I have now translated the whole LR Curriculum into Swedish (except for the parts that were already made by someone else). Now, I would like to share it in the download section. Therefore, I have two "stupid" questions:

1) How do you do this? Does the material have to be in some particular format?

2) Do you earn loyalty points if you share the stuff that you've created?

I'm soon about to go crazy with my now 2,5 year old daughter, and it all started out so well... She learnt to read with Little Reader, loved Little Musician, Dino Lingo and other software, could point out quite a lot of countries on a world map, and so on. Now, because of obstinate age, everything has turned into a nightmare. She doesn't want to do a thing that we want anymore, crying, fighting and screaming in a louder pitch than an ambulance, no matter whether it's potty training or Little Musician. The worst thing of all seems to be Soft Mozart and piano, which she really HATES. We have been trying all kinds of approaches: Everything from reward-based incentive schemes such as: "We'll play the piano for 5 minutes first, then we'll go to the toy store!" to kissing her, hugging her and letting her drown in our love but, shortly speaking, it is almost impossible to have her sit in the chair in front of the computer anymore, and her attention span is shorter than ever. And still we try to do it all at 6 o' clock in the morning, which is her best time.

I should add that she is raised in a perfectly stable, happy environment, where they even said at daycare recently that it is noticeable how safe and self-confident our daughter feels.

Now, if you read the posts on this forum, the commercials of Brillkids or something else about EL, it almost seems as if your kid would be Einstein at age 5, provided you just stimulate him/her with Doman cards from 6 months, then with Brillkids' products, and so on. There is just one tiny problem in between: obstinate age. What the heck does one do in terms of EL when your little "monster" is  2-3 years old and behaving like mine?

Could it be a cultural thing? Could it be that, simply, our daughter is a spoiled, Western child, getting everything she wants from her economist father and medical doctor mother? Could there be a correlation between the fact that countries such as Singapore, Russia, and China are not only more prone to EL but also tend to have more authoritarian ways of raising children, and the fact that they also score better on PISA, TIMMS and other indices than do Western countries?

Since this is an international forum with participants from all over the world, I think we could have quite an interesting discussion about this. Or at least about how some of you parents who managed to survive obstinate age were able to integrate it with EL. If your children really wrote their first composition at age 5, or something like that, how were you able to bridge the obstinate age "gap" in EL between age 2 and 4, when the brain of the child even tends to develop the most? Did you perhaps tell them: "DO NOT play the piano!" or "DO NOT read that book!" so that they would instantly run away and do just that, only to defy you?     

I have a 2-year-old daughter and so far I am very happy with the results that EL has had on her. Basically, what I have done, having researched the topic intensively on the Internet and read on this forum a lot, is to use Doman cards from about 6 months of age, all Brillkid's products, reading a lot of books with her as well as use a number of apps. As far as Brillkid's Products are concerned, I would give the influence of LR on her 5 stars out of 5 possible, LMu 4, and LM 2. My daughter now reads very well, both in Swedish, English, and even a little bit in Russian. When we celebrated Christmas last year, after she had just turned 2, all the relatives present were very surprised when she was shown a bottle of hobby glue and asked: "What's this?" Instead of saying: "glue" she read the glue manufacturer's very name from the bottle: "Casco!"  She had never seen that bottle before. They do have glue in her kindergarten, but from a completely different manufacturer.

LMu lessons also go relatively well, even though she doesn't like clap along anymore, nor does she recognise all of the cords.

LM has not been a big success. She is still overcounting and has not yet developed a one-to-one correspondence, but at least they say in her kindergarten that while the other children are simply shouting and getting dressed, readying themselves to go out, she is instead standing beside them, counting every kid.   

Now to the topic: How to allocate time with your toddler. They say in kindergarten that my daughter is far ahead of everyone else (thanks to Early Learning!) and I would gladly pay 70% of my entire salary or so  to put her in a Montessori kindergarten. Unfortunately, there aren't any available where I live, only "stupid" 'jump-on-mattresses-kindergartens' (as I call them). Therefore, since my wife and I work a lot, we usually have only one hour a day to allocate to EL activities after we have picked her up. After that, she simply becomes to tired and wants to go to bed. Therefore, as topic says: How do you find an effective EL schedule for your toddler? I'm sure many parents here are in the same situation as I.       

More specifically, I would like to continue all Brillkids' Products, which amounts to about half an hour day. In a week or so I would also like to start SoftMozart with her. Then, in about a year, I will try introducing the Soroban.

Besides, I would like to continue with flash cards (since they have obviously worked very well on her) and some educational apps. In a few weeks we will also buy DinoLingo for her in Russian, to complement the Russian that her mother (and even I sometimes) speak with her.

Therefore, in other words: How on earth should one assemble an effective, routine-based EL schedule from of all this, assuming that we have only one hour a day to allocate? (On weekends we have a lot more time, of course). What have you done with your toddlers so far?           

I was just wondering: If I buy the full 1 year curriculum, are there really step-by-step instructions for how to teach a 2-year-old to play the piano? So far I have only seen a few fancy videos on Youtube where presumed 2-year-olds play the piano using SoftMozart, as well as CLAIMS that even 2-year-olds can learn how to play the piano if they only have some basic requirements such as comprehension of colours etc.

So, in other words, what exactly will I get when I buy the curriculum if the aim is to teach a 2-year-old to play the piano? As for myself, I played the piano a little bit when I was a kid as well as a little bit of violin when I was older. I even reached a point where I could play the romance from Shostakovich's The Gadlfy ('Ovod'), but now I have forgotten almost all of it. Thus, it is not possible to consider me a piano/violin teacher. I would therefore like to know, before I buy the package, what exactly I should do to teach my 2-year old daughter, step-by-step, to play the piano. Are there intuitive lessons in the package for 2-year-olds, from the very basic and onwards? Or should I just put her in front of Gentle Piano and hope that she'll like it?

I should add that she is quite fond of Little Musician, even though she doesn't recognise all of the cords yet.

 

I have been running flashcards, LM and even some Montessori techniques with my daughter since she was 12 months or so. She is now 22 months. The problem is that while she seems to love numbers - oftentimes even stopping in the street in order to point and read numbers aloud from registration plates on cars - she obviously finds it much harder to recognise quantities. When there are, say, three cats in a picture and I ask her: "How many cats?", she starts counting them from one but she never stops at three. In other words, she is always overcounting, continuing automatically until I say: "Really? Where do you see the fourth cat?", or something like that.

Does anybody else have this problem? If so, what should one do to correct it? As far as I can see I have done everything correctly as far as order of learning goes. I started with Doman dots only, then made flashcards with dots on one side and numbers on the other, then moved to LM and now to a Montessori spindle box. As with so many other toddlers, however, she has only showed limited interest in LM. One problem, I think, is that lessons in LM are simply too long. This especially goes for mathematical operations lessons.

It could be that she has somehow managed to learn the natural numbers, as well as order, before understanding quantity. This is very probable since she is not interested in the Montessori sandpaper numbers I recently bought her, simply because she already knows all the numbers. I have read that such an order of learning could be detrimental to a child and should be avoided. But if the damage is already done, i.e. she cannot relate natural numbers to quantities, what should I then do? Any suggestions?
 

Yes, you understood me correctly. Thank you very much, Kezia.   

While currently creating my own curriculum I can't seem to figure out how to make words appear in the Games section of LR. In edit mode I have tried to tick the appropriate boxes, i.e. 'Words drawn from' and then chosen Sight Words, but this doesn't seem to help. The program only picks pictures from the multisensory categories. Did I do something wrong?   

I have noticed two very annoying problems with the voice/sound editor that comes with LR and LM. Does anybody else have them?

First, there is a "whiplash" sound immediately before and after the actual recording. For example, if I record the word "three", it goes: *whiplash* - three - *whiplash*.
I don't have this problem with other sound recorders, so obviously it hasn't got anything to do with my sound card. However, I would preferably like to use the sound editor that comes with the programs since it is user friendly. Of course, the whiplash sound can be edited away, but not with Brillkid's sound editor since - and this is my main problem - it is not possible to save any changes there!

 

Allright, I'll see what I can do, starting from the very beginning. My plan is to translate one lesson of LR, LM and LMu every day, to have them ready for my daughter the following day.

I will begin undertaking the task of translating LR to Swedish in the upcoming week or so. If Bjorn or someone else here would help me with this I would of course be delighted. Ideally, we should hire (child) actors or suitable acquaintancies for some of the voices. If you feel like contributing with female or child narratives, please let me know.

Unfortunately, even though she has obviously put in a lot of effort, the translations made by Iris Granstedt do have their faults. I don't mean to be rude or anything but one problem is that hear voice is simply too monotonous. My daughter got bored. We need something more vivid, as in the original LR recordings.

Another problem is that she uses the Swedish male name 'Pelle' when in fact the pictures/videos show a girl.

 

Ok, so I have decided to buy all three products (LR, LMa, LMu) plus the curriculum in Russian. My daughter really loved the trial versions. But then the one million dollar question is: As far as Little Reader is concerned, would it be best for me to translate one lesson every day (including recorded sound etc.) into Swedish and run it with her? Would this be enough or should I run the same lesson in Russian and English, too, one after another? Or should I perhaps wait with Russian and English until the one year curriculum has passed and we've already gone through all lessons in Swedish? I saw a Youtube video with a 3,5 year old Brillkid girl who was reading simultaneously in 5 languages, but is this really something to recommend?

What do you think?

Right you are, of course. I didn't mean that the program is useless per se, just in relationship to its price. I think 100 USD or so would be a fair price when not offering the MIDI feature. Especially since you can easily create many of the included features yourself using Powerpoint or otherwise.   

Thank you!

Forgive me for not being precise enough. The problem is that MIDI input doesn't seem to work in LM. For example, when using the function 'free play', no key is pressed on the virtual keyboard nor sound is heard when I press the corresponding keys on my M-Audio Keystation Mini 32. LM seems to be an awesome program, but if it doesn't accept input from a MIDI keyboard it is pretty much useless. I want my daughter to partly discover its functions by herself using ordinary piano keys, not the keys on a PC.

Yesterday I downloaded the trial version of Little Musician, and I have to say it looks very good so far. My daughter simply loved the first lessons. Today I bought a MIDI keyboard to use with it, and that's when the problems started to turn up: The M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 didn't work with LM.

Therefore I'm now wondering: What MIDI keyboards or USB pianos can you verify will work with LM, provided you also have an "ordinary" laptop with an i5 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium x64, 8 gigs of memory, a decent sound card, and so on? 

I am a Swedish native fluent in Russian and my wife is a Belarusian native fluent in Swedish. Together we have a wonderful 19 months old daughter. However, our daughter seems to be a bit confused by the two of us mixing the languages at home. Now, she has started speaking words in both languages, almost like that guy in the 80's movie "The name of the Rose" who knew all languages and yet no language since he mixed them all up. Research suggests that parents should strictly adhere to their own native language when conversing with their toddler. Now we're trying to mend this mistake. However, since I have also created a lot of Doman cards and slide shows for her in Swedish, where progress has so far been immense, the question naturally arises: When should we start introducing cards in Russian? Would you recommend using bilingual cards, i.e. cards with a picture of, say, an animal + its name in Swedish and on the backside the same word in Russian?

I know that there are many people with bilingual children on this forum, which is why I ask: How did you handle the situation out there?