Thanks Manda! 

I am very interested in RS math, but my hubby isn't     so...maybe someday.

I know it would be easier to visualize the abacus in my mind with 2 colors, but since it is my 2 yo who needs to do the visualizing, I'm not too worried about that.  She can visualize way better than I can!!

Buy two?!?!  I am having a hard time convincing him that we need one!  It does sound like a great way to learn skip counting though!

"You may notice that I always refer to what Lily is learning rather than Owen. He learns everything twice a fast and I don't have to worry too much about his curriculum because he's on par or just behind Lily in some many areas, I only need to keep up with her and he just absorbs everything by being around it."

Tmt, do you think this may have to do with the age when they started EL??  If I remember correctly, you said you didn't know about EL until Owen was born, or shortly thereafter.  Or is it just the way each of them happens to learn.  I am wondering because of several other posts about gifted children and early learning.  I didn't start until my DD was 23 months old and I know she is not learning nearly as quickly as some of the kids.  I am very pleased with how much she is learning, just curious if she might really be amazing me if she had started sooner.

(btw, I don't know how to insert a quote the way other people do.  So if someone could please enlighten me... )

Thanks, Tmt.  I have been thinking about getting a M&D abacus (still trying to convince Hubby that it is a good thing to spend $ on).  I was thinking about taking it apart but not painting it.  I would just switch the colors that are already there so there would be 5 of one color and 5 of another color on each rod.  Maybe if we were using RS already we would go with blue and yellow.   What do all of you experienced moms think about mixing the colors up like that???

Anyway, hopefully, I will convince him that it would be better to buy so I don't have to try to make one of those too    

Thanks for this post!  Lots of great ideas.  We have the foam letters and numbers, so we can start there!  Tamsyn, thanks for the link!  I will have to look for other cheap EL things for bath time now too!

These are great ideas, thanks lelask!!

Welcome!  This forum is a great place to get advice    I know that I have learned a lot from everyone here.  The search button in the gray bar at the top is a great place to start when you have a question...pretty good chance someone else wondered about the same thing    And you will find lots of people ready to help at any time!! 

Good luck with teaching your little girl!  It is lots of fun!

Thanks, Annisis!!  My 2 yo just started reading word families on her own and LOVES them so I was excited to find more to print off for her.  She will be excited when she wakes up from her nap and sees her new stories!  And they are free!  My hubby will like that!  My DD will enjoy coloring the pictures with me too!

Just curious how hard it is for a young one to go from using this type of abacus to using the soroban??

Thanks, Korrale for your very extensive list!!  Quite impressive!

Thalanaya, I taught at a school that used a program called the Barton Reading Program for kids who struggled with reading.  We saw amazing results with it.  It takes several years to get through the whole program and I don't think you could do it yourself at home unless you took their classes.  But if there is someone using the program in your area, it might be worth looking into.

My 14 yo nephew also struggles with reading.  He has been trying http://www.readspeeder.com/ and seems to like it.  It is a free speed reading program online.  I think his first reading was about 50 words per minute.  Now he is up to about 150, which really boosts his confidence.  The nice thing about this program is a person only "competes" against himself and they can read as slowly as they want to.  There are about 500 books to choose from, so you might be able to find something your daughter is interested in. 

Minmin,  Yes, French is the language that I can not speak.  Mostly we are using LR files from the download library.  We also are using Rosetta Stone, which is pretty advanced for her.  (Great for me!!)  She actually has a good attention span and seems to enjoy the Rosetta Stone, just can't sit through a whole lesson yet.  She does seem to retain things she learns from there though, better than I do   Rosetta Stone is veeerrry expensive if you plan to use that though, and I think mostly it is for older kids.

I am eagerly waiting the LR French version!!!

Oh, yes!  Tmt and Keri and Aangles!!!  And even some of the daddies!!!  Please all of you experienced Early Learners-- we want to pick your brains!!!    You, too, Korrale!

And Tmt, I am interested in your soroban that you are building.  I just made one out of cardboard, yarn, and beads that is quite usable, just not very professional  

Thanks, annisis!  More great math ideas are always useful!

I am curious why she would say to not have preschoolers memorize square and triangular numbers?!  They seem to have the greatest capacity for memorizing such things at that age!

Here is a suggestion that I used waaaay back when I was in college to help me memorize things and keep them in my memory until I needed it (finals were over ).  Now I am using a similar idea for keeping track of things while teaching my wee one French using LR.

In the categories tab under advanced play/edit make several new folders.  Name them according to how often you need to review what you are learning.  We have a folder for "every day", "odd # days", "even # days", and each day of the week has its own folder now too.  When we start learning a new category, it goes into the "every day" folder.  Once we get that basically learned, it gets moved to the "odd # day" folder or the "even # day" folder, and we only go over it every other day.  From there it gets moved to a certain day of the week.  So far we haven't moved along far enough to move things to a "monthly" folder, but that is eventually in the plans.

Hmmm, reading back over this seems a bit confusing    Maybe someone else is using something similar and can explain better. 

Anyway, this helps me keep track of two languages at a time; one of which I do not speak.  Hopefully, it could help you keep track of four languages!!

Karma to you, Minmin, for teaching 4 languages!!!  I'm always impressed by the ability to speak multiple languages!  I hope to someday get 2 down!

Is there any chance that this Convention is still going to happen in August??