I can imagine that it would be really difficult to teach a second language with no understanding of it at all. I'm in the same boat as your Spanish boat when it comes to French, maybe even worse off. I can read and understand quite a bit of French, but learning Chinese has erased a lot of my French vocabulary and certain letter blends I can not remember how to pronounce for the life of me!  For now, I'm teaching the girls simple words that I already know, but I am, unfortunately, not very good at putting together French sentences anymore, so I will have to re-learn myself.

We're also learning Chinese (which is why I was so interested in your Japanese lessons) but lucky for me Lily was born in China while my husband was there for a year and a half teaching, so I can actually have a preschool level conversation with her. I can't imagine teaching such a difficult language with no prior understanding of it!

One thing you might consider doing is online lessons with a live Japanese teacher. I taught English this way while living in China. The teacher would prepare lessons on a given subject each week (shapes, colors, animals, etc.) and have an interactive online class with your child. If you're interested, I can ask around on some of the language sites I belong to and see if I can find someone interested in teaching at this level?

As for the violin lessons, how do you find the Suzuki method? I was concerned that it might be too boring. I have played the violin myself now for 15 years and intend to teach the girls myself but some people think it might be better to have a teacher who is not a parent...what do you think?

I have a strong music background too and am really hoping to pass some of that knowledge onto our children. I made it my goal but the time I left high school to be able to play every instrument in the school band at a high school level, so hopefully we'll be set no matter what they want to learn (please not the trombone - that was a tricky one!).

Anyways, good luck with your learning goals! They look great and I really look forward to hearing about your progress!

Maquenzie,

That all sounds so exciting - I'm sure you can do it!

I have a couple of questions for you:

1) Do you speak Spanish and/or Japanese yourself?
2) Do you teach your LO violin yourself, or do you take her to lessons?

Congrats on getting so much done so far!! I'm glad I could inspire you to make a list - I definitely love seeing what others have planned!

Surprisingly, we get a LOT done in a day considering that we have virtually NO schedule for our day. We have our learning goals set out and we just pick and choose activities based on those as time allows. I would, however, LIKE to have a schedule! Perhaps that way my house would actually get cleaned too!!

Wow shaman - That's sounds great! It's so awesome to see so many people on here taking an active role in their children's education!!

I look forward to hearing about your progress - good luck!

www.teachcooklove.blogspot.com

It's a tad out of date, but I should be posting lots soon!

I did come across the EK forum but it's all PP or LR files. Unfortunately, I have trouble getting my babies to sit through a PP Presentation.

aangeles,

I LOVE Marta's blog! We're going to try her tropical wildflower file folder games soon!

As for EK cards, it just so happens that my Lily and Violet both LOVE flashcards! I am glad already that I took the time to make them because I used the Arctic animal ones today and now BOTH of the girls can identify all of the animals that I've shown them!

Even Violet, who is only 11m old when I held up the Beluga Whale and another card grabbed the Beluga and actually SAID, "Be-lu-gaaaa!!" before I even got a chance to ask which was which! (Yes, I "test"...my girls love it and CRY when I stop! For us, it's a fun game!)

So, time consuming? Yes. Worth it? Definitely!

That would be great! I would love to see what you have planned for your oldest!

Okay, tomorrow it begins!! I really hoping we'll be able to get through everything on the list! As it so happens, we don't do formal school over the weekend, but that doesn't stop us from learning! We've already managed to get a big of a head start on this week's list. Lily...
...knows that blue and red when combined make purple
...can sing a full song in Chinese (SO CUTE!! Maybe a video to post later this week when the camera gets charged!)
...can recite most of "The Caterpillar" when prompted with the first word of each line
...can name two objects in Chinese and identify several others

I'm very excited to get started with our school week!

Does anyone else have projected learning goals for this week?

This week a part our our learning goal list is learning about the animals of the Polar Regions. I have been making my own EK card and I have to say that I am SHOCKED by the amount of work necessary!! I have 28 different species that we are covering, I've done the BO for 16 tonight, and it's taken me over two hours so far! I would say all together when you include finding the images, compiling the BOI, and putting the cards together, this ONE set of cards is going to take me close to 10 hours to complete! Holy heck! No wonder people buy EK cards!

Now, on the plus side, I'm learning an amazing amount about Arctic and Antarctic animals!!

What has your experience been with EK cards?
 

Maquenzie,

That's a great idea! When I did my year-long broad list of learning goals I did much the same thing while adding in several things of my own.

Best of luck with your little one!

Wow! That's so fantastic!!! Mine surprise me at least once everyday.

Don't you love when a regular, everyday moment turns into a chance to teach??

We were just reading "But Not the Hippopotamus" when Lily realized that they were drinking purple juice in the illustration. She promptly decided that she, too, would like some purple juice. Well...all we have in the house right now is apple juice!! Soooo...we made it purple! We got out the red food colouring and the blue food colouring and added it to her very diluted apple juice while explaining how the primary colours of red and blue, when mixed together, make the secondary colour of purple. She was SO amazed and excited!

Did you have any spontaneous learning moments today?

Don't worry I have LOTS of "Wow...that did not go as planned!" moments!!

It sounds like you have the perfect plan for your family schedule!

We were out a LOT more in the last city we lived in. We went to a Mandarin play group, Salsa Baby classes, two different play dates, and church each week.

In my perfect world, I would have a little studio in my house where I could teach Kindermusic, baby signing classes, Salsa Babies, and baby aerobics. That way my children could get lots of activities in, but I wouldn't have to haul them all over the place without help from hubby! Maybe one day...

LOL Kizudo! No super-human genes here!!

Now, let me answer your other questions:

1) Let's call it a "very likely to accomplish" list. And my aim is for two weeks, if we get some of them done in the first, I may add a few things to the next week. I feel like posting my list here and documenting our progress will make it all the more likely that things actually get accomplished.

2) I will definitely not be upset if it doesn't go as planned! When does anything EVER go as planned! LOL I do know that even if things don't go as planned, we will have tried very hard and still learned so much.

3) We do spend a lot of time at home. We used to do Salsa classes, but that ended and we sometimes go for play dates. We also go swimming once a week or so as a family and go to the library for new books. I would like to take them out more often, but it's difficult, as I have no support network where we live. We go out about 2-3 times a week as a family, often travelling on the weekends.

4) Don't feel like a bad Mommy!!! I'm sure your little one is brilliant! Really, if I showed you a photo of my floor and kitchen counter right now you would totally understand. With the kids, spending quality time with hubby, cooking, and my photography side-business, cleaning somehow always lands last on the priority list. I'm really working on achieving a balance there!

5) Although I have no cape I do have lots of tea and I wish I could come!! I can't seem to find any like-minded Mommies to play with in my area and it's a tad depressing!

I may start blogging about how we go about our activities in a day (if I can find the time), maybe having a model to follow will make it seem less overwhelming?

Keep watching this thread and my blog to see if we are successful! LOL

BIG HUGS!