of what is marketed to babies, unfortunately, is simplified versions of classical music with a "toy box" feel. Just get real music.

There are several books on the Suzuki method, none of which I can comment on because I have yet to find the time to read them. "Nurtured by Love" comes highly recommended though.

I hope you get some responses because I'm very curious as well. Particularly with regards to musical notation and theory.