Congrats!!! I wish you and your new bundle of joy well.

They stopped selling the software by itself. They want you to buy the whole package. I bought the software by itself 3 months ago but, it was extremely difficult for me to find. I looked everywhere online, amazon ebay, craigslist, etc., and couldn't find it. It is $499 for the piano wizard academy without the keyboard, $599 with. I just couldn't afford it. I finally found Piano Wizard Premier at a little music shop and I bought the last one they had for $90. I am glad I was able to get it because my kids really love it and unfortunately I am musically illiterate. My 1.5 year old loves it so much she cries whenever her older sisters are playing because she wants a turn. I would like to get the Dvds and song books but they cost $399 because you have to buy them all together. It's too bad they didn't sell them separately or at least in smaller sets so that they weren't so expensive. Other than the price issue it is a great program and my 8year old is progressing nicely despite the fact that I am absolutely no help to her (I know nothing about music due to a Chicago Public School education).

I started teaching the alphabet to my kids when they first started showing interest in them. My oldest wasn't really interested until she was three. She is now 8 and we homeschool, so her little sisters(2.5 years old and 1.5 years old) see her writing and reading and they beg me to let them "do homework"!      I just started teaching the alphabet to my younger ones while the older one is doing her writing homework. I started with the first letters in their name. They seemed to be really interested in that. Then I just pointed to an alphabet poster and asked the 2.5 year old what letters she wanted to learn. She loves picking the letters herself. They seem to be doing well so far. I just try to keep it interesting and stop before they get bored. I don't think there is a right way/wrong way or a specific order that must be followed in order for them to get it right. I think as long as you both are enjoying the learning process then whatever you are doing is working for you and your kid and it is "right".

This is Lola the 1.5 year old learning the letter T.

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My oldest just turned 8 and I have been using TouchMath since she was in preschool. At that time they did not have a preschool curriculum or many manipulatives so I had to adapt the kindergarten materials. I made a lot of manipulatives because my DD's learning style is Very tactile. I even made my own Touch cards by printing out each number with touch points on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, laminating them, and cutting the inner circles out of red felt and the outer rings out of sand paper. Finally, I hot glued the felt circles and sand paper rings on their corresponding spots. She Loved to feel her cards (those were her words). It was very easy for her to remember where the touch points were on each number. Teaching her math using this program was very easy and I would recommend it to anyone with a math phobia because it's just so user friendly and not intimidating like some other programs are. We tried several different programs that just did not work before I found touchmath.

TouchMath has been a great program for us. She is in 2nd grade now and is using the upper grades kit B which is skip counting, multiplication, and division. She has learned fractions, time, and money too. She loves math and loves to do the TM worksheets.  I am a homeschooling mom on a budget so I can't afford to buy the new kits on the TouchMath website, I buy the older kits on ebay (they work just as great and cost much less).

I got the Jones geniuses Math 3 program for her a month ago (because sadly she is at Touchmath's last level and I needed something that would take her to the next level), and I am just very confused and intimidated. I watched the dvds, and read the binder, but I feel as if the instructions are broken apart. I think I would be able to understand it better if it were organized a little better. I also agree with the other comments on the quality, my instructional dvds came blank, the binder was broken, and the posters were printed on regular paper. I was very disappointed because the program cost a lot of money. They did send me new dvds tho and the customer service was great. But I still haven't figured out how to actually start teaching with this program. If anybody has any suggestions please help.

Thanks so much for the help. I will definitely try that out next time.

Don't worry too much about it. My youngest daughter just turned 1, and up until last week she had absolutely No Teeth  . I took her for her checkup and the Dr. said that as long as she gets at least a tooth by the time she was 18 months she should be fine. In the span of 1 week she got a whopping 6 teeth all at once! 4 teeth on top and 2 on bottom.  My 2nd daughter (now 2) got her first 2 teeth at six months. It was so weird because they were the top 2 canines so she looked like a Baby Vampire    when she smiled!

So in conclusion, kids get their teeth at different ages and in different places(top or bottom). And if you are seriously worried that something is wrong then take them to their regular Dr. Their Dr. can tell you if its something to really be concerned about.

Hmm...

I'm very new at posting and something seems to have gone very wrong with this post. There seems to be double of each video I posted. I know I did not put 2 separate codes for each video. If anybody has any suggestions or tips for me so that this does not occur again it will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Hey guys,

I found some fun videos on you tube that teach Japanese. These are songs that teach Hiragana (one of the Japanese alphabet systems), days of the week, months of the year, Mary Had a Little Lamb etc... They are really catchy. I caught my 2yo daughter singing "Hitsuji, hitsuji, hitsuji..." (in English that would be "Sheep, sheep, sheep...") From the Mary Had a Little Lamb song. And it was only the day after we first viewed that video. Anyways, my kids loved them so I thought I would share them.

Hope you guys like them!

This is the Hiragana Video
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This is Numbers 1-20
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This is Mary Had a Little Lamb
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This is When, Where, Who, What? etc.
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This Colors
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This is Months of the Year
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This is Days of the Week
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This is How Much?
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This is How old are you?
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This is Weather
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This is Where are you from?
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This is Hot, Cold, Fun, Cool & Interesting
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That's Great! Your mom must have been blown away. Before you know it she will be reading sentences, then stories, and finally "real" books.
That's how it went for my first daughter. Back then we didn't have any fancy programs or DVD's that we have now, just plain old fashioned flash cards. It felt like it took forever to get her to the point where she could read phonetically. Then once it happened her reading picked up so fast that she was reading full "baby stories" (as she now calls them) in just 2 months. She is almost 8 now and loves to read.

Now I just can't wait til my second daughter gets over the hump and starts to read phonetically. Right now she can read about 100 words, she just turned 2 and we've only been working on it for a few months so that's not too bad. We also use YBCR, Leap Frog, and LR. LR and the leap frog DVDs keep her attention longer though. I'm hoping that it won't too long before she is truly reading.

Good luck I hope her reading takes off like a rocket.

Hey,

My daughter did the same thing for several months it was driving me crazy. She would either get the right words but in the wrong order or totally omit words she deemed unimportant(the, are, and, it, etc...)to the story. I  would just point to the words and say them in the correct order. If she omitted the word I would just point to it and say "this is the word THE". Then I repeated the sentence (and got super excited). The most important thing is to make it fun and not sound like your correcting your child. Eventually (it was 4 months, but it felt like 4evr) the problem corrected itself and now she reads everything she can get her hands on.

Hope this helps.

I breast fed my duaghter until she self weaned just after 18 months (Now she's 5. Geez... Where does the time go???). I was concerned about her iron intake as well, so her doctor gave me iron drops to put in her milk or juice. We use ASL at home so she would let me know when she wanted to nurse. Eventually she only wanted to nurse just before bed(I think it was more for comfort than really needing it). By 21 months she just wasn't as interested.

^I would get a house with a yard I'm tired of living in an apartment in the city. There is no place for my kids to run. 

> I love Art and Music. And any combination of the two.

v What was your favorite toy when you were a kid?

I am so excited. I can't wait. My kids love music and my husband plays several instruments so he is looking foward to this as well.

It would really be great to be able to play my own customized dvds at the sitters or in the car. This way my 4yr old and 3mos old would be watching something educational instead of just cartoons.