Count your blessings!!

I'm very pro starting cursive.  When we were interviewed at our Montessori school, I asked what they teach first and it was cursive.  The headmistress said because it's the natural flow of how children draw at that stage with large circular movement.  Rather teach them the more difficult one when they are inthat sensitive stage for learning to write, than later and having to retrain.

Have a read at http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/ (look way down page to "handwriting".)  He has a link to this interesting document on why teach cursive first - http://www.donpotter.net/pdf_files/cursivefirst.pdf

All the best,
Tracey

HI Ketty,

I see your bub is over 3yo.  It might be too late to teach maths doman style.  Apparently, children loose the ability to see collective numbers after teh age of 3, that is with the exception of down syndrome children.

Thanks,
Tracey

My little boy (2yo) hasn't had one injection. 

I met a woman whose daughter got autism after her daughter was given the meningoccocal injections.  Her two kids had contacted whooping cough. She said to me, "I could help cure my children from whooping cough, but I can't cure my daughter from autism".

A guy I work with, his daughter has CP.  I asked him how she got it.  When she had the Hep B injectioned at 2 days, she stopped breathing.  The nurses didn't catch it, the doctor took his time.  It was too late.  (Hep B - the most controversial injection - you can only get Hep B from blood or sex - where would a child get this from!)

Most chiropractors do not immunise their children.  Many peadtricians don't immunise either - you just have to ask.  I have 2 other friends who haven't touched injections.

But yes, there are concerns!  There is a profressor/researcher at Swinbourne University here in Australia who has done 20 years research into using homeopathy.  His name is Isaac Golden.  He has written many books on his research and his programme that he has worked on.  We have our little boy on this programme.  His success has been astounding. 

All the best with your choice.  It's a hard one, but once you've made your mind up - a relief. 

I make sure to give my little one apples to eat - which i believe naturally cleans their teeth.  Celery is good too.

Plus of course, trying to brush with electic and manual toothbrush and damp cloth.

Hi Heath,

I have most of Doman's books.  I'd rather get the 'How Smart is you Baby' book.  This covers most and a more updated version, of Doman's methods.  It is also a combination of all his main teachings - reading, maths, encyclopedia k.  It's how you implement his programme for under 1yo and gives you the programme you can run.  I was disappointed with the physical development book, as 'how smart' had already explained what I needed to implement.

The main focus of the book is on physical development and how you progress with an infant from birth, what exercises to start with, what pictures to show them, how to start implementing language.  I found it so, so useful.  It was good having a guide/programme I could work through.

As you reach each stage it explains which part of the brain you are trying to stimulate and grow. 

Compared with my friends babies at around the same time, I have the most balanced, energetic 19mo.  He is so strong, it is unbelievable.  He had such good spacial awareness.  Just yesterday, my friends toddler who is 4 mo younger, is still bumping his head of tables.  My toddy when he could just crawl, could weave under tables between chairs with such ease.

To implement some of domans swinging and lifting, I would put on lively music and do the exercises to them.  My toddy now has such good rythme.  He loves dancing, which just cracks people up, as he will always go onto the dance floor.

The description in an earlier post of how to start the brachiating, Izaac just loved.  It took ages and ages to get him to hold onto my fingers to be lifted.  Just a note, that I missed - do it on the bed.  In that way you are not afraid if he falls.  When Izaac finally *got it* and held onto the dowel as I lifted him, he was just so overjoyed.  He just loved it.  One of the things it aids is for strenghtening of their hands for writing.  When I gave him proper crayons, he had no problem holding them - his hands were so well developed.

So it takes a bit of work - but so worth it!  Just enjoy the few minute sessions, I found them wonderful bonding sessions.  And it's so true, at young age, they are so bored - finally we come along and make their world interesting, rocking, swinging, swaying and *grasp* ....

All the best,
Tracey,
Canberra, Australia

I am very interested in this discussion.  I really hope to hear more from people on this.  Thanks for interesting topic!

Tracey
Canberra, Australia

Not a problem!  I enjoyed having to think through everything I had read.  It made me remember what I needed to focus on too.  So I appreciated the encouragement to wrack my brains and get innovative again.

Some other good tidbits from the book:
- The biggest one for me was crayons in the mouth.  My bub was given these special crayons and I was forever more focused on him not chewing on them that about him learning.  I was finding it so frustrating.  The book suggested getting large crayons (for little hands), non-toxic and just forget about them chewing the crayons and just let them do it.  It really changed the whole mood of our drawing sessions.  I just relaxed, he chewed, got bored and then scribbles away.  He's face gets full of paint from tasting, but hey, it's non-toxic.  I bought pure beeswax crayons, which Steiner schools use.  They are brilliant and smooth, so gives my bub great satisfaction in actually making stripes.  I steer away from cheap large crayons.

- She encourages the use of shapes to make other pictures, therefore encourages creativity.  So if you want to use stencils for playdough or drawing, get shapes rather.  As mentioned before, likewise for stickers, use shapes instead of pictures.

besos,
Tracey

Oh another thing, she encourages all mediums -
painting, drawing, play dough and then onto clay at around 18 months, pasting - and ideas and how to develop these mediums.

Hi there Tabs,

The author Susan Striker believes in totally letting the child develop their own drawings and to let the child work through their scribbling stage naturally.  Colourin inhibits this, as they then have *other* pictures that they *colour* in instead of actually drawing and developing that skill.  Apparently there is a certain age where if a child has not developed the ability to draw, they won't be able to do it naturally after that.  Colourin in inhibits that.  So she has a range of books she has developed called the 'Anti-Colourin' books - which you can only start from age 6
http://www.amazon.com/First-Anti-Coloring-Book-Creative-Activities/dp/0805068422/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229825543&sr=1-1. 

Before then, she encourages initially to only give toddlers one crayon at a time, starting with black, blue, red, green, yellow (i think).  As they enjoy and get used to this colour, then go onto the next one.  Likewise with paint, one colour at a time.  Too many colours confuses and detracks from drawing/scribbling.

She then shows the different *stages* of scribbling.  Once we've shown a child how to hold a pen and draw, then not to try to get them to draw things, but to only *describe* what you're seeing.  Like, 'golly, those are wonderful circles, big one, small one', etc. 

With enough encouragement in scribbling and just letting them express, children will learn to draw more meaningful drawings.

Our library had only one of her anti-colourin books and I was so impressed.  It was of artworks and a piece of the artwork was removed.  Below the drawing was an encouragement, like 'the boy has a dog, how about you draw your favourite dog in this space' - something like this.  Or 'on these tracks a train is coming.  Can you draw the train'.  So it just really encourages and give children the confidence to draw.

Even with playdough, she discourages using stencils / cutouts.  Just let them play and discover naturally.

The stickers are those round circles one uses in offices for labelling things.  So any office supplier will sell.

This book really gave me a good base understanding of the world of art for children and what to do to encourage.  It gave me the confidence I was lacking.  It was good hearing from an expert.  She also had good ideas for birthday parties etc.

Also there are good tips on mess.  Like, get finger paints and let them paint in the bath.  Or paint in a nappy outside.  She goes a bit overboard on saving every drawing etc - but I like the basis she has given me.

HOpe this helps,
Trace

I forgot to mention, in 'Young at Art' the author is dead set against colouring in.  In that in inhibits a child's own natural creativity.  She has a range of anti-colouring books.

She suggests to instead of using glue to teach pasting, start with round, square and/or triangle stickers.  I have these blue round stickers that my 18mo loves to just paste and paste away.

Thanks,
Trace

Instead of using beads, you can also use dry pasta (the small tubes).

A great book I've read is Young at Art - http://www.amazon.com/Young-Art-Self-Expression-Problem-Solving-Appreciation/dp/0805066977.  It really freed me in my thoughts of art and how to introduce it.

Another thing I want to set up with a friend, is to have art playdates.  Where we go to each others houses and our toddlers do art.  Especially since her boy is older and I find that my todd learns really quickly when he has someone else to follow.

Thanks,
Tracey

[Graphics:]

I've really enjoyed using Little Reader.  It's sometimes not easy getting your playlist to be *interesting*. 

I've already witnessed playing back my recordings that are so boring, slow and graphically, just yuck!

So here goes, some of my tips:

Graphics:
=======
Once you've found your graphics, if you just add it to LR, it can stretch out and turn out very pixelated.  To improve my graphics, I use the free graphics programme, Paint.Net.  I create an empty graphic, making it a size of 640 x 480.  I then open my graphic and copy the whole graphic (Ctrl+A).  I then go back to my empty graphic and paste it in, positioning it in the centre of my new larger graphic.  Soon I will upload a document showing how I do this.

Add sound:
========
I can't stress enough in adding sounds to your words.  For instance, in the Actions playlist download by BrillKids, for eat and drink I found a 'munch, munch, munch' and 'glug, glug, glug' sound respectively.  With the animals, I've recently shown 'Donkey' and found 'ey-ore' sounds - which my bubbie laughs at.  I've really begun to understand how important it is to make learning fun.

There are loads of places to download sounds from.  I personally use http://www.findsounds.com/ISAPI/search.dll.

Be creative.  For instance, when I get to showing kangaroo, I'm going to make a recording of 'boing, boing, boing'.  Look for ideas from the dvd's your children use, for instance, Hi5 or Wiggles.  They often use *human* sounds for things, which your bubbie already can associate.

Your recordings:
========

I've discovered if I *smile* whilst recording my words, they sound much better.  It's not easy getting the balance right of pronounciating correctly and just saying them toooo slow.  So I try really hard to sound excited, like I would sound if I was reading the words out and trying to get my bubbies attention.

All the best
Tracey

I agree with the Import folder.

But what I would like to see is a either a tree-view control, where we can organise multiple levels deep, if needed.  Or to use a folder control as found in Windows, Outlook, etc that allows us to create folders and have files in there.  Where we can sort on name, date. 

The folders at the top and the files underneath if they have not been inserted into a folder.

I find it very frustrating that there is no sort funtion when trying to trail down the list of catergories added.

Thanks,
Tracey

Congrats.  I've struggle to get Izaac to actually want to look at words.  LR is the first time that he is interested.  He laughs and claps.  I do different lists between looking at youtube videos of songs he enjoys - so that we have a break inbetween.

So I look so forward to reaching your point.  Can't wait.  Little hard too, as Izaac doesn't really respond to asking about things, like showing me things etc, tho he is slowly getting there.

What I'm interested in, is I'd like to start teaching him colors.  So I've been doing green sheep, blue sheep, etc.

But I see that you have a playlist from your post of different color objects.  Is there any chance that you would mind uploading them.

Thanks so much,
Tracey

Yep, I'm a seller on your product.  It really is good and finally something I can use to get reading happening with my little one.  Of everything, the community of downloads, the tool to run the words, couplets, voice, video is so useful instead of the schlep of trying to do it oneself.  If I had to work out how long it takes to do reading materials manually, Brillkids will pay back itself over and over just in its time-saving ability

Thank you!