These questions are in regards to my almost 19 month old daughter. I have an almost 6 month old as well, but he’ll be benefiting more than my daughter did in his first year. I only very recently discovered Doman, right brain education, as well as LR & LM in the last couple of weeks which we are now using faithfully.
Prior to this we have been doing:
-Baby Signing time
-Signing Time
-Signing time books and flashcards to reinforce her signs
-YBCR semi-regularly
-Preschool Prep Company series, Meet the Shapes, Colors, Letters, Numbers and Sight Words about 16 months old. She responded VERY well to these and worked her way through of the DVD’s in about 2 months or less. We’re now finishing up with Meet the Sight words and working on the accompanying easy reader books, she knows 2/3 of her Preschool Prep sight words very well but has not yet translated that into book reading yet (that I am aware of anyway. We had NO IDEA she knew all of her Baby Signing Time signs because they never “came up in conversation.” One day my husband asked her and she surprised us with a seemingly unknown sign, and then another, and another, she knew them all along…)
Her current level:
-Knows all shapes, colors, letters (Upper and lower case recognition, still working on learning the ABC song though), numbers (1-10 down pat, most of 11-20), 30-40 sight words-
-Picking up 1-2 new words everyday for the last month or so
-Very active, tries to do “forward rolls” on the living room floor, loves to climb, run, play, is fearless
-Studies and takes apart things, will inspect things to learn how they work and so forth, “tests” the world constantly
-Every day we do multiple projects- playdough, fingerpaint, talk about the learning posters I’ve hung around the house, crayons, markers, stickers, play with dried beans, random crafts, bang on pots and pans, pretend kitchen/doll play, etc
-Plays with foam letters and we make words for her out of them in the bathtub
-Water play in the baby pool usually 3-4 times per week
-Today we just started working on keyboarding and mouse control with the Leapfrog Click “My first computer”, she gets the clicking part but isn’t great at the dragging part yet
-A variety of youtube clips like phonics/abc songs, months and days of the week, some spanish clips, etc
-Basically daytime potty-trained
-She took her first steps at 10 months & 10 days old
-Super affectionate and just a great kid to be around. We’re working on getting control of her emotional maturity and reducing crying fits which is one of her challenges.
New programs we are beginning or just began:
-LR & LM & many of the extra DL’s
-LR Deluxe kit
-Tweedlewink
-Little Pim Spanish
What are some other activities/programs I can incorporate into our daily life that I am not already doing? I’ve seen people referring to the “Memory Magic” program. Is she too young or is that something I can play and let my kids watch and they can still benefit from it?
So, for her first 1.5 of life I have been working with her and reading to her all along but not utilizing the methods that I only recently learned about. I am grateful that I get to start with my son at an earlier age. I now realize that “average” is only “normal” because parents (like myself) don’t know about the information that’s out there.
Thoughts?