There is an update to the following article: Teach Your Child with Multimedia - new educational websites for kids and/or places that offer downloads and printables. New ones are at the bottom of the list. (10/1/2008)

I've finally got my hands on "How Smart is Your Baby?" by Doman. Since someone recently was asking if this book is worth buying (in addition to other "Teach Your Baby" series) I decided to post this review:

First of all, I have all "How to teach your baby..." - Reading, Math, Encyclopedic Knowledge, Swimming, Physically Superb. "How smart is your baby" is slightly different (I haven't read the "increase your baby's intelligence"), though it has bits of everything.

1. This book takes you step by step with physical, verbal, and cognitive stimulation from first days after birth.
2. Every chapter consists of: how to test your babies current abilities, how to stimulate the baby, charts and to-do lists.
3. Appendix has some things that are covered in "Physically Superb" book - how to build branchiation ladder, how to build tunnel, etc. But it also has some things that other books don't have - charts, to-do lists, and an article on SIDS.
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Back To Encyclopedic Knowledge Topics Listing
How do I use these books?

Russian
English

Note: files marked with ^M include Magnitudes of data - fact listing about each Intelligence Bit. Files marked with include sound effects

 
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Now there is a scientific evidence, that concentrating on positive feedback with our little ones works better then pointing out their mistakes!

Eight-year-old children have a radically different learning strategy from twelve-year-olds and adults. Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback ('Well done!'), whereas negative feedback ('Got it wrong this time') scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring. Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes. Adults do the same, but more efficiently.
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New presentation for teaching kids to read in English:

• Teach Your Child to read... in English: Phrases: Sounds in the house (with sounds effects; phrases read by male and female speakers). (9/18/2008)
• Teach Your Child to read... in Russian: Syllables with O - po, ro, to... up to scho + words, and sentences with those syllables. (9/16/2008)
• Teach your Baby to Read: Books: Sounds in the House (in Russian) (9/15/2008)
• Teach Your Baby to Read in English: Couplets 2 - combinations with colors (9/14/2008)

10 Parenting Tips - Things You Shouldn't Say to Your Children
By Maureen Lawrence

Do you use phrases that edify and encourage your children?

Sometimes we don't say things that edify or encourage our children.

Avoid using these ten parenting tip phrases to your children and you will starting on the road to raising more positive and self-confident children.

1 Just because I say so is not a good reason. Try to avoid using these words to your child.

Parenting tip

always have a reason why your child should or shouldn't do something.

2. If only you could be more like your brother/sister. Each child is an individual and should be respected and treated as such.

Parenting tip

making a child feel inferior is not good for them and inflict pain that can last a life time.
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New set of words in English:

• Teach Your Baby to Read in English: Opposites (9/01/2008)

We all have heard that kids exposed to violent content are more prone to violence.

Researchers point to an existing body of research that documents the negative effects of violent media on children. "A clear picture has emerged that exposure to violent media increases the likelihood of aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behavior."

But many parents don't even realize how much violent are actually the movies their kids do get to watch:
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There is a new DVD that teaches kids to read: Monki See Monki Doo, available from MonkiSee. I found this DVD absolutely charming and very useful. Read a full review in our How to Teach Your Child To Read with Multimedia article.

There has been a recent swipe of most of decongestants, cough suppressing medicines, and other cold medicines for little kids from the shelves of all the pharmacies. This is further information on the dangers of cold medicines for the little ones:

A significant number of infants tested positive for cough and cold medicines on a toxicology screen when brought to a hospital emergency room for an apparent life-threatening event (ALTE) in a study done from 1997 to 2006. In 2007, infant cough and cold drugs were withdrawn from the market...
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New Presentations in Spanish Language Presentations, in Art Section and in Russian Language Phonics:

• How to Teach Your Baby To Read... in Spanish. Introductory words - Colors. Male and female voices read the words.(8/26/2008)
• Encyclopedic Knowledge - Art (Painting): Hokusai Katsushika: contains magnitudes (fact listings) about this famous Japanese artist and about most of his paintings. (8/24/2008)
• Teach Your Child to read... in Russian: Syllables with O - bo, vo, go... up to no + words, and sentences with those syllables. (8/25/2008)

The secret? It's a game. THE ONLY RULE IS: IF you get upset, you lose.

None of us wants our children to go through any encounters of bullying. Yet they will. I don't think anybody can avoid it at one point or another, at some degree. Schools are offering "anti-bulling" programs, declaring "bully-free zone", but they seem to fail on every account: except a satisfactory feeling feeling for the parents, of course. You just can't stop bulling "from the top" - from the high authority. It is easy to find ways to torment, tease, humiliate or otherwise bully someone without attracting any attention from the teacher, even parent. And the worse is that kids who try to report such bulling, usually just get more bullied and hated.
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New presentations in English, Spanish and Russian languages:

• Teach Your Child to read... in Russian: Syllables - ma, mo, mi, etc. + words, and sentences with those syllables. (8/20/2008)
• Download Ready-Made Books... in Spanish: Mi Casa - My Home 1. Read by female voice.(8/18/2008)
• Encyclopedic Knowledge - Art (Painting): Leonardo da Vinci (English and Russian presentations) (8/17/2008)

A kid easily succeeds with another task that leaves his peers struggling. Parents, beaming with pride, praise the kid by telling him, that he is talented, he is gifted. Praise is good, right? Not necessarily. As a parent who believes that praise is a very important and integral part of learning, of building confidence, I can see more and more that some types of praise can do more damage then good. Have you noticed, how sometimes "talented and gifted" kid can shy away from a difficult assignment, whose grades can even suddenly drop and he can lose all the interest in school, in work, in new accomplishments? Is it the school being too tough? Or should we blame the way we were praising this kid, how we present their learning process to them, how their self-image effects their undertaking of difficult assignments?

Why do some students give up when they encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people’s beliefs about why they had failed...
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We finally got to English Couplets files, so the first set of word combinations is uploaded:

• Teach Your Baby to Read in English: Couplets 1 - combinations with colors (8/07/2008)