How to start with a baby?

[MorelCabin]

Baby Einstien...my grandaughter loved those videos at that age. She would just sit in her bouncy saucer and sty quiet for the whole video.
When you walk up steps, count them out loud to baby...they do catch on...by the time my grandaughter was 18 months and walking up them with me or her mom she automatically counted them too.
Sing songs to them...especially the alphabet song. But silly songs with actions.

Lolaa is 25 months and has been counting to 12 for about four months now, she knows the ABC song by heart, she also sings twinkle twinkle, baby bumblebee...gosh she just goes and goes and her vocabulary is excellent. you can understand everything she says.

And the imagination she has is unreal...Poppa has been gone the last couple of weeks and we have been telling her is is far far away...so she says she wants to go far far away too...haha
and because he left on a plane and she knows that, everytime she sees a plane overhead she starrts waving and saying 'hi poppa, you coming home?' lol!
They really are sponges at this age and realy want to learn and explore.

She gardens with me, with her own little shovel and rake, she helps me clean...give her a rag and she dusts everything you tell her...and she loves doing dishes...after the dishes are all done she takes off her clothes and has a bath in the sink after I rinse and clean it and refill it for her.

 

[ninny]

So I have to say my little lady is way to much fun!! I am so glad I planted bush beans. She gets so excited when she knows we are heading to the garden. She has a basket and all by herself will run out and fill it with beans. I tried to get her to pull weeds. She watch me then looked at the empty basket and said no. Then she picked a bean held to my face to make sure I was watching and dropped it in her basket. I guess that means weeds are not worth her time. Smart girl, if you cant eat it why pick it? She is picking up ASL really well. She knows please, thank you, eat, milk, all done. She can use them together too. She knows her colors. I think we are doing well for 17 months. She tells the dogs no if they bark and walks them. So cute. Any Hoo just thought i say what we've been up too

 

[baileyknollfarm]

I used to want to be homeschooled so bad. I have a friend who was homeschooled right up until high school and man did I envy her. It seemed like she always was doing something cool. They would go to summer camps at the local zoo and ice skate and all kinds of stuff. I was so jealous. Her father is from Holland and they would take these trips a few times a year and while she was there she would get to go to the school there. She is fluent in Dutch and English and very smart. They aren't particularly organized people but they're very happy. They have this huge old house that sits on the Banana River down the street from where I used to live. They never renovated it like they planned but I think it's just so beautiful and charming. It's my dream house. Unfortunately, public high school seems to have changed her. She is no longer the natural girl she used to be. She's always with her friends, always going somewhere, always doing something and it sucks. I wish she hadn't have changed. But I moved to Georgia and we were forced to go our separate ways. I was in private school until 8th grade, which was my first year in public school. I actually tried online schooling for a few months and I hated it. No one was there to teach me anything and my parents are definitely not the homeschooling type. They're always on the go. My mother would go stir crazy. She hates being without a job. I can remember when I was little and she quit her job to stay home with me, she would vacuum the house in a suit. So here I am continuing my public school education. Which, in all honesty, I wouldn't change. I have learned so much and found my calling through my school's FFA. I do know for sure that if I have kids they will be homeschooled. What is ASL?

 

[CheerioLounge]

American Sign Language

 

[baileyknollfarm]

American Sign Language

Ah, thanks

 

[me&thegals]

I think babies just need to play. All the talking parents do with their children teach them interaction AND speech. Reading books teaches them words, sounds, colors and texture (while chewing on them ) You can make cloth books with each page teaching something like buttoning--with actual buttons; snapping--with actual snaps....

When my kids were little, we just did a lot. Swimming, library hour, book reading, hiking, playdates, zoos, museums, parks, playing with our own puppies/chicks... The kids always had their own little garden plots. We picked berries in the wild, berries at farms. We visited family and friends. LIFE is just so educational! And I talked to my kids all.the.time. It drove DH batty, but my kids were very verbal and articulate, great readers

As long as a kid is being talked to and experiencing things in life, they will learn. Stuck in front of a computer, probably not so much, although my kids also did plenty of computer games when I needed to get other things done.