This looks great! I had never head of it before, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Looks neat and definitely worth investigating .

[counting isn't a small thing, it is fundamental]

Thank you for the precious advices. I shall try them out and see how my daughter learns math that way. Thank you for reminding me to be patient. 

Your welcome! Let us know how it goes.

Oh! and I realized that it might not be clear, but many times as adults, we don't put enough stock in counting. But counting isn't a small thing, it is fundamental to all of arithmetic and without a good sense of counting, one will most likely struggle unnecessarily in other math topics, but not if learning to count is done correctly. There are many concepts that go into counting and I highly encourage that you work in each of these as you go.

--Counting (forwards and backwards)
--Skip Counting (forwards and backwards) by 2, 5, 10.
--Greater than, Less than
--Ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th....)
--Counting on (e.g. starting at 5 and counting on 4 more.)
--Number Lines
--Number Charts
--Understanding Quantity
--One to One correspondence
--Place Value
--Counting objects
--Pairs of amounts make up a number (3 and 5, 6 and 2, 4 and 7--each of these is a way to make eight.)
--Simple fractions

I suggest that you demonstrate counting forwards and backwards everyday, with your daughter. Starting from whenever you begin working on the quantity 2. Count forwards and backwards regularly.

All of the topics that I listed can be introduced, explored and practiced through stress-free lessons, daily activities and fun games. You are a great mom for putting so much time into your daughters early education, but I have to encourage you to have a big dose of fun each time that you do.
Play rocket launch (counting up and down)
Tea parties (fractions and one to one correspondence)
Solving puzzles (count the pieces, put them in order, sequencing...)
share simple chores such as setting the table, sorting laundry (making comparisons, finding matches) and shelving books and toys on the shelf. (ordinals)
Read books, count the pages, the pictures, compare the number of cats on each page of a 2 page spread in a picture book. Make your daughter aware of how immersed in math real life is, teach her to measure cups of raisins for oatmeal or count eggs for breakfast. Make, buy or print some simple board games that will let you and your daughter use math for fun!
Draw shapes and count the corners, sides, edges, whatever.
Sort toys, shape blocks and any things else by different characteristics.
Split up groups of toys or items into even groups. Use skip counting to double check your work (while stealthily exposing her to multiplication and division)


Learning to 'count' isn't a small feat, it isn't insignificant and if you wind up with a 4yo or even a 6yo who can really, truly count to 100. Meaning she can do any or all of the things I listed above, then you have a child who is ready for 3rd grade math, because she'll have mastered the essentials. Either way you come out years ahead and with memories to last a life time.

Also, almost no one needs to be explicitly taught to 100. Children pick up on the pattern by 30 or 40 at the latest. Find what works for your and your daughter and work regularly. (I recommend being consistent in the beginning but once she's counting to 10, I don't see how being more lax on formal lessons but keeping her engaged other wise on the same concepts is a problem) I expect that in a few months, your daughter will be advancing and progressing quite nicely through anything she and you set your sights on.

Best of luck, minmin, I have complete faith in you.
--Mom2bee

TmT,

She can come and play with Ella everyday! 

Aangeles, how is Ella doing and what is she up to these days? I've been dying for an update on her, so if you don't mind sharing one, would you? I'm particularly interested in how you are keeping her challenged and engaged in math, music and languages. How is her Spanish and French coming, seeing as how those languages aren't spoken in the home?
Would you mind giving the BK community an update about Ella. (And Ella has a little sister now, right? How is she?)

Mom2bee, I have a question for you. I am thinking of trying out your suggestion. If I do counting with her, would she be able to learn until 100? I mean counting from 0 to 30 may be OK, but how about from 40 and above? It will take a long time right? Will she be able to adapt to flash cards from LM, if she starts counting?
Thank you. 

Of course she can learn to count to 100. And beyond. I would focus on getting to 10 first. By the time you master the counting to 10 and understanding that quantity, your daughter will be 2, almost 3 months older. You can speed up the pace of the lessons, and even explore more concepts.

Learning isn't a sprint, it is a marathon. Instilling a love of learning in your toddler is a worthwhile endeavor so try and not worry about 'how long' it will take. Try and think about how much she will enjoy all that she'll know by the time she is 5, 10, 15 and 18 years old. Start out slow and gentle, help your child understand the small things and be patient with them. You have to ask yourself what is the goal of doing EL with your daughter? How far will you go to reach that goal and what are the things you will NOT do to that goal. (ie stress your daughter out, make her anxious, or make a habit out of stressing yourself out day to day in hopes that she'll count to 100).

I say go to 10 first, then go to 20. Once you get to 20, introduce a 100 chart and skip counting. First just do skip counting to 20 by 1, 2, 5 and 10. But count to 100 with your daughter regularly and point out the numbers on the chart. She'll probably pick it up a lot faster once she gets the basics down.

I got a stack of old Spanish children's books at my local resell book shop but it turns out two of the books are in Portuguese.
I can't read/speak Portuguese and have no desire to do so, but I would like to offer the BK community an opportunity to take 2 Portuguese children's books off of my hands.

I will post pictures of the books later.
I'm offering them for $5 USD plus shipping.

Also, just thought that I'd add that many families seem to get reading underway before starting math with their babies. So over the next couple of months, while your working on quantities 0-10 with baby, I would highlight or continue to move forward with reading and try to be relaxed and calm about math.

Check your local library and see if they have a list of books about numbers and math for the PreK and KG age. Read those books as often as you can, count the pictures on the pages and stuff like that.

I would look into something like Before Five in a Row---a literature based PreK curriculum and Marshmallow Math--a PreK through 3rd grade math curriculum, both of which are appropriate for children around 2 years of age, start reading, planning and adapting those type of ideas into your lessons for your baby and see if it makes any difference.

[say numbers in sequence to the baby]

Wow, that sounds very stressful, but never fear. If your baby didn't protest or seem annoyed by LM then it wasn't a waste.
What have you been doing to supplement and enrich LM? Do you count things through out the day? Do you talk about and read about math and simple math concepts with the baby? At 20 months your baby is a lot more interactive now so it is feasible to adapt  PreK or Kindergarten math lessons down to their level but you have to be respectful of their attention span and plan to keep activities short.

I recommend adding in a dash of math here and there. I would start with counting and identifying numerals

Everyday I would count out 10 items for and with baby but each week I would FOCUS on only 1 or 2 numbers a week.
EVERDAY count out 10 items (cars, toys, whatever.) repeatedly but focus on whatever the quantity of the week is.

I say get some items to count. Don't just say numbers in sequence to the baby count with the baby. Get an empty peanut butter jar and put 10 items in it. (blocks, bottle caps, whatever) and take them out and count them infront of, to, for and with your baby a few times each day, no matter what.

Each week, focus on 1 or 2 quantities with baby. Post up the quantities on the wall, put the numerals next to them and play games, count that amount at meal times, make a short book about that number, etc...

Week 1
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 1 and 2
Week 2
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 2 and 3.
Week 3
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 3 and 4
Week 4
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 4 and 5.
Week 5
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 5 and 6
Week 6
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 6 and 7
Week 7
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 7 and 8
Week 8
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 8 and 9
Week 9
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 9 and 10
Week 10
Count 10 items (at least) 3x daily and focus on 10  and 0

I would probably print out some flashcards from LMs early lessons and use them to flash the quantities that we're focusing on that week. But pull some PreK and K resources offline to make little books for the baby and read them with the baby.
Once baby gets a better understanding of 0-10

Then I would begin counting higher, to 20 everyday for a while, teaching addition and subtraction of amounts within 0-10 and playing lots of number games with baby and number puzzles. Adapt a PreK or KG scope to their level and if baby doesn't object to LM, then I would probably continue using it. (Maybe consider restarting but doing the lessons to support what you are doing at home?

Dont give up hope, dont stop playing math lessons with baby unless one of you becomes stressed or agitated by the lessons.

Hope that this helps.

I would not worry about calculus for the under 5 crowd. I have planned out a rough guide to math that I'd like my kids to study from. It touches on everything from counting to calculus by high school age. (Meaning you'd have a 14year old who knew some calculus.)

[instead of]

Hmm...well, clearly I only know as much about your daughter as you have shared in the last 2 posts, but my advice (as a reading teacher and someone passionate about helping school-aged children to read) is that I would stop using sight words with this daughter. I mean, like, right now.
She probably needs 3 parts remediation, 1 part instruction for the next several weeks. Go to the very basic phonics and read nonsense words, nonsense words such as yat, taf, rab,...taddet, moppit, etc, force readers to use phonics, not guessing or memory.

I strongly suggest 45-60 minutes of STRICT phonic instruction everyday broken into 2 or even 3 sessions throughout the day.
She needs to work on learning and using the rules of phonics and reading word lists. How is her attitude towards reading? Will she fight starting at or very close to the 'bottom'?

I found HOP Master Reader on Ebay here and the prices vary but its cheaper than Amazon.

I recommend, Ultimate Phonics (link here)  instead of HOP, for your situation. You can try UT 100% free and if you don't like it or it doesn't seem like it will work, then get HOP anyway.

Feel free to reply or even PM me if you want/need more ideas or suggestions or even help with your daughter. I have some experience with remediating reading in older children, though not tons and tons of it.

Do you have a link to the program that you are talking about? I am not familiar with the newer versions of the program.

Also, I can recommend alternative products/programs or find something in your price range.
You don't need a computer program to learn to read, but there are programs out there.

I like Ultimate Phonics, though it doesn't have any of the flashy-gimmicks to it that many educational software does, it is a solid and thorugh reading program will take your child from letter sounds to reading really large, multisyllable words. I don't know if it will meet your needs if 'fun' is a priority.

Can you tell me more about your struggling 9yo reader so that I can better suggest some alternatives for them?

I'd like to notify everyone that Mr. Glenn Doman has passed away.
You can visit his Memorial Page, make a donation to the Institute or just read a little more about one of the modern patrons of EL.

--Mom2Bee

[Nonsense! Don't be silly! of course you can continue to do EL activities with her. I think you were brilliant to get her fluent in Hungarian first, I would have done the exact same thing! Since you live in a German speaking country, is there a library available? Can you easily get German childrens books? I say begin teaching her to read in German since you are fluent in the language. (That will enable you to continue teaching reading!!!) Read in German and Hungarian to her each day, talk about the book in Hungarian and slowly pick one or two German words off of each page for her to learn.Start a word wall with her, with words she can read in German that she knows the meaning of, label things in her room and the kitchen in German, start teaching her basic sentences in German. You can (and should) begin counting and doing math in German. If she is at a 2nd grade level in Math, back up to a first grade level and do a review of all her basic math skills, in German. You don't have to do work books, but play math games with her, in German. For other subjects, read non-fiction or educational books in German to her.If you want to begin teaching her German, you can but you shouldn't sacrifice your EL regiment to do it, if you do not WANT to!]

Now I will speak every day for 2-3 hours of german with her. If I just speak german the whole day and no hungarian anymore for the next 3 months, I can't do any of the EL we make at home. Like practising reading, maths, etc.
Nonsense! Don't be silly! of course you can continue to do EL activities with her. I think you were brilliant to get her fluent in Hungarian first, I would have done the exact same thing! Since you live in a German speaking country, is there a library available? Can you easily get German childrens books? I say begin teaching her to read in German since you are fluent in the language. (That will enable you to continue teaching reading!!!) Read in German and Hungarian to her each day, talk about the book in Hungarian and slowly pick one or two German words off of each page for her to learn.
Start a word wall with her, with words she can read in German that she knows the meaning of, label things in her room and the kitchen in German, start teaching her basic sentences in German. You can (and should) begin counting and doing math in German. If she is at a 2nd grade level in Math, back up to a first grade level and do a review of all her basic math skills, in German. You don't have to do work books, but play math games with her, in German. For other subjects, read non-fiction or educational books in German to her.

If you want to begin teaching her German, you can but you shouldn't sacrifice your EL regiment to do it, if you do not WANT to!

 But I hope 2-3 hours will be enough for her to understand much more than now and don't feel so left out. What do you think? Kindergarden starts in August, in 3 months.
I think you have plenty of time, she doesn't need to be fluent, she just needs to be familiar with the language, have some basic reading skills and be able to follow a math lesson in German, that is all she needs to be successful. If you have been doing EL with your daughter, she will learn more about the German language in Kindergarten in one year surrounded by German speakers than she will about the kindergarten curriculum (she probably knows enough to be 1st or 2nd grade in Hungary!)

I already made this once, when she was 2 years old. We spoke every day for at least 1 hour german, but unfortunately I stopped, when she began the pre-kindergarden (where she was only once a week, so that wasn't enough). Now I regret very much to have stopped...
How did your daughter do in PreK? Was she 'behind' or 'struggling' to keep up with her peers?
I still think that getting her fluent in Hungarian was the best thing, your job now is maintain the language and to continue to teach her in Hungarian and to develop her language skills in Hungarian. I know that families in the states who are serious about raising bi- or trilingual kids often keep their first one or two kids out of preschool and only send them at senior kindergarten or first grade. That extra year to cement their home language seems to make a huge difference in long term fluency in the home language. I think that what you did was smart and will have benefits in the long term, even if they start Kindergarten a little slower than their peers, they quickly catch up and sometimes even surpass the other kids.

Remember your daughter already knows how to read and write a language--both of which are transferable skills. Your daughter will be a good deal more likely to pick up reading in German much faster than kids who are learning how to read the first time. Writing German will only strengthen her hands and build her dexterity--which are much further along than kids who can't write. She can calculate and/or understand several math concepts even now that the other kids haven't been exposed to.

I would begin working with her now in German, only so that she can be more confident when she begins school since she is shy. I don't think you made a mistake at all.

Is there something like a Craigslist in your country? I would try finding some local family who would be willing to let me borrow their materials. Perhaps someone who has a child that has finished with the program or who no longer uses the materials?

If you can get a hold of a manual or something, then maybe you can create the program for yourself?

[1: Mathematics:]

I would explore Kumon, I know many people who absolutely adore the Kumon pre-writing and early writing. I have never used them myself, but I have heard the praises of these books sung by many people. Since Kumon is common in your area, then I would investigate this option and their competitors.

I'm not saying to enroll him in Kumon, but I would look into some of the materials available in my area.

I think I would take a 2-pronged approach to my sons math education at this point.

1: Mathematics:
Can your son skip count? Does he know 1-1 correspondence, does he know what it means to add, subtract, multiply and divide? Can he read numerals? I would begin to work on those issues and I would probably begin to use Marshmallow Math with my son. If he is counting and recognizing quantities, then it is a good idea to begin teaching him arithmetic and I would use the outline provided in MM to get started. Teach him to add and subtract by 1, 2, 3 etc all the way to ten. The soroban is a great tool and many parents are exposing their kids to it. But many parents don't get far because they can't use it fluently. If you can use the abacus well, then I would lean on that.

2: Handwriting
I would begin working on his handwriting ability. You can print many pages offline for free or you can buy a book or you can do both. I would simply make it a part of the day. I would require that he spend 5 minutes a day tracing/coloring/writing with my direct guidance. If he is resistant than be gentle, set a timer and give him praise when he is done. Ultimately, I am having a hard time visualizing a child being really successful in a workbook based curriculum if writing isn't fluent and easy for them, but I do NOT know your child and I am NOT "The Authority" on these things.

These are just my thoughts.

Well, where is your son currently with math and what type of math do you guys do outside of Little Math?

Are you in the US, or somewhere else? (I know a few programs are available in Britain/the UK, for example that would be too costly to get in the United States)

I always recommend Marshmallow Math as a compliment to Little Math once you get closer and closer to the toddler stage. But there are other things out there, or you could probably get all those activities off of websites, but I think a nice physical book, with the order and scope all in one place, is a great and powerful reference.

What do you like about Right Start? What about the other programs? For example, will your boy learn well from manipulatives or will they serve as a greater distraction? Will you be able to connect it back to the math from the screen?

Some little kids do better with the worksheet because when they see it, they recognize "This is math work!" and because they like or are interested in math, they can pay attention. Some kids see a manipulative and think "This is a toy!" and depending on how your kids love toys and how well you can direct their attention, some times getting them to use the manipulative as intended can be as near to impossible as you can get. It varies from kid to kid, but I know one little boy who needs only 'dry' or 'uninteresting' programs because if its too colorful, too fun looking, then he expects to have fun with it every second that he is in contact with the program and having to use it as 'work' becomes too much.

Does your son have any writing ability at all? Will he be content to let you write for him, or will he want to write all his replies himself?

It is nearly impossible to recommend anything to you for your son without more information about your situation.