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EARLY LEARNING / Teaching Your Child Math / Teaching 4-year old with Little Maths
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on: November 29, 2017, 10:42:31 PM
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I am the owner of Little Maths since the birth of my son nearly 5 years back. Life was so hectic and chaotic - I never got the chance to use it. Now live is smooth, I have time, he is really interested in learning.  BrillKids says, that Little Maths can be used from 6 months to 6 years. I wanted to ask if you have any suggestions to use Little Maths with him now. I already uploaded German language and really fun icons he will love (Paw Patrol, Super Wings, Robocar Poli). Of course, we will use many manipulatives apart from that. My son can already count to 30, from 10 backwards, does now the numerals from 0 to 5 very good and from 6 to 10 okay. Thanks for your suggestions.  |
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EARLY LEARNING / Early Learning - General Discussions / Re: Why should my baby become smart?
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on: February 06, 2014, 01:50:19 PM
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Hey there, sorry, for the late reply, but studying physics is sometimes very exhausting... In 2 weeks I have some exams. But thanks for your great replies! I'd love to copy them in my autograph book. You really spoke inspiring words... I think my main problem was, that I didn't understand why a baby or toddler would need so many special toys and DVDs and programs. I looked around many Montesorian blogs (with so many cool toys), was having a glance at Nikitin and of course all this nice Doman cards and software... I'm no no-sayer, as I mentioned I already have all brillkids programs and I'm beliving in early learning and it's benefits, but on the other hand my and my hustand are kind of "natural" or frugal persons. There is also this thought, that these things are not really necessary (aka unschooling is the best). In my head I had a big dissonance, I was thinking round and round. Do you know what I mean? But now it feels better now... First I reread "How smart is your baby". I was reminded that Doman calls his approach "natural"... He says that babys can learn to read in the same way as they learn to speak. Totaly forgot that thought. Makes sense... Now when I show my baby words or books, I'm not thinking anymore "Hopefully you get smart" but "Maybe you learn another language, shall it be the written one or maybe the language of science". That feels better... And I tried to discover Doman elements in our daily life, because I bought 2 books and didn't do the program (what a bad feeling)!!! E.g. I carried my baby what was much passive movement and now my baby is free to expolore and crawl through the whole apartment and isn't locked in a crib our bouncer. Second. I found about the Reggio approch by accident. Wow! For me it makes sense to have a "play ground" (grass, sand, wood, ...) in your living room. All these natural elements, playing with sticks and stones, marbles, light that you can learn so many things. And I think doing Reggio is saving us a fortune because I don't feel the urge to buy special wooden toys and games (not that I think they do any bad).  I hope you understand a little bit what my problem is/was, despite my bad writing  |
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EARLY LEARNING / Early Learning - General Discussions / Why should my baby become smart?
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on: December 27, 2013, 12:24:40 AM
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Hello everyone, I never wrote much about myself. I'm young 21 years old, a physics student, hopefully I get my Bachelor degree soon, my baby boy is 11 months old, now starting to stand on his one... In the morning he is with his russian nanny whilst I am studying. In the evening I'm trying to speak English with him, my husband speaks German (sometimes vis versa we're not sure yet, sometimes I even speak French). At the weekends we visit his grand parents who also speak Russian. So there is already some language exposure. We have all Brillkids software products, sadly not useing them frequently yet. At home we mostly have wooden toys, no plastic, some Montessori-like and Waldorf-like things. As they are so beautiful I'd like to get more, but as we're two poor students there is no way Okay... But I'd like to get some Nikitin games (Do you even know this learing style?) for my boys birthday. That led to an interesting discusson with my husband... We both accept and belive that early learning makes smart children, that children can learn many different languages and that babys can learn to read. But there was a big question: WHY should my child get smart? Okay, now a little bit background: Me, myself, I always had the best marks, I was the third best of our high school year... (I'm from Germany, you could say I got a really high SAT). Now I'm studying Physics at a really good university... My mother always said: You're getting good marks, than you get a high SAT, you go to a good university, you get a good job und then you earn much money. During my adolescence I startet questioning everything, I got vegetarian, then vegan, buying organic food, trying to consume less, try to avoid waste, not using plastic, just second-hand cloth, spending less money. Now as we're living a really poor lifestyle, but being so happy, we asked ourself: Do we really want to go this "normal" way? Participate in this elbow society? Okay, now it get's a bit romantic: Can't we be really happy, being poor, growing some crops being a self supporter? Or less extreme: Have a part time job, low income but even little expenses (no big house, no car, no fancy furniture) but much time for your family, for reading, learning and relaxing? What is a good life? And then... What do we want for our child? Why does he need to become smart? Shouldn't he just be happy, explore the world on his one and learn what he wants to learn (kinda like unschooling)? Why all that fancy software and montessori toys? Don't get me wrong, how I already said, I love this things, we already bought some of them... But on the one hand I don't know what to answer my husband on the other hand I'm not even sure myself what I want for my kiddo... I'm really curious what you're thinking! Do you have some threads/links/blogs about this topic? Merry christmas! maweri |
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EARLY LEARNING / Early Learning - General Discussions / Re: PokerCub Swimming Update + Additional Discussion
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on: January 15, 2013, 12:04:13 PM
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Opinions aren't all "objective", they are rather emotional, no matter what everybody thinks. There are feelings, memories, your parents told you so, your friends think that, etc. So don't argue to much (in the "normal" arguing way). You will only push her in the other direction! There is no learning with a traumatized child! No matter what, happy and well-adjusted parents are the great foundation for happy and smart children. If there is always a bad mood at home the child will feel it and want to find the source. Maybe he thinks he's the problem or learning is the problem... I don't have much experience with arguing about EL, but I'm vegan... And people are very emotional about their food! No matter how good my arguments are... and even if they agree with me, there is the problem of the "emotional bond" with opinions... Their parents told them so, their friends told them so, the media told them so, they always ate meat, they have many good memories with eating meat, meat is a stable thing in their life, etc. Some advices: 1) Think positive (the most important advice)I don't know if you belive in god or somethink else. I belive in the "positive force"... Sometimes I meditated. My mantra is "Everything turns out to be good." And really... in most cases this will be the final case!!! As long as you are "good" yourself (Remember: Don't argue. Don't be negative. Don't be rude.) Step by step, little by little. You've had plenty of time to think about EL and homeschooling. She has this right, too. Everything will be fine ;-) 2) Be happy about every little step.Vegan topic: Nobody gets vegan from one day to another. If somebody says "One day a week I want to eat less meat" then compliment on this. So if your wife says "yes" to one little thing but not the whole story, be as muuuuuch happy as you can be and show it and don't look at the rest of the way or even the world map! (The journey is its own reward.) 3) Show positive examples.Vegan topic: People think being vegan is very hard. So I invite them to cook with me. They see how easy and delicious it is. Do some EL and be open to your wife to join in. People are social beings... if you and your baby have a really great time and much fun she will be part of it. 4) VIPS Vegan topic: People are very attracted be famous people and by magazine articles. Peta for example has always some VIPs on their posters. There are already some "famous" people out there speaking about EL and homeschooling. Leave some internet tabs open or something... (As always: Don't be to offensive!) 5) Normal peopleVegan topic: I have many vegeterian and vegan friends. If I visit the cafeteria of our university with a meat eating friend and he/she knows that we'll sit at the "vegan table" he/she will automatically buy something vegetarian. Because everybody wants to be part of the group (the human as a social animal) he/she will be much more positive about this topic as if one vegan would sit at the "meat table". Sometimes I'm so surprised, because we didn't even speak about this topic, but he/she will apologize for eating meat (this isn't my intention). Maybe you can find some people doing EL stuff and homeschooling in your local area and invite him/her to offee or dinner and speak about EL and homeschooling in a very motivated way. 6) VideosVegan topic: Maybe you know the videos about animals suffering... They are very compelling. Show your wife some videos of really smart kids and docus about kids studying at 14 years old. Something like that. You can read: How to win friends and influence people http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1439199191/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1638&creative=19454&creativeASIN=1439199191&linkCode=as2&tag=wachundlern-21">How to Win Friends and Influence Peopleand Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us about Spreading Social Change http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/159056233X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1638&creative=19454&creativeASIN=159056233X&linkCode=as2&tag=wachundlern-21">Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us about Spreading Social ChangeThere are much more great advices in this books to "change" people with out these nasty arguments (heated arguments - nothing about a normal talk)... Quarreling makes stones out of hearts ^^ |
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EARLY LEARNING / Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages / Re: Too many languages?
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on: September 06, 2012, 08:39:04 PM
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Oh yes, it's highly cultural, too. "What your child knows the ABC befor 7 years old?" (Many children don't go to real school befor 7 years old).
When I first read about preschools and kindergarten here in the forum I was very suprised that children learn counting and the alphabet there. Our "Kindergarten" (it's a german word) goes form 3 to 6 (for everybody who doesn't know) and we do exactly nothing except playing and sometimes some papercraft.
There was a study around European countries called PISA and Germany didn't recieve a good position, the 15 year old pupils couldn't read and understand basic texts. And everybody here is wondering why...
Another big concern of my boyfriend is: "When the baby can read and count before school, what can he learn in school. He/She will become an outsider." My reply: "Shall I hold her/him dumb, just because school wants to teach basic things that late?"
I would never tell anybody else about my plans of EL...
Are you german? Where do you live now?
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EARLY LEARNING / Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages / Too many languages?
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on: September 06, 2012, 01:02:58 PM
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Hi everyone,
in february my first child will be born. I've allready read much about early reading... my sister has allready toddlers and I'm very interested in this topic. Of course I want to use LR myself. My mothertongue is german. Apart from that me and my boyfriend want to speak in English to the baby. My parents-in-law and grandparents-in-law can speak Russian fluently and perfectly (my boyfriend was never ment to learn it), so I could convince my boyfriend that the baby could learn Russian as well.
I told him much about early reading and early maths. At first he was absolutly against it, same with the languages, but I could convince him with that, too.
As I read in this forum and as I got to know, that isn't the horizon. We have many Spanish speaking friends and I have learned it one semester and we live 20km far from France and I can speak french very well, too. My boyfriend is still absolutly against too many languages, he thinks it isn't useful, it can harm and the child can't learn anything new in school.
He always say, that I'm far too optimistic and that I shouldn't have too many expactations, I should stay realistic. But I know that children can learn so much... and even if the languages he is exposed to don't become his perfectly spoken mother tongue, it doesn't harm and maybe is good for his brain, things like that.
But how can I calm him? What can I give him to read? Books, websites?
Are many languages really don't harmful? Sure?
Are there any negative sideeffects?
Thanks for your replies,
maweri
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