Thanks
I did not feel the lack of possibilities. I had them, and I did not use many of them.

I do early learning because
- it is interesting and it makes my daily life more colorful;
- otherwise I feel that I am not good enough mother;
- to make their further learning easier and, well, to provide them possibilities of choice.

It was fun until the last week. Now I have to decide whether she should start her school earlier. That will make her different from others. If her first grade experience will be bad, that can make her to feel different for the rest of her life. I am afraid.

How do you evaluate your own education and development? Do you want your children to be like you? What if they will be like you?

My first kid (girl, 5,10) is very advanced for her age. In my region, school (first grade) starts at 7, and children must be able to read before they enter school.  They must read 30 - 60 words per minute at the end of first grade. My girl reads at second - third grade level. The most important is that her comprehension level is much above the level of other 5 year old kids. She is also very bored in her kindergarten. We think that she should go to school earlier but everyone is against it because it is very uncommon here. She is also physically small, and emotionally very sensitive.
 
Until the birth of my second kid I was researcher, expert and University teacher. Now I do not want to go back to this work. I was in doubt until yesterday when we were in library and I was remembering all these hours I have spent earlier in similar places. Now I feel that I want to work in a place where I do not need to excel myself. 

Generally I am lazy person. I like to read books, watch things from distance and walk in a forest. This does not depend on my IQ; probably I would have the same preferences if my IQ would be some 20 points higher.

My girl has inherited my sensitive temper but I was not that clever at this age. I was "late bloomer". Partly, my failures can also be explained by my very low self-esteem caused by my wrong childhood. My girl is very self-confident, if compared to me at this age.

Early learning puts some pressure on a child. She is better, and she should be better also later. It is good for the academical success. But earlier or later she will find herself. Maybe after 30 years she will think "I want to walk in a forest and watch things from a distance; why I had to start school earlier than other kids?".

Susan Polgar and her sisters who become prodigies but stopped their careers because they wanted to have families and children - are they happy now? Were they happy when they were top players? Will they be happy later? Would they be happier without being so different?

This is what I am thinking today. Tomorrow maybe I will change my opinion

3. When my older kid (5) asked for a cartoon I used to say "well, after you will tidy your toys". Once she said that she is very tired and so on and I said "well, you will get your cartoon if you will teach A. (my youngest kid) something. Playdooh, books, drawing etc".

It was a success. She started to teach my son all the time, and talk to him all the time!

Currently she is reading aloud a book for my youngest one

1. My almost 3 year old started to read with this material   http://library.brillkids.com/download.php?cid=6&tid=&lid=104&fid=9287 

I also used powerpoints with family pictures. Picture, than sentence (one word per slide), than picture again. My son is very active so I changed my approach all the time. He has his own profile and he was allowed to press buttons. Now he is reading. It is very funny because he is a bit speech-delayed.

what does Doman say about power points way.

Glenn Doman passed away few years ago. His books were written rather long time ago, before the computer-era. In his books you can read a lot about paper sizes etc, and even on the use of stencils. He always said that teacher should do what is easier, and avoid too much work on insignificant issues. It is easier to work with ppt, it is possible to show more information so I think it harmonizes with the approach of G.Doman.

But I did not use computer with very little kids.

You know, 30 years ago there were no digital photos. Photographers developed films and pictures by themselves. Photo books of these times do not say anything about the digital photography. And Doman books are of the same time

New re-prints are slightly edited, computers are mentioned but without comments. I think, authors knowingly avoid to analyze this subject because this is not their main topic.

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/flash-cards-x-powerpoint/
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/powerpoint-instead-of-flashcards/
http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/anyone-do-the-doman-method-hardcore-daily/
http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/so-overwhelmed-looking-for-planning-guidance/

I think, almost everyone here is using computers for teaching. powerpoint files or special programs

There is also something about the late talkers.

(This is not about my children; just interesting.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_syndrome
http://kelleyward.hubpages.com/hub/Children-Who-Talk-Late
http://www.amazon.com/The-Einstein-Syndrome-Bright-Children/dp/046508141X

Smart Children Who Talk Late

Einstein Syndrome is a term Thomas Sowell used to describe exceptionally bright people who experience a delay in development of speech. The name is derived from physicist Albert Einstein, the author of the theory of relativity and the father of modern physics, whose speech was delayed till age five.

Commonalities:[1]

    Delayed speech development
    Usually boys
    Highly educated parents
    Musically gifted (families)
    Puzzle solving abilities
    Lagging social development

The main thesis of the book is that late talkers are often inaccurately categorized as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that a small subset of late talkers are actually highly intelligent children with common characteristics concentrated in music and/or memory and/or math and/or the sciences. It is difficult if not impossible to accurately assess the cognitive skills of a child who is nonverbal or minimally verbal if the testing is verbally weighted, which it typically is. The book also addresses children with strong personalities resisting testing and scoring well below their capabilities. The author's own son who grew up to become a programmer, was falsely thought of as retarded because of his talking despite evidence of excellent memory and no dramatic impairment in daily functioning. The book details a series of high achieving scientists and musicians all of whom spoke late and displayed "autistic like" features (long attention span at young age, strong will, ability to play alone, delayed language/social skills) which are not rarely exhibited by those of exceptional intellect.

My girl (now 5) has her own garden project since she was nearly 2. She has her own sunflowers. Last summer, her sunflowers were 3.3 meters high

Every spring, she is helping me also with sowing seeds in the pots. Her help becomes more and more advanced with every year.

I like to spend my free time in my flower bed. To keep my kids with me, I have some entertainment here. Some stones where to sit, some edible plants, some flowers with interesting blossoms. She is fascinated by Antirrhinum and Helichrysum.

In my vegetable garden, she wants to do everything I do. She is crying if I replant something without her help

Well, in garden we prefer "learning by doing"     I am garden-addicted so everything goes this way :D

All the lament is about the process and not about the result. Nobody says here that educated children are unhappy. Speakers are worried that bad teachers can be even worse if working with very little children. And here we can agree.

My children (2 years and 5 years) recently fought for a book "Structure of Atom".

I did not study all the questions; I just wanted to know the approach. In my region there is no such testing  because there are no schools for gifted children. 

There are many puzzle-type questions an many questions about politics. It seems that knowing presidents is a great deal in US. Here, we do not care so much about politicians; they change so often and become unpopular so soon. I do not teach my children about politics; I teach mostly about nature; nature does not change every few years

But it is an interesting idea, to create a system of questions around certain milestones. It would be interesting to know if there are more such systems.

Doman recommends: reading, math, EK and no testing.
Testing mom recommends much talking and questioning.

Can you open this link? http://www.testingmom.com/daily-email-questions/
Can you get these 100 questions for free? (I can.)

Well, I have one free LR license key. May be I can donate it to someone? It's a pity that it will just evaporate unused

Thank you, Kizudo! 
I am not creative enough to create a fairy but we definitely will do the sticking and gluing of what we will cut. Today!

Yesterday I bought a lot of clothes pegs. Both kids now are busy working with them (with some fighting elements). I recommend! Cheep Lego and tanagram, two in one!

As some documentaries listed here are not directly for kids,
I will share my favorite site

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/watch-online/

More than 200 documentaries. I prefer movies on psychology, society and health. There are also movies on science, environment, music, nature, art, history, but I have not tried to show them to my kids.

There is more than this single quote on this website

My first kid had a correct pencil grasp when she first time got the pencil, and that was at 10 months. I knew the importance of fine motor skill development and I did a lot for it. I always kept her fingers busy, almost since her birth. She also did not draw on walls therefore she had instant access to pencils and paper since that time, and she mastered a lot. Now (5.5) she is drawing very well and she likes to do that.

My second child is very different. He had the same possibilities for fine motor skill development but he is a very active boy and he is more interested in running and jumping. He does not like paperwork at all. He likes to play alone, with his imagination games. He does something very different with all the toys. So I concentrated mostly on visual and audial teaching. He also was born with slight dysthonia of hands. Now I try to correct my mistakes. He is nearly 3 years old, he has palmar grasp and since yesterday he refused to use scissors

It seems that all your children were  ready to perfect grasp early, and it was OK to help them. My son is a bit delayed in his grasp, and teachers and grandmother start to do too much pressure. They try to teach him a correct grasp for him and he is resisting.  All the efforts go to deeper resistance.

Happily I found this website. We started with recommendation: "Cut narrow (1.5cm) strips of coloured paper for your child to snip across the width. This is easy to do, as the scissors only need to open and close once to be successful.". And we succeeded. Yesterday he cut, cut and cut for almost an hour (as he is very persistent). He chopped all the paper we provided. Now I know that he is able to one-opening scissor activity only, and I know how to promote the next step.

Thank you, OT Mom 


==== OT Mom (she is occupational therapist and homeschooling mom) writes:
My older son went to the local nursery school a couple of days a week from the ages of 2 - 5 years. Although he had some gross motor and coordination delays along with his sensory processing disorder, his pencil grasp was developing quite adequately through the various stages.

Alas, one week when he was 3 years old, unbeknownst to me, a replacement teacher unfamiliar with that age group forced him to try and hold the pencil “properly”. The result? An extremely awkward and inefficient pencil grasp, and a child who promptly gave up drawing and coloring as soon as any effort was made to persuade him to hold the pencil more appropriately.

I was so frustrated!  It took months of patient coaxing to get him to engage in fine motor tasks with me, and the best ones were the ones that had no crayons in sight
===