http://nihongo-dekimasu.blogspot.com/search/label/Children%20books

Here is a link I've found for hiragana-only children's books.

If anyone has any other Japanese books/ textbook recommendations, let me know - I can't seem to find anything that teaches Japanese below high-school age!

http://www.mandarinadvantage.com/products.html

They have a video clip on their website. Personally, I don't like it - it is mostly English with some Chinese words, rather than immersion (which I prefer).

Hope this helps

Russian is my second language, but I am hoping it will be more like a second native language for my son. His father speaks only Russian, but they only talk about an hour a week and rarely see each other as he lives in Russia and we are in England. I am trying very hard to make my home Russian-only, but that is much easier said than done. It is soo easy to simply forget and switch back to English!

I am probably at about 30-40% Russian now, and am hoping over the next few months to get that more like 80-90%. Until he was 12m or so, I was only reading one or two stories a day and maybe saying the odd sentence. Now, he has Russian audiobooks during his naps, we read as many books as he will sit still for (usually still only one or two!) and I make an effort to speak as much as possible. Like I said, for me remembering to speak Russian is the biggest problem!

It is just a matter of conditioning yourself! If I were you, I'd start speaking Spanish to the baby when you are pregnant, then you will be in the right mindset to continue from birth. 

My son is mixing languages, but in a really systematic way. For example, he only says 'bellybutton' and 'please' in Russian, and 'dog' in Chinese (his only Chinese word that I've noticed, but there could be more mixed in with babble!) - I find it quite odd. I know he knows how to say dog and please and bellybutton in English, but he refuses now that he knows them in other languages! It's like he's thinking, 'pupok' sounds so much better than 'bellybutton' so I'll just use that one!'

He's only 20m, so I'm sure he'll grow out of it in time.  It sounds so funny when he does it, though! People just don't get why he says 'goa' instead of 'dog'

Could he just be testing his boundaries with you? If he knows he won't get away with doing it for mum, then he won't do it, but with you he doesn't know that you won't put up with it, so sees how far he can push you.

This is just an idea. Have you tried setting very firm boundaries? If he even starts to hit or bit or whatever, put him in the 'naughty corner' (or whatever your daughter uses to enforce discipline). Every single time. He should quickly learn.

This happens with my son a lot - he learns a new 'naughty' behaviour and will keep doing it and doing it, but after a couple of days with more time in the corner than out of it, he gets the picture! When 'releasing' him, I always get him to say sorry, we cuddle and kiss and I tell him I love him, but I don't like when he hits/bites/throws etc. I don't want him to think he is a naughty person, so I place emphasis on the action being bad, but he is good.

Ask your daughter what she does for discipline if he is naughty - consistancy is the key with little ones!

Hope this helps

Hello all!

I'm really struggling to fit languages into my schedule with my son. I love learning languages and want to learn as many as possible, and allow Nicholas to have the most languages possible... but I just can't seem to schedule them all in! I have wasted months and months planning ways to introduce lots of languages and managing only a token dribble of Chinese and a good dose of Russian (but not nearly as much as I should have, considering I want it to be his second NATIVE language and I speak it relatively fluently).

I find that being a single parent, I have soooo many other things to do and I get lost in plots and plans and never actually implement them! I only speak English and Russian, and am trying to phase out all English when it is just the two of us, since he will always get plenty of English. At the moment I put on LR once a day and Pim whenever I need 20minutes to myself! So he gets about 1hr of Chinese a week. Sometimes we play Pim in Japanese or Spanish.

I'd love to add some European languages - French, German, Spanish... but I don't know how to do so and let him get a good enough exposure to each of them to actually LEARN them!

So my question is: How do you people who have lots of languages in the home teach them? How do you teach languages you don't know? How do you have one parent teaching two (or more!) languages that you do know?

Sorry for the long winded post!

Can anyone recommend any Chinese/Japanese courses? We have (and LOVE) Little Pim and the Wink to learn DVDs, but I've got no idea what else to look at!

I'm in two minds about LR Chinese, since LR is great, but it is just teaching single words for the most part and if I get it I can't really afford anything else. As I don't speak Chinese, I'd really like to have something that will encourage sentences and conversation, rather than just lots of single words. So far the Muzzy clips we've watched haven't really captured my son's attention (he's too used to Pim having videos of children, I think!) so I am wary about ordering that as it is also very expensive.

The same is true about Japanese. Except I don't like the Pim so much, as it transliterates (why?!) rather than using the proper words.

Does anyone have any really great immersion-style dvds for either language? Also, I'm looking for textbooks that I can use as we start doing more written language (probably not for 12m or so) which I'd like to get asap to give me time to learn the material myself before teaching it. I am sure Nicholas will soon surpass me, but I can at least *try* to keep up!

Thanks!

What flashcards did you get? I've been looking for Chinese-English flashcards, but haven't found any good looking ones yet. Can you recommend what you have?

Thanks

The educational value is in the written flashcards - now I can actually hear some of the lyrics which I struggled with because I know what they are saying! I assume it will be equally beneficial to my son

Thank you - I've been wanting some Russian cartoons with a bit more educational value

This makes me feel soo much better! I can count on one hand the number of uninterrupted nights I've had with my son - and those are when he slept from 1am to 6am!

I had a lot of trouble with him sleeping recently and eventually used the Supernanny technique. I don't know if you can get the program in the US... basically it involves setting a bedtime routine and sticking to it. Once the child is in their room they are not to leave it. If they do, the first time you take them back to bed and tuck them in. The second time you say 'bedtime' and tuck them in. The third time you don't say anything and just put them back to bed.

I couldn't live with my son sleeping in my bed all night - he moves so much I can barely let myself doze, and he likes to constantly breastfeed, even though I know he doesn't need it. Eventually I cracked. I put him in his room and said he wasn't coming out again until morning. He screamed and screamed. I breastfed him in his room (sitting up in a chair so he didn't think I would sleep with him and avoiding eye contact) and once he was settled, I put him back in his bed. He screamed and screamed. I repeated the process, going in every ten or fifteen minutes. At 1am he gave in and went to sleep.

It was probably the hardest night EVER - even when he was first born and breastfeeding every 15mins - but since that night he understands that he won't get to leave his room after bedtime. Within a couple of days he was sleeping through till 5am. He still has to come in my room in the morning and have a cuddle and milk, but I get a solid six hours sleep which is great.

Sorry, this is getting long! The idea with this method is that kids are attention seekers. If you see to their needs but don't give them the attention they are craving, they won't demand you be there because you aren't giving them the attention they want. They know that if there is a problem you will come, but unless they need something, you will just put them quietly back to bed.

It is incredibly hard, but I was at the point where I had barely slept for two months and although I hated hearing him cry, the result was more than worth one miserable night.

Good luck!

I read a wonderful inspiring story called 'A Child Called X' a few years ago, which seems to be what these people are trying to do. In the story the child is tested and found to be the most physchologically normal and well balanced in the school. Unfortunately, that is a STORY! I just don't see it happening in real life.

I think it is important not to force children to like something because we think it is what they should like, but a very good example of the psychological make-up of boys is found in my son. I refused to buy him anything transport based as a toy, barring a traditional train set and a clicking car track. I did this because I felt that there is too much focus on transport as the only thing boys can be interested in. I bought lots of animals and dinosaurs and traditional gender-neutral toys, like blocks and instruments and a kitchen.

But despite this, he has become as transport-obsessed as the next boy. And now that he's showing an interest, I am more than happy to buy him cars, or whatever he chooses. In fact, I bought him two cars today

I think it is great to let the child lead the interest, and not to force gender lines (I wouldn't object if my son wanted to take ballet, for example) but forcing a child to be genderless... I can't see it doing any good. Maybe they'll proove us all wrong!

I don't see that there is a problem with doing them all at the same time, so long as you can be consistant in presenting all three programs every day. There is no point in doing three inconsistantly because you only really have time for one.

I would start with LM, because babies loose the ability to do instant math around the age of two, so you will have plenty of time using that - sight words are still taught in primary schools, so it wouldn't be a problem to start the reading programs later.

Do what you are comfortable with and will have the time to be consistant with and everything will work out

I like the Living Math website!

I stick by my earlier comment that it is important to make maths understandable in a real life context, but I also agree that it is important to learn the abstract.

It strikes me that teachers are too focused on the fact that children must learn all the abstract facts to be able to do maths. Surely it is better at an elementary level to introduce the fundamental mathematical ideas in a way that relates to real life and things that children can understand, then once these basics are understood, start introducing the abstract ways of thinking.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that if children don't understand the fundamentals because it is all presented in an abstract manner, then they can't progress to understanding abstract concepts later because they won't know the basics!

Sparkabilities is a huge hit in our house - unfortunately we only have the you-tube episodes until I get a multi-region dvd player (we're in the UK). If you want RB foreign languages, the Wink DVDs are also a huge favourite with my son - he demands his Chinese several times a day.

My son couldn't stand YBCR - I don't know, maybe it was not fast enough for him.

And there is always the computer-based options of LR/LM if you're happy sharing your PC with baby!