Update on Blaise (11 year old early learner)

I've had several request for an update on how my 11 year old is doing. He was my first early learner, after having been inspired by IAHP many years earlier in a college psychology class. I haven't been posting about him much recently, because there was a period where he wasn't sure if he wanted me to share about him on the internet. He has now decided he is happy to share.

As part of our local home-school requirements children are required to take tests in 3rd, 5th and 8th grades. Blaise took his 5th grade test this year and scored at the 99% in all sections.  We were a little worried about how he'd do as he hasn't covered many of these topics for quite some time, but overall he got almost 100% on the entire test. He ended up missing 3 questions in total. They were in the math section and unfortunately it sounds like silly mistakes from just moving too fast.

Currently, Blaise is working his way through Algebra 2 in Saxon. Algebra 2 is generally considered to be about 10th grade math. At this point he only has Advanced Math and Calculus prior to completing the Saxon math sequence. Unfortunately, our community college only goes through Algebra and I was really hoping for him to complete the Saxon sequence and then go on to a college Calculus class. Perhaps, we will choose to just do the AP tests for college credit instead.

In English he is working on Cover Story. We were torn between that and "One Year Adventure Novel"(OYAN). I think he would have done well, but I thought he would really enjoy this program. At the end of the program he will have created an entire magazine on his chosen topic. It also has the added benefit that his 7 year old brother can do it at the same time. They really enjoy the goofy instructor on the DVD's and in general find the writing assignments enjoyable as well. We will probably go on to OYAN after this as Blaise has lots of really interesting ideas for novels and I think it would be really rewarding for him to see one through to completion.

In reading he is currently reading "The Iliad" from the Great Books of the Western World series as well as Don Quixote. I also got him a few magazine subscriptions this year including National Geographic History and Scientific American. Interestingly, the National Geographic History had a whole Iliad section this month, which really dovetailed nicely with his reading. 

For science, he continues to do a ton of science reading, as well as working on high school biology. He does coding through Kahn Academy on his own volition. Both boys got Arduino kits this year, and Blaise also got Snapino which allows you to connect your Arduino and Snap Circuit kits. 

He also works on French daily with DuoLingo, and weekly tutoring via Spyke on italki. We have been working on incorporating spaced repetition with Anki as well. In addition we try to work on French easy readers and videos on Discovery Streaming and YouTube.

For fun he enjoys swimming competitively. His team practices 1.5-2 hours a day, five days a week. He also enjoys baseball, skiing, and surfing with the occasional competitions. 

Overall he is an amazing, compassionate and thoughtful boy, and I can't wait to see what his future holds. He sees the problems in today's world, and he tells me he sees his education as a way to help him become one of the leaders we need for the future. 

Learning French for Kids

So my children have been learning French for quite a while. We began with Little Reader and the French add-on. Subsequently we have used many of the traditional options including Rosetta Stone and DuoLingo. I will be honest, that although they have learned a large number of nouns and other vocabulary they have not learned to speak. We have been searching for that missing component of our program that will get them from being able to identify what a French phrase says or what a French word means to having meaningful interactions in the language.

Initially, I had hoped to find a French tutor to come and speak with them for a few hours a week, or even a nanny/babysitter. Unfortunately, in the area in which we live it is nearly impossible. French is not even offered in the local schools.

For that reason I turned to italki. Italki is a tutoring program that connects French learners with certified French teachers at a time which is convenient to the learner. You can choose a certified teacher (most expensive option), a community tutor (less expensive), or a language exchange (free). For my kids I have opted for the lessons with the certified teacher, however we've had such great experieinces, I am contemplating taking some lessons on my own with one of the community teachers.

Most of the lessons we have had so far are taught in an immersive conversational manner. They are usually video lessons although we had one instructor that did audio and had us look at different pages, which they then discussed. After the lesson the kids are given a list of words and pharses covered, which they can then review on their own prior to the next lesson.

My hope is that as their conversational skills improve we will be able to incorporate in more movies and books as well. I'd love to hear what other parents are doing to encourage fluency in non-native languages with their children. Leave your strategies in the comments!

How to Teach Toddlers to Ski

We love to ski as a family, and there is nothing more exciting than watching a child fall in love with skiing. It was that excitement to share the joy of skiing that prompted us to begin teaching our oldest child to ski at age 2 almost 10 years ago. Since that time he has become a a great skier capable of attacking any run we've come across. Using the same methods we also had great success teaching our younger son also at age 2. By age 3 he was independently skiing most intermediate runs at the hills in Oregon and Montana that we usually visit.

 This is a video of Mason at 3 years 3 months.

We were planning on getting Arden up on the ski hill next year at about two and a half, however when we were at a local used ski shop we saw the absolute smallest ski boots I have ever seen.  They were Nordy 14.5s and with some thick socks they were perfect. The nice thing is that they are real ski boots, just sized down. Plus at under $20 they were meant to be. So at just 20 month old Arden's ski journey began.

Of course, we had to get her a new extra small set of skis, as we'd never had a little one start quite so early. Since the rest of her ski gear will likely be hand-me-downs from the brothers we got her a used set of cute little Rosignols with hummingbirds and butterflies.Once she was set up she was pumped to start skiing. 

The first thing is getting a toddler used to the boots at home. We let her wear them around for a 5-10 minutes at a time. Pretty soon she was putting them on herself. 

We also had her practice binding into the skis and sliding around in the skis in the house. 

When planning your visit to the ski hill it is important that you choose a time when your toddler is well rested. We definitely have had times when by the time you get to the hill and get all your gear on, the youngest skiers are ready for a nap. 

In order to ski safely with a toddler you need a little bit of extra gear. The first thing I strongly recommend is a ski harness. I like that the straps come around from the front and you are able to help control the child's hips for turns. I also recommend toe clips, as it forces your child to hold their skis in a wedge position.

At the hill the first time your toddler binds in you may just want to practice walking next to them and helping them glide along while you hold the safety handle on the back of their harness. After that I advise going straight to the "bunny hill". I leave the toe clips on while loading/unloading small children. I just hold the handle on the harness and slide them forward. The handle on the harness is also helpful in lifting them up onto the lift. While on the lift I hold onto the harness and keep my other arm wrapped around my child. Once you get to the top I always remind them "tips up". Then help them slide off and holding the handle direct them off to whatever side you are going.

 

Once at the top get the harness straps out from the pouch, and make sure they are appropriately positioned. 

Help your little one towards the angled part of the hill and have them shuffle until they start sliding. At that point I slowly let out the straps and we are off!

With toddlers it is important to keep in mind their limited endurance. With Arden under 2 I noticed we would only get about 3-5 runs before she needed a break (and usually about a 3 hour nap). Another tip to consider is if your ski hill has some nice long easy runs that aren't too steep it may be worth it to move to them from the bunny hill relatively quickly. The benefit is that you are avoiding the constant on and off of the chair lift in exchange for more actually skiing time. Just beware that if your little one decides half-way done the hill they are too tired to continue you may need to ski the rest of the way with them between your legs and you holding them under the shoulders.

As your child progresses and over the next year or so you should be able to remove the toe clips and then once you are confident in their stopping abilities the leash. I left the handle on the back of my middle son until he was about 6 just for piece of mind and loading on the chairlift. 

Using this progression my 3 year old was place directly into level 3 of 6 in ski lessons and quickly moved up to level 4. The funny thing is the lessons he was in were for 6 and under and because no other children of that age were skiing that well he would always get private lessons. Teaching your toddler to ski is definitely rewarding. The best part is that soon you will be skiing as a family and making amazing lifelong memories!

January Update

The past few months have been busy around here. We've been trying to move into our home/construction zone, as well as homeschooling, working and of course celebrating the holidays. We were able to take a trip to visit my family and Arden loved hiking and exploring their property.

During this time Arden also turned 18 months old. She can read at least 50 words, including the top 30 Dolch sight words. She also routinely speaks in 5-7 word sentences. A few examples are "Momma, put the shoes on me" or "Daddy! Put your hand down!". She is quite opinionated and enjoys telling us what shoes or clothes she'd like to wear as well as how she'd like her hair done. She also loves pretending to "talk to Grandma" on her phone and "cooking pizza" with her Melissa and Doug Pizza kit she got for Christmas.

She has started to enjoy doing some "school" while her brothers do the same. She enjoys drawing in her Kumon coloring book. A normal day for her learning-wise would include a lesson of Little Reader in both English and French, a lesson of Little Musician, some flashcard review and lots of read alouds. A few days a week she will watch "Meet the Sight Words", "The Letter Factory", or "Suzy" a piano DVD which is a her favorite.

We also have been practicing counting. We like to make it more exciting by combining it with activity, such as counting the stairs while we climb or counting and then jumping into Mom and Dad's arms.

 We have begun to work on reading books. A few we have started include the Peter and Jane Keyword books and the Meet the Sight Words books. Although she should be able to read the books, and most of the words are words she knows she still is working on the fluency required to read them in series. At this time she will just read individual words as I point to them.

Reading progress at 18 months

Sorry if I've been a little spotty on posting. We're in the process of moving to/renovating an old school house. It seems kind of funny for a homeschooling family to move into a school, but we're excited.

In the meantime, we haven't let the chaos deter us from our early leaning goals. At this point Arden is reading more and more individual words. Even more exciting she recognizes them in books or if she sees someone writing them. Here's a video of her reading some of her words with her dad.

http://youtu.be/P5QFxoZdewg

Currently, she does Little Reader in English and French 1-2 times a day. She also does Little Musician. She watches "The Letter Factory" to work on letter recognition and sounds, although I suspect she knows them all. She likes to sit at our keyboard (which has letter stickers on it) and play the keys saying the letter on each one. To help with sight words she has been watching meet the sight words and doing some corresponding flash cards. 

Her other recent fascination is with books. She will have me read the same 10 books to her about 3-5 times a day. Her tastes lean heavily towards Dr. Seuss and PD Eastman. She also enjoys "reading" by herself and talking about each page and what it says from memory.

My future Olympian?

Preparing for a forward roll

With the Olympics in full swing. I thought I should post an update about our mobility program. We continue to give Arden as many opportunities as possible to be active through the day, and she definitely takes advantage of them. When people meet Arden they say one of two things. Either: "she is the happiest baby I've ever seen. Does she ever cry?" or "Wow! She is really active!".



Some of her favorite activities including climbing up the ladder, jumping on the trampoline, walking up and down stairs, and doing forward rolls.

We have continued to use a mobility program based off of the "How To Teach Your Baby to Be Physically Superb". She is currently in Stage V.  The best part of stage V is the introduction of early gymnastics. Arden has loves this! She had been watching her brother do forward rolls and when given an opportunity picked it up right away. Now we will often catch her doing them on her own. We also have some 4x4s that she enjoys using as a balance beam.

My number one recommendations for teaching forward rolls (or anything with younger children) is get someone they look up to to do it first. Anything her brothers do is instantly tantalizing, and if mom does a forward rolls she finds it hilarious and can't wait to copy. We started off by having her "touch [her] toes" and then helped her roll over. It didn't take long for her to start rolling down the hall on her own. Here is a video of her forward roll. I love her head tuck and arm swing. I can't watch without smiling.

Small motor activities

We've been working a lot on small motor activities lately, and I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.   Today's activity was a really simple activity. All I did was dive Arden an old empty spice container and some dried beans. While I worked with the boys on their school she amused herself putting all the beans in the container, dumping them out and starting over again.

Another favorite activity is drawing.

Intent on her artwork

Some other fun activities include Play-doh (also great to help strengthen hand muscles), bottles and boxes with lids to practice placing and removing, and other sorting/threading activities. It's fun to mix it up using different activities to practice the same skills. We recently bought a shaker and some party-color toothpicks for her to practice threading. So far that seems to be a hit.

Arden Turns One! An Update

So, the big day has finally arrived and our little miss has turned one year old. It's hard to believe an entire year has gone by. But, at the same time it is amazing how much she has accomplished.

For mobility she has graduated to Stage V on the Institutes Mobility Development Scale. About one month prior to her first birthday we went to a swim meet. While there we spent most of the weekend between races in a large gymnasium, and Arden spent the whole weekend walking back and forth across the gym trying to be like all the big kids. By the end of the weekend she had graduated to a full time walker.

This video is from shortly after that weekend, in it her arms have been freed from the primary balance role and she is free to bend down and pick up toys:

Since that time we have been trying to walk as much as possible. Several times a week we will go to a playground where we park about 100 yards away. Arden will walk the entire 100 yards through the grass uninterrupted. Once at the playground she enjoys climbing up the steps, walking over to the slide, sliding down and then sprinting back and doing it again. We also practice walking on a variety of terrains including a long paved hill and rugged ungroomed terrain. Our next step is to aim for 30 minutes of non-top walking at a time.

She continues to enjoy hanging on the pull-up bar. For fine motor skills we have been using a shape sorter as well as a circle stacking toy. She is improving at both of these.

She continues to use the toilet consistently and I can't remember the last time she had a bowel movement in her diaper. She will urinate consistently on the toilet, but still frequently has wet diapers. She will indicate to us she wants to use the toilet, but only if we are already in the bathroom at this point. 

Verbally her her expressive vocabulary as well as her ability to follow directions continues to expand rapidly. We continue to use Little Reader on a daily basis. We also started showing her "Your Baby Can Read" almost daily for the past week and a half. She was bored with the videos a few months ago, but now is very engaged with them. Especially, She loves to point at body parts when you ask her where they are. She reliably will point to her eyes, ears, mouth, nose, belly button and toes. When looking at her flash cards/"Your Baby Can Read" cards consisting of the word with the picture she will respond to clap, mouth, toes, arms up, wave, hi and dog. She will say clap, hi and dog after seeing those cards, the others she will point to that part of the body. I think she actually knows the word, but likes to pull out the card before responding. I might have to make some less exciting cards, to see. Also, she may recognize more of the words, but as she hasn't yet said those words, and as they aren't body parts I don't think she can indicate it.

She likes to kick the soccer ball while walking and will say "kick, kick, kick". She also likes to throw the ball back and forth and will yell "catch" at the same time.

She is also beginning to have a longer attention span for books and appears to be enjoying them more. She will sometimes sit and flip through the pages on her own or bring a favorite to us to read.

EC success today!

Quick post today, but I just wanted to share an Elimination Communication success from today. While we were getting ready for bed Arden got her toilet seat, carried it over to the toilet, set it on top and said "Momma".

I took off her diaper, set her on the toilet, and she quickly went before raising her arms to be taken off.

I don't remember how old the boys were when they started indicating when they needed to be put on the toilet, but I am so proud of how hard she's working to communicate.

Language development at 10 months

 

At 10 months old Arden is really starting to speak more. Currently she can say: Mama, Dad, brothers, dog, go, bye, good girl and yay. 

One of her favorite things to do is call for her brothers, especially when she first wakes up. We'll hear a loud "Brothers! Brothers!", and then when they come running she has a huge grin.

She uses Little Reader once or twice a day, and although she is not saying most of the words, I know the exposure to so many object names and concepts is incredibly important.

Update on Mason: Age 6

 

Today I'd like to give you an update about my sweet little buddy who is now 6. Mason continues to amaze me in everything he does. Particularly with his math skills. He recently finished Saxon 5/4 and is moving on to 6/5, which is written for the average 6th grader or advanced 5th grader. 

I wanted to give you guys an idea of exactly how amazing his math skills are. Here are 2 videos. The first shows him speeding through an assortment of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems over a 5 minute period with perfect accuracy.

 

  The second shows me asking him complex 2 and 3 digit division problems with remainders which he solves in his head.

 

A regular day for Mason starts with French and Music on the computer with his brother. They use Little Reader French and then Little Musician together. Afterwards, they listen to the skip counting songs up through 12 on the Classical Conversations CD. Following that he does a math program in which he practices his math facts (this usually takes about 5 minutes). He then does a lesson of Rosetta stone French. After French he does a lesson of cursive writing. 

The cursive writing program is based on historical facts so he is learning important dates while practicing writing. It also incorporates a daily art lesson. 

When he is done with cursive he moves onto his math lesson for the day. He reads the lesson and then does the lesson and mixed practice and then brings it to his father or I for correction. Anything that is wrong we have him re-do, which usually solves the problem. Any problems that are still incorrect are worked through together. 

One of Mason's last lessons in his math book.

We then move on to reading, both him and his brother try to get 2 hours of "school" reading in a day. Theses are books I've chosen that span classical literature, history, science and just old favorites of my own. 

The last subject we try to work on almost daily is writing. Mason is constantly writing his own stories and drawing diagrams for machines he'd like to build. For a formal writing program we have been using Writing Strands and he is at about an early 4th grade level, however we are considering transitioning to Saxon Writing and Grammar to get a more rounded language arts education.

A recent writing assignment from Writing Strands creating a story with conversation between the characters.

Mason also recently started swimming competitively and loves swimming, skiing and soccer. He hopes we'll get manage to spend more time on the beach so he can take after his big brother and become a better surfer this year.

Motor Development Program at 10 months

For the most part, we have been trying to follow the physical program outlined in "How Smart Is Your Baby" by Doman. Arden is currently working on Stage IV. 

Mobility Program:

I mentioned in a recent post that one part of this is gaining the ability to walk 40 feet nonstop. Arden is still working on that. She will walk about 10 feet or so before something on the ground catches her interest and she will sit down, or she will simply lose interest in the walking and sit down. Because it is so wet where we live she does not have may outdoor walking opportunities and inside of course we do not have a 40 foot open area for her to walk, so for the most part she walks across her main play area many times a day, but has not really increased the distance per a single walking episode. 

The second part of the mobility program is balance exercises. I have to say that we do not do these as a rigorous program, but we do most of them on a regular basis as just part of playing and while she is being held/carried.

Manual Program:

For cortical opposition we mainly focus on using small pieces of food. She has been picking up and eating Cheerios and yogurt melts since 6 months. We also give her things like small pieces of cubed fruit or meat. This is a great activity for her to work on while I am doing dishes or preparing food. It keeps her happy and occupied, and still in sight.

The second part of the manual program is brachiation/manual competence. Quite honestly, she is crazy about using the pull up bar. I bought a pull-up bar on Amazon that we could hang in the door, but is also easily removable so it doesn't need to always be up. It has worked great. When we have it up she will reach out and say "ah, ah, ah!!" whenever we walk past it in the hallway. I will then usually give her an opportunity to hang and that will prompt my older boys to beg for turns to try pull ups. Of course, when she sees her older brothers on it she wants another turn as well. She easily hangs for 30 seconds and then we lift her down. Here she is at 9 months, showing off her skills:

 

At this point she is ready to begin using a brachation ladder (monkey bars), but unfortunately we haven't been able to put any up yet. 

It's hard to believe, but she's about ready to graduate from the motor portion of "How Smart is Your Baby?" book into the "How to Teach Your Baby To Be Physically Superb" which goes up to age 6. 

Mason's Reading Progression from ages 1-3

With each child we have modified and streamlined our approach to reading. Although we are early in the process with our youngest. I thought it might help to give a sample of the progress we saw with my second child who is now 6.

Here he is at 22 months. At this point he was just recognizing letters and knew their sounds:

Before 2 we used a computer based program called "Little Reader", Preschool Prep Company DVDs, Leap frog's "The letter factory" and "Talking word factory", Readingbear.org and Starfall.com.

At 2 we started readingeggs.com.

Here he is at 24 months sounding out words on Starfall.com:

At 2.5 we started "The ordinary parent's guide to teaching reading". This has been my go to for scripted reading lessons with both of my older children. Although they have both been reading fluently long before I got to the end of the book.

Here he is at 2 years 9 months:

And right around 3 we discovered the Peter and Jane books, which I have found are amazing. They are a series of books using the most common English words. They introduce the words one at a time, and the books are only composed of words that have been taught. 

Here is 3 years 2 months:

Then just a few months later his reading had progressed significantly. Here he is reading book 7 in the Peter and Jane series:

At this point (age 3.75) he was an almost fluent reader. He was able to pick up his older brother's copy of the Wizard of Oz and start to read it as seen on this video. At this point I stopped recording his reading progression.

Now at age 6 he reads anything he can get his hands on, from high school biology texts to Harry Potter.

Infant Potty Training (a.k.a. Elimination communication)

Using the toilet at 6 months old

           
So, no one ever accused us of being "normal parents". In particular, I'm sure that when we told family and friends our 6 month old was using the toilet there were some raised eyebrows. When we went to a family wedding and we said she had not had a "poopy diaper" in over a week there were definitely some questioning looks. But, the truth is that with persistence and communication with our child toilet training has been almost stress free, and we have had to change almost no "poopy diapers since she was about 7 months old. We used this same method with our now six year old, and although we didn't start as early with our eldest child, even he was diaper free by 18 months old.

How did we accomplish this you might ask? First of all, we do not use "potty chairs". We use something similar to this (Infant Toilet Seat).

There are many similar seats, but this is the variety we've used and I know that a 6ish month baby can sit on it without falling through. Also the handles are nice so that when they want something to hold on to so they feel stable they are not grabbing the dirty toilet seat. The reason we do not use potty chairs is two-fold. First, your baby will not just stand up and walk/crawl away before they are done. Second, there is no clean up. Instead of having to wash the toilet out every time they go poop or pee you just flush the toilet. Not only is this much easier. It makes you more likely to put them on the toilet many times a day without worrying if you have time to deal with scrubbing poop. Since part of my motivation for early potty training is avoiding the hassle of dirty diapers, I don't want to create more work for myself.

Although many people begin Elimination Communication at birth we waited until 6 months when we began introducing solid foods. At this time she began having less frequent and more solid bowel movements.

When we first began  putting her on the toilet I would sit on the toilet and then hold her with her between my legs so she was sitting on the toilet but I was behind her supporting her. After she was comfortable with that for a week or two we moved on to the toilet. At first shen she sat alone on the toilet I would sit right next to her on a stool so she could get used to it and to make sure she was stable. Once she got used to the routine we can just sit her on it on her own.

In general, our strategy is to put her on the toilet before and after every nap and meal. We also put her on the toilet if she is acting like she needs to have a bowel movement or when she has a wet diaper we will set her on the toilet while we gather the supplies for a diaper change. Because around meals and sleep are natural times for a baby to go you are likely to be successful just with a luck right off the bat. When that happens we like to clap and cheer and of course the baby will join in. After a few weeks they figure out what the toilet is meant for and will make a concerted effort to go each time you put them on. For us it is rare for her not to pee when placed on the toilet. She usually will have a bowel movement around breakfast and dinner.

Like I said above there really is no reason not to try early toilet training, for us it has always just made sense. Baby is not getting used to soiling their diaper, and knows from early on what the point of the toilet is. You avoid the power struggles of training a toddler, and best of all you almost never have to change a poopy diaper.


I'd love to hear what you think, and if you did something similar how it worked out for you.