Hello all,

My 3 uploads aren't worth much, I'm just playing around a bit to see how things work, one jerk actually took the time to give me a 1/5 rating for my wheels math icons 

But I've got some nice ideas for LR files that I'll do when I get time, but I want my upload to look pretty, how do I add a preview picture, or why doesn't mine show?

Thanks, and sorry if this question has allready been answered, I'm new and couldn't find an answer.

[perfect]

I've now done some research and I'm really looking forward to LMs, does anyone know roughly when it will be launched?

I'm thinking that I will do the lessons with guitar, xilophone, recorder, cello or toy piano as far as possable. (I have no clue what the LMs lessons are going to look like, but if it's anything like LR, then the "multi sensory" lessons equivalent will give me a chance to play the music for a specific slide on a real instrument for more reinforcement + claping and singing along as was suggested.)

To me, perfect pitch is not all that important, I enjoy playing music, can play by ear, didn't have much musically training though and don't even know if you can say I've got relative pich, but hey, if Wilhelm learns perfect pitch on our music journey, great great great!

Hurry up Little Musician, we want you!!!!

Thanks, I'll make a point of posting about it again next year, if there's something positive to add by then. 

I also think a regular one is a good choice, you get real big ones, colourful or photo image, different labelings etc. hahaha 

Brain Rules for Baby said: "no electronic device ever improved a baby's intelegence" I think about that quote a lot, but then again.... LR is working working working for my 1 year old (or it seems to for the time being,)  and we spend lots of time reading omBooks and looking at photo's on the tablet, so I'll be a hypocrite if I told you not to buy the fancy globe because its "electronic," but I wouldn't buy it.     

But now I'm not even answering your question at all, so sorry, please don't bad karma me 

I would choose Replogle 12" Intelliglobe if I had to, the other two seem more like toys than educational tools.

Thanks for the encouragement DadDude, some days I feel like I'm talking to the birds and all my efforts are for nothing, but then I remind myself that at least hearing language and getting attention is good for the little guy.  We'll know how much he's been learning once he starts talking better, I'll post on it.

I must say, I agreed with your post on EK the other day, to me it sometimes feel as though the kids are learning rimes rather than facts, so I try and state my facts differently each time I say them. (Each fact gets repeated once a day for a month, so I probably repeat the exact same sentance many times though  )

I forgot to mention that I many times pick facts from things I can physically show him, like a painting in our house, the neighbour's car, the statue in town, etc.  We also have a big blow op globe, so if I mention a country in one of my facts (or if the entire fact sheet is about a country) I'll point it out on the globe (Will loves balls so the big globe is a favourite toy!)

There's so much STUFF to download for LR, I've been showing him some EK LR sets too, but more with the idea of making things fun and to help him learn how to read.

While I was pregnant with my baby, I played music to my baby on a xylophone, a kids piano, my full size cello, a recorder and a child sized guitar that my husband bought for the baby when I got pregnant.  Almost as if he knew the guitar was bought specially for him, he would wake up and go crazy whenever I played it, and never responding like this for any other instrument, music or anything else I did during pregnancy.

His love for his guitar continued after birth and I try to give him some assisted playtime with his guitar each day.  Now almost 13 months old, he enjoys strumming while I sing and hold down the cords, (he also tries to “sing” along.)  He experiments by plucking the strings individually with his thumb or forefinger, strums randomly with both full hands and smacks the strings.  He doesn’t bang the guitar or put it in his mouth like with all his other toys.  I’m not trying to say he’s advanced or anything like that, he’s pretty much an average baby all round, just that he really loves his guitar and I would love to teach him to play.

There’s a lot of talk about Little Musician, we can’t buy this app yet, right?

What is / will be the difference between Soft Mozart and Little Musician?

Is Soft Mozart aimed more towards teaching to play music on the piano?

What will you guys be using/ what are you currently using and why this choice?

I don’t follow the Doman approach, my life simply isn’t organized enough for that.  What I do is, for each new day I print out a page of facts on something I would like to teach like a country, an animal, a person etc.  This page of fact has a date to remind me when I started teaching these facts.  Then on my tablet, I will have a file with pictures describing this page of facts (not quite one per fact, just a couple of pics) or sometimes a video.  Once a day I tell my baby the facts on the page conversationally while he plays, then show him the pics or video for that page, just pointing out things and chatting about them, not fast flashcard stile, more like paging through a picture book.

All and all I usually end up with almost 30 pages a day, going through these are a lot faster than you might think, and I try to spread them out a bit. 

I don’t try and test or “give an opportunity” for my baby to demonstrate that he’s learning these facts, but to me it seems as though he’s more interested in the “fact sets” the older they get.

I know the hole point of the quick flash card technique is to involve the right brain and so on, but my baby never responded well to the Doman Method for EK.

What do you guys think about this approach?

Hi LDSMom,

It's true, chess is not the only of it's kind, just a personal favourite of mine, I think if I can manage I'll also teach other games later on. 

I feel that I want to make use of my babies maraculous ability to learn things.  If you think about it, many babies across the globe learn to read by being read to only, no pointing to words, no phonics, no flash cards, no little reader.  Many babies learn many "hard to grasp" things easily, if they get exposure to that particular topic.  I think my question is more along the lines of, how can I give my baby exposure to chess in a way that will help him learn how to play, unconsiously, with little explanation from my side, only lots and lots of the right kind of exposure.

Thanks for the links

Thanks for all the support and advice, you guys are great!  Especially John, you've got some good ideas.  I didn't even know about the youtube video's, thanks for that tip too, I think I'll use it later on, there are tons. 

My personal video's that my hubby and I are doing, we're aiming for less distractions, more clarity and really short vids, like shorter than a minute, and of course they feature my baby's all time hero, Dad!  I'll not be sharing these because my husband doesn't feel comfortable.

I want to create Little Reader files for chess (once I figure it out and buy the app) and those I'll definitely share.  (Now here's another question, how do I get premium status on a Little Reader file?)

I'm interested in teaching my one year old boy how to play chess.  Does anyone have tips for me on how to tackle this.  I'm making video's of my husband and I playing very fast, fun, short chess games with a nice big chess set.  These short games sofar include popular chess openings like queens gambit.  I plan on playing them to my baby for many days (maybe once a day for 30 days each, any opinions on that?)

So far I have:
*  A dedicated mom and cute 1 year old (almost, actually turning 1 on Wednesday)
*  3 Home made chess videos (production is slow)
*  A nice child friendly chess set, pieces sized 15cm to 20cm

I've started teaching the names of the pieces, how they move, and their starting positions, but he doesn't know them yet.

Wow, you guys are doing so great!! You are an inspiration to me, I'm doing all the same things with my 1 year old and can only hope to have the same results.

On signing:  I've read teaching signs to three year old who can allready speak something like 3000 words, can still benefit from learning signs.  Why stop learning new signs?

My personal answer to your question:  Where to go from here,  how about something new, you mentioned counting, colours etc.  How about reading music, or learning country names (we've got a big blow up globe for baba and we point out and name contries and capitals on it.) 

But still, you're doing brilliantly as it is.

Wow!! 1000 books!  Home made books count don't they? How about book apps like omBooks and Touchy Books?

I think I'm also going to try, but I'm not as organized and baba sometimes sits for close to an hour with reading stories, other days he's not really interested. 

Good luck to everyone trying, but don't suck the fun out of it, I'd say having fun with one book over and over is better than pushing for 15 odd books a week.

By the way, you guys get books from the public library?

Also look out for the Dr. Seuss books, search "omBook" in the android app market (that is books by Ocean Media)  I personally find then very entertaining and my one year old loves them!!  There's also a very nice Picture Dictunary for Kids in 5 different languages, the pictures are small and mostly animated, but not too bad.  Touchy Books have some nice book apps that go for free, Moon Secrets is our favourite.  Then there is baby touch, the free lite versoin is allready a good app to play around with.  It's photo's of animals, transportation, musical instruments etc. with the sounds they make, so my baba and I have long sessions making the sounds ourselves too, it's lots of fun!!

There's lots of nice apps for kids, and some are a little educational too, you just have to look through all the junk.