Reader Rabbit Playtime

With all my dislike for TV, I treat computer differently. Maybe it’s because I spend at least 60% of my awake time on the computer, and I have an engineering degree. Still, we don’t exceed 30 minutes a day, and it’s always a joint activity. Mostly we are exploring Starfall, but eventually I felt to try something new and after some research on Amazon chose a Playtime for Baby and Toddler from Reader Rabbit series.

It was a good choice. I am not in favor of software that rewards young children for random banging on a keyboard, and while Baby part of this software has a lot of parts responding to random actions, Toddler part usually requires mouse use.  Anna is nowhere near using a mouse, and not even interested, so I navigated for her. It has an engaging beginning, easy presentation of entry points into different playing modules, and modules appear pretty even in their degree of difficulty. Anna liked all of them at various points over about 6 month span. We played the game probably about twice a week. She really liked Alphabet Express section with letters and songs. My only complaint is about numbers section in a Bubble Castle. It always counts to 5, and the bubbles are flying quickly even for me. Still despite minor flows, it’s still the best game I tried with her, and I recommend her as a starting point of entry in the world of computer games.

Preschool search

Until Anna was 27 months, she was always either with me or with my husband. It doesn’t mean at all that she hasn’t been in group settings. She and her papa were busy bees – playgroups, playdates, story hour in the library, Gym class, Gymboree music class. But we felt that by now she is ready to venture outside without one of us always standing guard over her. That’s why we started looking at early preschools (the ones that accept children from the age of 2). I also started reading materials about preschool selection on the Web. One thing is very clear – there is nothing out there that fits every child and every parent. One link that I highly recommend is a collection materials on preschool selection and preschool search on GreatSchools.net.

School selection proved harder than we expected. One thing we were clear on – we didn’t want a school that focuses on academics. Our daughter is a bright child. She caught on typical preschool staples – colors, shapes, letters by the time she was 2. We didn’t feel that we need more “help” in getting her ready for school. We were rather interested in extending her early childhood, but giving her more opportunities to learn independence and life skills. We were all set on Montessori schools based on our readings and recommendation from a friend. But we also wanted a school close to where we live. Our visit to a local Montessori started with director of the school telling us that our girl is very advanced, and that we are doing her disservice by keeping her at home. She needs to be in school, and she needs to be there every day, otherwise she doesn’t adjust. We were not impressed with this pushy approach and with the state of facilities, so we kept looking. We had a very high hopes for a preschool that was considered “the best” in our neighborhood, so we couldn’t wait for their open house. It was a train wreck. Obviously, the organizers didn’t expect anyone show up with young children. The children were screaming and running around, while the director and other teachers made no attempt to engage them and just kept talking how great their school was. I admit – the school had most toys of games, but it was also very big. We were so turned off with their impersonal approach that we left as soon as we could.

We found what we were looking for in an unlikely place – a Christian school. We are not religious, but our friends told us that many of so-called “Christian schools” don’t really have any evangelical curriculum, they just happen to be based in church buildings. We have visited one in our neighborhood and liked what we saw. It’s a very new school, so number of students is still very small. The director of this school taught many years in Montessori, so she uses some of its principles. She had a flexible schedule and didn’t mind at all to start Anna on two mornings a week. Somehow all this made me comfortable to try it out, even though I still have some reservations, because it’s so bare in comparison with other schools we visited. I will write in another post about adapting to the new way of life.

Learning Everywhere Book

This book has a subtitle: A parent’s guide to early learning at home, in the community and on trips. My husband picked it up at the Barnes & Noble $1 sale, and it was a good find. It groups learning activities into sections, for example, kitchen, bedroom, post office, beach, etc., and it has modifications for younger children. I am always looking for more activities to teach abstract mathematical and space awareness concepts, and this book offers a lot of them. One example is sock matching while sorting laundry. Anna tries to find all the socks – small, medium and large, and then she matches them by color and size. Most of the activities don’t require elaborate preparation, and a lot of them are simple games that we just forget in the middle of dinner preparation or house cleaning. It’s truly about learning by doing, and in my opinion it’s the best way to learn.

Fathers and Young Children

Research conducted on fathers’ involvement in their children’ life showed how important it is in children’ development. It affects everything – IQ scores, upward mobility, behavior in adolescence, and, of-course, self-esteem. Anna is extremely lucky in this regard. We both come from strong families, where fathers were involved more than average at that time. Before she was born, her dad has left his software engineering job to become a full time dad. This decision has paid off multiple times in his involvement and the joy we all experience watching our daughter grow and develop. I don’t believe our daughter would have become a person she is in a different setting. My husband manages to walk the thin line between being strict and being loving with grace and confidence that I cannot always master. It also matters a lot that he has different way of teaching her. I am more academic, he is more hands-on. They build things with Legos, play guitar, cook together and speak his native German. I hope that this close father-daughter link will blossom even more over years to come.

Teach Your Child

I picked up this book in the library about a week ago and wish that I had found it in the first year. It offers a clear, concise advise about normal course of development and simple things you can do to help. The author makes a point early in the book that the activities and milestones descriptions in this book are not meant to make your baby brighter or to accelerate development. “Rather, they subserve the hope that you will not form unrealistic goals for your child, that you will not push, force or pressure your child to reach arbitrary standards but will work alongside him or her in a purely supportive way. As children learn more in the first years of life than at any other time, parents have enormous responsibilities to be caring, patient teachers to preschool children.”

Setting realistic goals for toddlers

I’ve been doing some soul-searching lately, especially after trying to introduce Bob books to Anna. Are we pushing her too hard? She is a bright child, and she is very interested in language and word play, but do we inadvertently lead her away from simple pretend play and creative activities? I read that it’s important to set realistic goals for toddlers, so they can delight in achieving them. I am trying to think back to things that we are doing together and “reset” to a more balanced approach. Fortunately, our daughter is pretty good in letting us know when she disagrees with our goals. I cannot do it, you do it - her normal response to our requests to try and put her pants by herself or to count to 10. And she beams with pleasure when she manages to cut a piece of paper with her scissors. I have full trust in her – she will learn how to do all basic things (including going potty) when she is ready and not a minute earlier.

Baby Play – Activities for the First Year

Babies learn through play, and parents are natural teachers. A Gymboree baby play book offers a lot of ideas for infant activities, with easy text and bright photos. I bought this book by a recommendation from a friend before Anna was born and tried some of the activities of the book, especially those that didn’t require any store-purchased props. Here is an example of an activity for 6-month old babies that we enjoyed doing:

“Old scarves – the silky kind – can delight and entertain your child up through her preschool years. When she’s still a baby, one of the best games you can play is to poke a brightly colored scarf through one end of a cardboard tube (from a used paper towel or toilet paper) and let him pull it out the other side. Embellish the game by adding your own enticements such as - Where is the scarf? Where did it go? Oh, there it is! Peekaboo! “

By the way, while looking for the graphics on Amazon, I noticed that there is a newer edition now. Here is a link to it, in case anyone is interested – Gymboree Play and Learn: 1001 Fun Activities For Your Baby and Child (Gymboree Play & Music)

Introduction to Bob Books

A lot of people have recommended Bob books to me as a wonderful phonics-based program designed to teach young children to read. So I caved in and bought Anna the first set. She knows letters, is interested in sounding out the first letter in the word, and enjoys rhyming. Maybe she is ready to try a formal reading program? Obviously not I think that she finds pictures and words in the book very boring – I know I do! Nevertheless I made a big fuss of the books and explained to Anna that those are special books. I am not reading them to you, you will read them to me. And we cannot turn the page until we figure out what it says on this page. The reason why I don’t want to read them to her is because the text is so simple that she will simply remember everything and will “read” the book back to me at the next reading. She can memorize significantly more complex books almost word-by-word, so surely she can do it with a book that has a single word Sam on the page. In any case, my current conclusion – she is not ready. She doesn’t understand yet how letters make sounds, and sounds combine back together to make words. I am not going to push her. I am just going to try every two weeks on the first book of the set to see if the concepts click. We have all the time in the world, after all she is only 28 months.

Language Milestones – 25-30 months

Anna is 28 months today, so I decided to look for language milestones and see what she is “supposed” to be doing at this age. Here is an interesting article from BabyCenter:

25 to 30 months
Now that he has a bigger vocabulary, your toddler will begin to experiment with modulation. For a while he may yell when he means to speak normally and whisper softly when answering a question, but he’ll find the appropriate volume soon enough. He’s also starting to get the hang of pronouns, such as “I,” “me,” and “you.” Between ages 2 and 3, his working vocabulary will grow to up to 300 words — and he’ll understand up to 900 words. He’ll string nouns and verbs together to form complete but simple sentences, such as “I go now.”

He’ll even get the hang of speaking about events that happened in the past. He may not quite understand the concept of irregular forms, though, so you’ll hear expressions like “I runned” or “I swimmed” and plurals like “mouses.” Sure, it’s cute, but it also shows that he’s picking up on the basic rules of grammar (that you add a “d” sound to a word if it happened yesterday, for example, and an “s” sound to make things plural).

At this age, your child will start answering simple questions, such as “Do you want a snack?” and “Where are your shoes?” If you notice that he consistently echoes your questions rather than trying to answer them, bring it up with your child’s doctor. Such behavior can be an early sign of a developmental problem such as autism.

Anna is definitely very much on track with her language development or better. Her vocabulary is way more than 300 words, she is understood by strangers most of the time, she follows directions, tells short stories, asks why? questions and what does it mean? questions. What did we do right? I think the most important thing was that we read to her from a very early age. Even when she was just born, my husband and I used to sit in her room holding her and reading aloud to each other from What to Expect in the First Year book. The article on language development from WebMD names reading the most important learning activity for young children. And – turn off that TV already!

Development Milestones (0-5 years)

When Anna was an infant, I was obsessed about milestones. I was worried endlessly, when her peers were crawling and even walking while she was content to sit and play with her toys. I was beside myself when she had no interest in walking at 1 year. In a retrospect I wish I enjoyed her more and worried less. She made her first steps at 14.5 months, and was walking just as well as any other young toddler by 18 months. It taught me to take any kind of milestone charts with a grain of salt, especially after my late caterpillar blossomed into an active talkative butterfly. However, I do agree with many experts – it is helpful to be concerned if your child has not met a particular milestone. Early intervention can do wonders for children with delay if it’s undertaken early. Therefore here are the links to a few milestone charts taken from the book on the left. I read this book while pregnant and thought that it’s well written and covers a lot of ground in a relatively small volume.

• First Year
• 2 Years
• 3 Years
• 4 Years
• 5 Years