As there are so many wonderful products on the market for teaching your baby and it is so hard not to want to buy them all. I was wondering how many of you mums/moms and dads draw a line at how many you have and most importantly how much of the day is spent watching educational products over the more traditional GD method?
Great post, Karma to you! I too have been wondering the same thing. Every time I look on here to give myself ideas of what educational dvds people recommend i find so many good ones but actually choosing which ones i want is impossible.
There are signing dvds, learning to read, maths, tweedlewinks which covers everything, learning new languages, and so much more…where does it stop?
Do we really need all these dvds or are the more conventional ways eg GD method, the better way to go?
I buy so many DVDs because I myself am easily bored and look forward to watching something else. And unfortunately the DVDs that are most GD-like, Tweedlewink, babybit, baby brain and Wink to Learn, bore her… she wont watch them. So she isnt learning much from them.
My rule when my children were babies was that once I thought they had learned the concepts in a particular DVD, I would no longer play it or rarely play it. At that point, there was no great educational value and it had become pure entertainment.
When babies are very young, sometimes it is hard to know that they have learned the material. I believed that my children learned of the information on many DVDs fairly quickly – within a week or so – as the material is so simple. Colors and shapes are ridiculously easy for a baby to learn when presented in a simple, easy to understand format. Babies don’t need to watch that hundreds of times! And so those DVDs are better acquired from the library. Others, such as reading DVDs (including our product, Trebellina, for reading music) may take a little longer than say, shapes, and are worth the investment.
Of course this is all very child specific – just some food for thought.
And it goes without saying that it is also important to incorporate what they are learning on DVD into real life – “Look at those BLUE flowers!” “The stop sign is an OCTAGON.” You know!
We are very big into the library rather than buying DVDs because they don’t keep his interest that long.
Once a week my son can pick a DVD from the library that he wants for the week. He gets to watch it every morning while eating breakfast so I can get ready, eat, check email. No more than 20 minutes. His choices are all non-fiction, but not always “educational” things like garbage trucks, fire trucks, wind. He used to watch YBCR during this time but he is no longer interested in that.
Then we do Tweedlewink together, with him on my lap, if he wants to.
That is it, one “fun” one and one Tweedlewink at the most.
We also read tons and tons of books. No less than 50 books a day, some stories and some non-fiction. He loves to read, so that is his choice and not mine. At least his books are interesting now that have a plot line.
What DVDs would you recommend for learning colors and shapes? Something good for a baby of 12 months? Or should I just go with Sesame Street?
I think the LR LIte has colors and shapes which would do well
Try putting babybit on the computer if you haven’t already- that’s working better for my kids than on the big screen TV-
Cassidy, at what age did you start your baby on YBCR? Did it work for you? How do you find the time to read all those books with your son? My son started on the YBCR dvds when he was 5 months old, he is now 8 months and just started to see volume two. He loves it. I just wish I could tell if its working. He sorta recognizes clap and toes. When he sees the word toes he looks at my toes or his toes, but not everytime he sees the word.
His godfather is getting him the baby signing time dvds and I’m getting him the twiddlewink dvds, I think I’m gonna stop there for now. After I see the math section of twiddlewink, I’ll decide if to get him the Little Math software.
I just want to give him a headstart so he can enjoy life and work less on getting what he wants. Besides if he can skip a grade or two, its less money to spend on private school and maybe he can get a full scholarship to a great school.
I just love him so much. I wish I could give him the world.