Hi There, this is totally doable and easy once you get the hang of it.

First, make sure you make note of what day you are on.
Simply click the button at the top "play and edit"
Select the "courses" tab
Select the course you want to edit. 
Click the "edit" button
That will open up a second screen (looks like a smaller box)
Look at the left column where it says "game".  There are tiny arrows pointing down right next to the word "game".  That opens up a menu box and select delete. 
Click save.
Then regenerate the course. 

You are ready to go!

Best of luck

That is so wonderful!  Thank you for sharing.  I recall reading your old posts about the Doman program and was so appreciative at the time that you shared so much detail about your experience.  

I'm wondering, you started the physical program when your son was 2.5?  What did that look like? Did you get him running a mile, etc...? I have a 22mo and I just can't imagine him doing that.   I can barely get him to walk (can walk, but prefers to be carried much of the time), and trust me, I've tried.  

He was a "typical" north american baby in terms of exercise until about 9mo.  At that point I discovered EL and really focused on letting him move and ditching the stroller.  However, I don't feel like we've seen much improvement...

I've heard this app is good, although I haven't used it myself.  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mandalas-memory-trainer/id523064312?mt=8
Mandalas are totally doable with a 2 year old, especially a precocious one like yours!  They just have to grasp the concept of the directions. Start with 3 colors, move on from there. 

See more recommendations here:
http://figur8.net/baby/2010/08/02/right-brain-activities-for-home-practice-part-4-mandala/

Wow, Robert, thank you so much for sharing that update!. David is doing so phenomenally well! It most certainly was the work ethic you developed with him that gave him the tenacity to take on the extra Google challenge.  And look where he is now, awesome! 

At 21 years old he has achieved Academic and career goals that mamy have only dreamed of, and that others may achieve but will take as long as another decade to get to. So cool.

Plus, he got a free ride for his master's, wow.  Well, not free, he was a ta, but still, no debt there!

The article you shared on phonics was interesting, the author even went so far as to say that if you teach sight words, it is detrimental because then phonics is not automatic. I used both sight word and phonics programs with my now 20month old.  He can read pretty well, he just doesn't have much stamina.  Of course, I have no idea which parts of the teaching program were the most effective...

I will say though, it's impossible not to teach sight words at some level... The child  always sees the whole word (like it or not), so they are bound to memorize the whole word for common words even if you use pure phonics.  So in that sense I'd say the author is incorrect, some whole word teaching won't hurt.

So now proud mama moment, here is video of the little guy.  Not the greatest one (he's hard to catch on camera), but super hat with his progress!


http://youtu.be/Bbh3Og3XMoc

I have some other videos where he is identifying numerals, he can also count to twenty.  Can wait to get the math ball really rolling!

Thanks for the update Robert, very inspirational!

Thanks for sharing.  I'll look for these at my Library. 

Glad to hear you're going for it ! 

EL Education,
I was very surprised how quickly he learned the PP sight words. It is kind of amazing actually. 

We've been doing little reader on a very regular basis since January.  For reading bear for a long time we were only doing the first ten or so presentations in flashcard mode, because he didn't have the patience for the longer videos.  Just recently though he has started showing interest, so now we are going through it in "sound it out slowly" mode.  He has finally started saying the "s" sound, but doesn't it really rarely, I need to encourage it more.  The only couplet he says is "mommy please"    but I suspect if I taught him with personal made little reader sessions he would progress very quickly.  I just haven't gotten around to it yet. 

How often do you show a reading bear presentation before moving on?  For PP I was showing them 3 times.  For reading bear I was thinking of doing the same...

We do little math, I have some laminated cards on the wall that show the numeral written, the actual numeral and the quantity in dots.  He loves running up to them and slapping them and waiting for me to shout out the number. Or we will reverse rolls and I'll call out a number and he has to find it.      I'm planning on teaching him math with the mortensen method, and will introduce counting with the blocks soon.  We do counting on the abacus, with food, etc..

It certainly is a fun journey!

That's awesome that you want to teach your daughter Chinese!  I'm sure she'll take to it like a fish to water, just like she did with reading in English. 

I'm very new to teaching my boy (18months) Chinese, but would be happy to share what we are doing.  He doesn't talk very well yet (in any language), but he does repeat words in Chinese.  He has read some Chinese characters, but in those cases he said the word in English.  Oh well, it's a start!   Considering I've learned so much Chinese myself from teaching him, I'm sure his nimble little brain is picking up a ton.  When he is older he will probably/hopefully  start to show more of what he knows.

Ok, all that being said, here is what we are using so far:

Audio
Baby's First Words in Chinese.  He loves it, I love it.  I got it from audible and play it in the car.  I love it because it has lots of traditional Chinese songs, but it's interspersed with regular speaking and rhymes.  So it's great that it has both, versus just songs. 

Video
Little Reader Chinese
Baby Learns Chinese
Wink to Learn
Little Pim


I'm planning on buying some audiobooks, the Chinese tag pen, etc.. but haven't gotten around to it yet. 

I have a student who comes by once a week and plays with him speaking Chinese for 90minutes.  She's only been by about 5x so far, but I'm hoping this will make a big difference as he gets older.  When he is 3-ish I'll enroll him in some sort of Chinese class.  They have lots of those in my area and I've heard good feedback on this technique from other non-native speaking moms.

We are teaching simplified, but all the above resources are also available in traditional. 

mybabyian:
That is so awesome about your son reaching impossible goals!  Really, super cool.  This is my biggest failing.  I'm way too quick to jump in and "help" my boy.  I'm afraid if I leave him he will get frustrated and give up.  Grr, I know it's not helping, but I just can't stop myself! Ha.  So, good for you for what you did and what an awesome experience it was for your son.

Mandabplus & mybabyian:
Yes, the mother medusa is scary.  And she did it over what... not exercising.  Hmm.  Agreed that I either wouldn't use it at all, or it would have to be something really serious.  Although, I don't think it would work at all for drugs.  It's the whole randomness that makes it work, that's why it needs to be for stubborn habits that haven't responded to her other methods.  For drugs you'll probably only catch your kid at it once, and pull out a mother medusa.  In that case, the kid just learns to not get caught. It's really different from something you've been nagging them at for a while.  

On the topic of RIVR, I suspect this is why my son all of a sudden no longer wanted to be submerged in the pool.       He probably randomly got water up his nose once or twice and then decided the risk of being underwater wasn't worth it and went on a full blown strike. RIVR could explain a lot of toddler idiosyncracies.  

I suspect we'll just have to wait for the Microsoft fix like last time.  Ugh.   Hopefully this doesn't continue to happen, I know it's not the BK people's fault though. 

Hello Everyone,

Looking forward to discussing this very unique and interesting book with you, Internal Drive Theory: Motivate Your Child to Want to Study, by Dr Petunia Lee.  Big thanks to Anna for the recommendation.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, Petunia is a consultant and researcher in the field of employee motivation.  Luckily for us she decided to have children and apply the same principles with her own children and in family therapy sessions.  Much of the content found in this book is available haphazardly on her blog http://www.petunialee.blogspot.com/ . The book can be purchased from her blog or on amazon.  

One of the reasons this book is so interesting is because I don't think it could ever be written by a North American.  Some of the areas she delves into are taboo and sure to raise some eyebrows.  Other topcis are pretty standard fare as far as parenting books go, the new twist is the "why it drives" that she outlines.

Below I'll list the eleven methods she gives for ingiting your child's internal drive.  On top of those there are three key themes I noticed sprinkled throughout the book.  1) She emphasizes that an emotional connection is THE critical factor in the relationship with your child.  2) She also frequently reminds that you don't want to be old and alientated from a child you pushed and pressured in their youth.  3) She says if your child is lazy it's YOUR fault (see, not a north american authored book )

The methods to ignite drive

1.   Structured Choices
"Do you want to do 2 questions from your saxon book or two questions from your mortensen blocks". Waterdreamer, I'm quoting you    She says everyone, even the smallest toddlers need to feel in control and by giving a choice the child makes an unconcious commitment to focus on that work goal.  Good, pretty standard fare.  


2.   Emotional Connection
I'm totally aligned with this.  As mentioned earlier this is a key theme throughout the book and she recommends you fix this before all else.  In this chapter she emphasizes that your child will need you to provide emotional strength and remove toxic emotions to help them achieve their challenging goals.  Basically, lots of support, our kids need us!


3.   Focus on Study Process, Not Grades
The Montessori parents will like this one because it's about empowering kids to get to a point where they can very effectively manage their own study.Throughout the book she references how she took her children from 'average' performers to top of the class (a BIG deal in Singapore).  What she reveals later on is that this was all intentional, a way to teach her children that it was the process and hard work they put in that allowed them to achieve what seemed to be insurmountable goals.  She says that you collaboratively should create a series of specific study behavoiurs that are clearly defined.  Sort of like a SMART goal if you have heard the term.  It's effective, but definitely requires a lot of engagement from the parent until the child learns the skill.  The upshoot of focusing on process is that if a poor grade is achieved your child won't say "I'm not good enough", ideally they'll say "How can I change the process to achieve the goal I want?"


4.   Information Feedback
It was either Outliers or Talent is Overated (or both) that discussed how practising in the sweet spot, challenging but not TOO challenging is how the greats become great.  Her argument here is that your feedback needs to be very specific so that your child knows how to focus their process (above)


5.   RIVR & RIVP
It's safe to say that this one is controversial.  Kudos to her for having the guts to lay it out there.  RIVR = random intermittent variable reinforcement.  The pleasure cycle that gets a gambler to the slots can be used to get your child addicted to studying. She also cites Pavlov's dogs.  Give your child a really intense positive experience, then follow it with intermittent reinforcement.  She gives the example of buying her son a set of books and taking him out for an attention lavished walk and meal when he displayed self drive in reading a book.  She says not to bribe though or the child will not learn to enjoy the studying in and of itself. Fine line to walk.  

RIVP is where things get dicey, random intermittent variable punishment.  She talks about turning into mother medusa.  Screaming at her son for hours.  She says the key to this technique is to be sweet and encouraging until the very second you turn into mother medusa.  That way your child won't see it coming, if they don't see it coming they can't predict it's occurence in the future, that way they will do anything to avoid it happening again.  It's serious stuff.  She advises doing it no more then once every 2 or 3 years, and only for deeply ingrained behaviours that are resistant to other methods.  Not sure if I could do this, or would want to do this.  BUT she makes the point that it is much more effective in changing behaviour then the every so often blow ups that some parents have.  My son didn't like brushing his teeth, I was getting very annoyed with the whole thing.  He threw his toothbrush on the ground and I screamed an angry "Dallas NO".   He completely burst out crying, I felt so bad. Daddy had to brush his teeth from then on out, and he did a much better job (son now likes brushing his teeth).  Anyways, I'm just saying, we all lose our tempers sometime, so if you feel yourself going there maybe this IS something to consider.  


6.   Strengthen Self-Efficacy:  Difficult Victories.  
Self-Efficacy is that never say die attitude that some people have when working towards goals.  She says it can be developed 3 ways 1)when other people believe you can 2)when you observe a role model who could 3)when you have experience your own Difficult Victories, with this last one being the most effective.  She says you can start with DF in babyhood, things like zipping your jacket (hello Montessori moms!).  Challenge is that many parents are impatient (I'm raising my hand on this one).  Parents need to allow their children to risk failure and even experience failure.  The key is to let them fail or almost fail when it doesn't have any serious consequences.  When they achieve it will be so rewarding and you can reinforce that joy to make it really stick.  She recommends mastering the previous methods before working on this one.  I do get a little tired just thinking about this one.  Ha.  


7.   Failure Management
Learning Goal Orientation.  Seeing the silver lining in failures, yay mom I made a mistake, now I know how to avoid that mistake for next time! Sounds dreamy right? She says you can achieve this by reviewing the failure with the child to determine if they were diligent with their process (method 3), if they were not diligent, that's the issue.  If they were, figure out where went wrong and what to change.  Sounds pretty simple right?  Too good to be true?  


8.   Design the Self-Concept
I love this one, it's just so, so true.  We behave in accordance with who we think we are.  Language shapes our reality.  Every time you jockingly say "naughty boy" your child is absorbing that message.  The same thing happens with any label you place on your child, so be cautious with bad labels and leverage good labels!  There is a little bit of a conflict here with Nutureshock where they point out that calling your child smart will lower their resilience when they face challenges.  I think within the broader context of Petunia's techniques you can avoid this scenario because you're building up your child's drive in so many other ways.  


9.   Set Goals
Ok, actually this one is more like SMART.    The Petunia's twist is that she points out goals are addictive, it feels good to achieve them, use them to get your kids addicted to school.  She talks about a few different types of goals, the one I found most interesting was the "Too Easy Forced Goals".  If your child is really bummed out you can lift them up by giving them an easy goal.  Achieving those goals helps build them up again.  After a time your child will have enough of a reserve built up to face something more challenging. She also talks about setting "Impossible Goals" and gives an example where her son spent weeks of his vacation memorizing chinese compositions.  I felt really sad for her son on this one. I'm not sure that I would want to go there, although I can appreciate  that they live in a different culture where succeeding at school has such a huge impact on your life.  


10.   Specify and Magnify  
I love, love this one as well.  Focus on what the child has done right and amplify it.  This is so in line with the parenting techniques I'm implementing from "Positive Discipline".  There is an interesting parellel here to Mortensen math (which is top of mind for me these days).  Workbooks can sap your energy because they cause you to learn from your mistakes, I got this wrong, now I review and figure out how to get it right.  With Mortensen and playing with blocks you will have lots of opportunities to cheer on what your child is doing right.  Make a big fuss when they add correctly or when they point out a math concept.  So many chances to focus on the positive!  She said one of the biggest challenges with this technique is that it can be too effective, and your child might start to overdo things.  


11.   Physical Movement  
Practice can be tedious, movement helps your child's brain from falling asleep.  I think all us EL'ers can certainly relate to this. I'm sure most of our busy little toddlers learned their skip counting dancing around, jumping and moving.  She gives an example of having her son run to her after every problem he solved so she could check his work.    


Ok, my review could go on and on, so I'm going to end it here.

What did you love about the book?  What did you find questionable?  What have you implemented successfully?  (either due to reading it, or parenting practices you followed naturally.  

Can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts!

Evelyn

Hello,

I'm having problems with the animated videos not playing, again. 

My computer automatically updates.  I just checked and the most recent update was today.

The issue started a few days ago.  Ive sent you a diagnostic report.  Please let me know. 

Thanks,
Evelyn

When I create a back up, it gives the option to back up words, our words and media.  I always select everything.

When I've had to restore from a back up, everything looks exactly the same as it once was, to the very last edit and detail.

Highly recommend backing up often, especially ifyou are doing customizations.

She might just be a little old for the program, also little math tends to be more "hit and miss" with kids then little reader.

For my boy, he loved it, then hated it, now loves it.

What I found helped was:
1. Lots of clapping, cheering and excitement.
2. Reduce the number of equations to five per section
3. Skip the dots, my boy loves numerals, so we start at the section where the numerals are included.

Preschool prep and starfall are great for learning numbers.

Marshmallow math and kitchen table math are great for your child's age as well. 

Best of luck!

ELEducation,

I'm so glad I found this thread again. 
It was so wonderful reading through all your updates, especially since your little one is just a few months ahead of mine.  It's funny that you mention preschool prep, I was just copying the dvd's to my laptop.

My little guy is now 16months.  Our biggest challenge right now is that there are still many sounds that he can't say.  I suspect he knows all his letters, but he can't make the sounds for - c, f, g, j, k, q, s, x, z.    Also, when he reads he doesn't enunciate the whole word, and he doesn't say multiple syllables.  So his "ball" and his "block" sound really similar. 

We've been using primarily little reader and reading bear.  He's got well over 100 words in his vocab now, but as I mention above, it's hard to know what's really going on!   

It's so cute, when we go for walks outside he is always running up to signs, pointing out words, letters, numbers.  He loves it. 

I'm hoping to have some more success with the preschool prep programs.  We will start with sight words.  We've used the numbers dvd and he LOVED it, he knows his numbers very well (although he only says 1, 2, 3, 9, 10) 

Please keep up the updates ELEducation!  I bet your kiddo is reading up a storm by now!