I would love to be a part of this project. Pls let me know how I can contribute?

Regards,
momtobaby

Hi, if its not too late I would love to be a part of this wonderful project. Please let me know how do I contribute?

Thanks,
momtobaby

What a wonderful post. You just spoke my mind.

The other day my husband and myself we were having a chat abt EL and how its going to be rewarding etc. We both had some questions in our minds:

I am an Engineer who decided to give up my career for being a stay @ home mom, its very likely that my little girl might want the same thing when she grows up.
How do you measure success? Who is a successful individual....somebody who has a great career and makes a lot of money and above all is very happy with themselves?

What are the intentions of moms and dads who decide to educate their kids very young. Is it to just give them all the opportunities in the world? So do you think you will be happy if ur little one decides to be a stay @ home mom/dad?

We had so many questions like this in our mind. At the end we both came up to the conclusion that we decided to educate our girl young i to help her with her edication in the future....to give her all the opportunities. We also thought that at the end of the day even if she is a stay at home mom ...if she has all the skills ....she can always use it anytime when she really wants to have a career.

Let us know what u all think

Hi mybabyian,

Before I start, I just want to let all the moms and dads know that these are just my opinion based on our personal exp so please don't take it in any negative way. I have nothing against parents who don't send their kids to preschool, Its all a personal choice at the end of the day.We all are here to do what's best for our kids. What works for us might not work for others.

My daughter is 2.5 yrs old and here in Australia Preschool starts only at 3. However, we have managed to find a place that takes 2.5 year olds. We sent her to an early learning centre and a preschool. We will slowly move her out of the early learning centre and put her only in preschool in few months time.

We used to take her to several classes (like music class, baby gym, playgroups, playdates) and even though she got to interact with other kids I did not see much of a difference in her social skills. I noticed that whenever the kids were playing the moms always tend to interfere for whatever reason. Then we thought maybe its best to send her to preschool where she will get to interact with other kids more openly iykwim.

Preschool has really helped her develop socially. She is a very confident little girl who loves to be in the company of other kids now. She has learnt what sharing is all about and what taking turns mean. I feel that there is a big difference between moms taking kids to playgroup and kids being on their own with other kids. If you know what I mean. We could say that ....yeah for social development we can take the kids to a sports group or playgroup or whatever. The things that kids learn from being in the company of other kids without their parents around is lot more than what they learn when their parents are around. I feel that when we are around them we tend to interfere in their play and constantly helping them out with their play and so on.... most of the times unknowingly. Kids need to learn what being in a team is all about, I can even see some leadership qualities developing in her,they need to figure out how to protect themselves, how to get their way (in a nice way)......its better when its supervised by a teacher rather than a parent. I know that safety is important and that's why parents are interfering in a playgroup set up. However, my take is that we being protective are sometimes reacting when its not that necessary. That's when getting supervised by a third party helps.

She also gets to interact with older kids and that has helped her with effective communication. Overall I feel that preschools play a very important part in developing your child socially.

As for the academics, they don't do much at all. We still do all the learning at home. I think its a good balance now. Moreover, you are pregnant and you  need some time to rest and relax so it will be great if you can sent ur son to preschool. We sent our daughter to preschool only for the social aspect and not for the academic part. We have seen a definite improvement in her social persona after sending her to preschool. How about sending him just once a week? Will that still be expensive? The other thing is you still have time. Like I said here kids go to preschool only around the age of 3.5 to 4.

It also depends on how your son is going to take it. My daughter thankfully did not cry or have any seperation anxiety and so it helped us in deciding that sending her to preschool is a good decision. If she were to cry and had real trouble adjusting I think I would have taken her out as I don't believe in putting a young child through stress. I don't believe in the cry it out method. Again depends on how severe the seperation anxiety is, if its just something like " I don't want to go to school mummy" then try and explain to the child all the wonderful things he is going to do at school. If its a full blown anxiety attack I would wait and put him in school later.

Thanks everyone for the lovely ideas.....I have already introduced place value to my baby. We bought this place value flip book and now she can read large numbers using them (for eg. the number 21,345 she will read it as 21 thousand 3 hundred and 45 ). I also made my own base 10 blocks and we do make large numbers using them. I was more interested to know how to get my child to start doing mental maths, because even now if I ask her what 2+3 she will have to coint the numbers of items to get the answer. Do you think if I continue with the place value games she will eventually get it?

Dear EL moms and dads,

I was just wondering if you could share some ideas on how to teach your toddler maths with big numbers (for eg. addition and subtraction using 2 digit and 3 digit numbers) . My toddler is 2.5 years old now and we have been doing addition and subtraction using 1 digit numbers. She cannot add two digits in her head yet, she needs to count them physically. Is there any way I can teach her how to do the same without counting physically the number of objects she need to add or take away?She knows how to count quantities to a 100. I mean, if you give her 100 items she will count the items in order till 100 or how much ever qty I gave her. With the current method of counting4 items to add them up will get difficult as we move on to bigger numbers. Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance.
Regards,
momtobaby

Thanks Mandabplus3 for your valuable advice and views on the tropic. I am glad to know that your kids are doing very well because of their EL experience. I get what you are saying and its a great idea you gave me regarding teaching in  depth a topic that they are already doing at school. I will keep that in mind. We give a lot of importance to EK lessons and she craves for EK lessons everyday. We always take 2 days break from EK and on the 3rd day when we get back to it she just beams with joy.

Like you said good teachers who understand them are really important too. We sent our daughter to childcare once a week ...just so that she can interact with other kids of her own age without mom and dad around and there the 1st day itself a teacher recognized the fact that she could read and this teacher encourages my daughter a lot. However, when this particular teacher is not around nothing much happens.

My daughter is 2.4 years old and is actually reading at a very advanced level for her age. The other day we took some books from the library which is meant for 5th graders (here we have books in library called Premier's reading challenge books meant for different grades ....so we got the one meant for grade 5 children). She read through the entire book without any help at all....again thanks to LR and YBCR

I guess at the end of the day being bored because she knows the topic is better than being bored because she can't understand what's going on at all...isn't it

Yes its has !! We were ready to try for another one right after my daughter turned 4 months. However, that's when I ventured into the EL world with her. Now, she is 2.4 months old and I am still not ready for another one 

I guess, once she turns 3 we might start trying for another one. That way by the time the next one's born she will be off to school for atleast 3 days and I can concentrate on teaching the 2nd one. She will still get all my attention after she gets home as I will be after schooling her.

The other day my little girl who is 2.4 years old started reciting the 3 times table out of the blue while she was engrossed in her play (thanks to the times table songs ) and one of our relatives who happened to be around gave a huge lecture explainig how bored she will be at school ad how she is going to perform badly because she will be bored and that I am not letting her be a baby etc etc. It got me thinking particularly about just 1 thing ....about she being bored at school.

We are planning to send her off to school and then supplement during after school hours. I just wanted to know your views/ advice/ experiences about how EL has affected (both positively and negatively) your kids at school.

That video was really wonderful, please count me in too.

Wowwww..... that's great .....she is sooo good with her fingers

I should also thank you for your suggestions regarding how to get my baby to love maths. Right now, all she ask for all day long is "Let's play maths Mommy". Karma to you TeachingMyToddlers

Sonya_post,

Its nice to see that you are doing so well with managing your teenager. I am just hoping that we will be able to do the same when our daughter gets to that stage. Its always easy to have a plan in place but who knows when she grows up we might have to change our strategies that we have thought for her. I am sure the 'mental blips' will get better soonie soon (though my mental blips ....even at this age is worse than his .. )

I totally understand where you are coming from Korrale4kq. I am an Engineer and have given up my profession to concentrate on my family. I also did my research in Environmental Engineering and that was lot of fun. I think I have a flair in teaching little kids and so who knows....I might end up being an early education instructor later on. I have also done lecturing in Uni but nothing more satisfying than teaching little ones.

[from where I come from]

I totally agree with you guys on not artificially extending the kids childhood.....I come from a traditional Asian background and was born and brought up back in my homeland. We get potty trained by the time we turn 6 months and by 8 months we are totally out of nappies. There is not even a word in our language for the term "Teenager". However, atleast from where I come from wacking and spanking a child is also a part of the culture and out of the fear a lot of the times kids tend to listen to their parents and try to stay away from trouble. Does that make spanking or wacking a child an ok behaviour? I am sorry for putting it so bluntly out there but this is the truth. Again I am talking from what I have seen and the culture that we come from.

The so called teenagers wouldn't dare say a word back to their parents as they fear the repercussions. However, we still see irrational behaviour from teenagers and I have seen it first hand in school and college.  Westernisation has introduced a lot of good and bad into every culture and I think it will be very hard to take the society back to the good old days. We have to accept the fact that kids are going to be exposed to this culture one time or the other and our job as a parent is to guide them and help them choose the good elements.

I am not saying that we should escuse rash behaviour from our teenage kids saying that its their brains but instead we must see which is the best way to reach to them during the teenage years. Adult reasoning and not rewarding might not work due to the brain wiring at that time but some other strategies might.

[Teenage Brain Development]

Its nice to listen to all your comments on this subject. Like you guys mentioned the whole idea of early education/accelerating is not to get our kids early into the workforce nor to send them off to college earlier. However, some kids need more stimulation.....even more than they receive at school and its important to provide them that. It might well pave the way to getting their degrees earlier but again at the end of the day accelerating a child with the goal of getting them into college or workforce earlier is probably not the right path. I strongly believe that depth of knowledge is very important in education.

As for teenage rebellion, a lot of research done in this area and they all have proved that the teenage brain is responsible for a lot of their craziness. This is one of the article I came across :

According to report published on website www.telegraph.co.uk, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland (US) have found that 'brain pruning' may better explain why adolescents act the way they do.

The study tracked the brain development of 400 children every two years and found that about 1 percent of the brain's grey matter was lost every year right into their early 20s. This one percent accounted for the unused neural matter that was overproduced during the child's growing years.

The 'pruning' begins with the areas of the brain responsible for the more basic and motor functions, moves on to the language and spatial regions of the brain and finally the area of the brain responsible for decision-making and impulse control. It is the pruning of the last area that could explain why many teenagers exhibit moodiness, short tempers and indulge in what may be described as bizarre behaviour.

As white matter gradually replaces the lost grey matter, neural connections stabilise and behaviour begins to stabilise as well. The research suggests that while this pruning encourages learning in children, it could also be the reason for increased risk-taking behaviour.

Teenage Brain Development
 
In adults, various parts of the brain work together to evaluate choices, make decisions and act accordingly in each situation. The teenage brain doesn't appear to work like this. For comparison's sake, think of the teenage brain as an entertainment center that hasn't been fully hooked up. There are loose wires, so that the speaker system isn't working with the DVD player, which in turn hasn't been formatted to work with the television yet. And to top it all off, the remote control hasn't even arrived!

The brain's remote control is the prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain that weighs outcomes, forms judgments and controls impulses and emotions. This section of the brain also helps people understand one another. If you were to walk into a sports bar full of Lakers fans wearing a Celtics jersey, your prefrontal cortex would immediately begin firing in warning; those teams are bitter enemies, and it might serve you to change your behavior (and your clothes). The prefrontal cortex communicates with the other sections of the brain through connections called synapses. These are like the wires of the entertainment system.

What scientists have found is that teenagers experience a wealth of growth in synapses during adolescence. But if you've ever hooked up an entertainment center, you know that more wires means more problems. You tend to keep the components you use the most, while getting rid of something superfluous, like an out-of-date laserdisc player. The brain works the same way, because it starts pruning away the synapses that it doesn't need in order to make the remaining ones much more efficient in communicating. In teenagers, it seems that this process starts in the back of the brain and moves forward, so that the prefrontal cortex, that vital center of control, is the last to be trimmed. As the connections are trimmed down, an insulating substance called myelin coats the synapses to protect them.

As such, the prefrontal cortex is a little immature in teenagers as compared to adults; it may not fully develop until your mid-20s [source: Kotulak]. And if you don't have a remote control to call the shots in the brain, using the other brain structures can become more difficult. Imaging studies have shown that most of the mental energy that teenagers use in making decisions is located in the back of the brain, whereas adults do most of their processing in the frontal lobe [source: Wallis]. When teenagers do use the frontal lobe, it seems they overdo it, calling upon much more of the brain to get the job done than adults would [source: Powell]. And because adults have already refined those communicating synapses, they can make decisions more quickly.

Adult brains are also better wired to notice errors in decision-making. While adults performed tasks that required the quick response of pushing buttons, their brains sent out a signal when a hasty mistake was made. Before 80 milliseconds had passed, adult brains had noticed the blunder, but teenage brains didn't notice any slip-up [source: Monastersky].

An area of the teenager's brain that is fairly well-developed early on, though, is the nucleus accumbens, or the area of the brain that seeks pleasure and reward. In imaging studies that compared brain activity when the subject received a small, medium or large reward, teenagers exhibited exaggerated responses to medium and large rewards compared to children and adults [source: Powell]. When presented with a small reward, the teenagers' brains hardly fired at all in comparison to adults and children.

So what does it mean to have an undeveloped prefrontal cortex in conjunction with a strong desire for reward? As it happens, this combination could explain a lot of stereotypical teenage behavior