Language Development in Young Children

We live in an increasingly global world – one where bilingualism carries many benefits.  You have to help your child stay ahead of the curve from an early age. The most current scientific research has shown that babies, toddlers and preschoolers are uniquely equipped to learn one or more languages with ease.
 

Young children who learn a second language tend to have superior reading, writing, analytical and social skills, as well as more extensive vocabularies than their monolingual peers, according to multiple studies.

Help your child flourish

Early foreign language development in children is no longer considered a luxury. It contributes to a young child’s cognitive development and also offers an advantage in the future of our global marketplace.
 

Award-winning filmmaker and mom Julia Pimsleur Levine created Little Pim to fill a need in the children’s video market for a top-quality, language-learning video series. Working with a team of filmmakers, animators, childhood development experts, linguists and an advising neuroscientist, Pimsleur Levine invested three years in the development of the most comprehensive language courses designed specifically for young children.

With Little Pim, you can now take full advantage of your young child’snatural proclivity for learning languages. For more information about kids’ language learning, see What scientists say.

 

 

National Teacher Day Memoirs

Today is National Teacher Day, and it’s hard to imagine that almost exactly a year ago today, I was preparing to leave behind a year of teaching English in France.  This time last year, I was attempting to pack an entire bedroom’s worth of stuff into a suitcase.  I had spent the previous eight months assistant teaching English in three primary schools in the French city of Angers with the French Éducation Nationale’s TAPIF program… and I was exhausted.  Mind you, I had no reasonable excuse: I worked 12 hours a week and got two weeks of vacation for six weeks of school (totaling a whopping two full months!).  Plus I was living smack in the middle of a wine region in the Loire Valley; I was living, by definition, the good life.

But many of my students weren’t.  Two out of my three schools were officially classified as being in the ZEP (Zone d'Education Prioritaire), the French classification for high poverty schools - the kind of environment that can really wear a teacher down.  I entered the school year expecting my students to be little French angels, enchanted by the idea of meeting an American straight from New York.  And, indeed, my first few classes were peppered with adorable questions along the lines of, “Do you have to take an airplane home after school everyday?” but my novelty quickly wore off.  Many of my students were born outside of France and were already familiar enough with the experience of the foreigner.  Class time with me quickly became an opportunity to throw paper at the back of my head, imitate me to my face, and kick me in the shins (who knew how easily Simon Says could become a contact sport!).  By the beginning of my second week, I was taking breaks to secretly cry between classes.

Yes, I was basically living the first half of “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” but with 8-year-olds… and in France.  And, yes, my story also has a reasonably happy ending.  By the end of the year, we had grown accustomed to each other; we had learned each other’s boundaries, but more importantly, we had learned to laugh together.  Teachers in the ZEP and in schools around the world work hard to create safe, supportive classroom environments – becoming masters of the alchemy of turning aggression and frustration into laughter and trust.

As I said goodbye to the kids who made me cry, one boy came up to me on the playground and pulled this note out of his sleeve (transcribed exactly as written): “Dear Théa, We miss you already, you are fantastic.  We were happy end when you were in our class room.  We wish you good holidays.  Hello Théa good bay thea!”  Undoubtedly, he and his classmates had put their heads together to compose this masterpiece (with outside help, I’m sure), and I was grateful.  Of course I was thrilled by this somewhat unexpected display of affection, but more than that, I was gratified that they had created something for me in English even though they knew I understood French.  They had reached across a gulf much larger than that between teacher and student.

Today, of all days, I’m thinking back not only on my year in France, but also on all the amazing teachers who made my experience in France possible.  My engaging, imaginative French teachers ultimately enabled me to apply (and be accepted) to this teaching program, and inspired me to smile through the tears.  Today, let’s all think about the amazing educators in this country and around the world who practice patience and compassion to create a classroom environment that is both supportive and inspiring.

Newborn baby rescued from toliet! Amazing and Incredible!

The fall of a newborn baby into a toilet pipe in China was accidental and his mother will not be prosecuted, local officials said Wednesday, adding the boy is healthy.

The mother, 22 and unmarried, had kept her pregnancy secret and gave birth unexpectedl

y when she went to the lavatory on Saturday.

The newborn fell into the squat toilet and became stuck in the tube, police in Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang said earlier.

Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking a section of the 10-centimetre (four-inch) diameter pipe apart piece by piece with pliers and saws before they could recover the boy, whose placenta was still attached, said previous media reports.

"Our investigations showed it was an accident," a local police officer who declined to be named told AFP, and confirmed the mother will not be prosecuted. She refused to give further details.

The incident triggered hundreds of thousands of comments on China's hugely popular weibos, services similar to Twitter, with users astonished by the circumstances and expressing good wishes for the baby.

From the time he was found until when he was taken out, the 2.3-kilogram (five-pound) baby was stuck in the tube for two to three hours, authorities and media reports said previously.

He suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and was put in an incubator at the Pujiang People's Hospital, they said, where nurses dubbed him "Baby No 59" after the machine's number.

The head of the hospital, Wu Xinhong, said the infant was healthy and ready to be released.

"His condition is good but his relatives have not come to pick him up yet," he told AFP.

Police have said the mother was in serious condition due to complications from the delivery, while authorities were still looking for the baby's father.

It is unbelieveable when I heard this news. But you can't denied that life is not so fragile as we think. Such a newborn baby can still live in this condition, it is really a miracle. Thanks God and thanks this ridiculous China society.

Why should I choose Organic Baby Clothes?

Nowadays, most of the parents pays more attention on the health of their babies by using organic clothes. Why they choose origanic clothes? The simple answer is that many parents now know about the harmful nature of inorganic clothes than did before.

With the advent of industrial manufacturing over the last few centuries or so, companies have devised a number of techniques to help create clothing on the mass scale. With these techniques in use, a simple cotton shirt is not just a cotton shirt - since it has been processed using artificial brighteners, softeners, flame retardants, ammonia, metals, and formaldehyde, an average cotton shirt is made up of cotton plus all these potentially harmful materials.

Parents have now started avoiding these processed clothes in favor of organic clothes, which are not touched by artificial agents and chemicals. The organic nature of the clothes does not begin with manufacturing alone - it actually starts with their agricultural produce. While your average shirt is made up of cotton farmed using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, organic cotton is grown using only manure, biological pest control and other "green" techniques. Concern for environment is also one of the major factors why parents are now using organic clothing for babies.

Types of Organic Baby Cloth Materials

Apart from organic cotton, there are a number of other materials that are used in organic baby clothing. These include organic bamboo fabric, and organic wool for winter clothing and blankets. All different organic materials have different texture and feel, so you have a wide variety of choice about the type of organic material you may use for your baby.

Organic Bamboo clothing is especially interesting to parents who also want to use more environment-friendly products. Bamboo is a plant that renews itself every few years or so. Bamboo can therefore be harvested in a controlled manner without doing any ecological damage. Bamboo clothes are durable because of the strength of their fabric; yet, they are also as soft as silk. No wonder that organic bamboo clothes are competing head to head with organic cotton clothes in market share.

Organic wool is produced from animals that are fed only organic food, and no genetic engineering, synthetic hormones or other inorganic methods are used in nurturing them. During manufacturing, the fleece for organic wool is washed using biodegradable detergent.

Disadvantages of traditional Inorganic Baby Clothes

Let us compare the disadvantages of industrial baby clothes with the advantages of organic baby clothes. One disadvantage is the exorbitant use of pesticides in the production of the former. Traditional cotton farmers in the United States alone used some 600,000 tonnes of pesticides for their cotton farming. According to conventional wisdom, these chemicals are washed out of the clothes during their manufacturing and washing. But trace elements of these harmful elements remain. Inorganic clothing does not have this problem. Rather than use pesticides, organic cotton farmers use biological pest control.

During manufacturing, care is taken to make sure that no unnatural chemical or material comes in contact with them. This includes synthetic dyes, which are not used in the coloring of organic baby clothes. Formaldehyde is another compound that is used in the manufacture of traditional inorganic clothing, and which is completely avoided in the manufacture of organic clothes.

Babies' skin is specially soft and sensitive. They also have not yet developed immunity to harmful chemicals that adults do. This means that their clothes should free of allergens and other irritants. Among others, eczema is one skin condition that can be caused by chemical residue in their clothing. But organic clothing minimizes this risk by eschewing any use of chemicals. Seeing how eczema can affect 5-15% of all babies one time or another, using organic clothing to reduce its risk is a wise choice.

With Organic clothing, you are assured that your child is not ingesting harmful chemicals whenever he or she it is nibbling on his/her collar. Add to this the fact that you know they are helping the world by using environmentally safe clothing, and therefore are already a part of the solution to the many problems in the world, should give you as sound a sleep as your baby.

BabyClothesUSA.com website offers best deals in baby clothes for baby boys and baby girls. Offering a wide variety of choice in baby, kids and toddler's clothing, the site also offers a lot of discount on these items.

Apart from baby products, it also offers tips on baby clothing, organic clothes for toddlers and discount coupons. It also has a blog where you can read about the latest trends and news in baby clothing.

Tips for choosing baby furniture

It cannot be denied that having a baby can be extremely stressful as it is. Many parents often have trouble making sure that their baby's room is wonderful and suitable for their little sweet heart. However, finding the right baby furniture can be as fun and as easy as you make it. This article's main focus is to provide you with some useful tips on how to find baby furniture which will be needed in your child's nursery.


1. Badger Basket Elegance Round Baby Bassinet :


The Elegance Bassinet is the most charming and unique place for your newborn to sleep. Functional and stylish, the generously sized interior measures 32" in diameter and 8.5" deep. A graceful canopy shades the interior, and a storage shelf beneath the bassinet keeps supplies close at hand.
Bassinet comes with a full bedding set, including a lovely pleated skirt, soft padded bumper, fitted sheet, height-adjustable drape canopy and custom-fitted vinyl mattress pad. All bedding is machine washable poly/cotton. Bumper attaches with grip tape and ribbon ties. Bassinet is designed for babies up to 20 pounds, or until your baby can push up on her own. It's made with wood and wood composites, has caster wheels, and is coated with white non-toxic finish. Overall unit measures 32"L x 32"W x 49"H; 31" from the rim to the floor. Some assembly required. Assemble bassinet in the room you intend to use it unless your doorways are wider than 33".

 

 



2. Dex Baby Nursery Organizer :

This space-saving nursery organizer does more than bring order to your changing table, it makes most of unused vertical space! You can hang it almost anywhere: from furniture rails, dressers and changing tables, wall hooks, you name it. Its eight compartments neatly hold diapers, a wipes warmer, lotions, and other baby supplies, while keeping everything close at hand. Baby organizer includes three hanging options: hook 'n loop straps, fastener loops, and a special attachment panel for anchoring to flat surfaces. Imported. Surface wash nursery organizer using warm water on a damp cloth Changing table organizer dimensions: 17 1/2"L x 20 1/2"W x 9"L overall Large diaper organizer compartment: 9"W x 9"D x 13"H 4 side shelves: 4 1/2"W x 6 1/2"D Wipes warmer holder: 9"W x 8 1/2"D 2 top mesh pockets: 4"W x 4 1/2"D Contents not included

 

 

 

 

3. Fisher-Price Soothing Motions Glider :

 

Babies love being soothed while being held in a glider rocking chair. Now they can enjoy that same soothing motion in a glider just for them! The Soothing Motions™ Glider provides a similar gliding motion in two ways—side-to-side or front-to-back. And it’s so plush and comfy, you’ll love putting your newborn in it right from the start. The comfy seat offers support for baby’s back, sides and head. (Add the infant insert for even more plush support!) There’s a reclined position for younger babies and an inclined position for older babies. As baby glides back and forth, you can choose from soothing or playful music and she can gaze at the plush toys swaying overhead. Use from birth until child becomes active and can climb out of the seat. Unique two-way gliding motion and soothing music promotes relaxation. Deep Cradle Seat supports baby. Reclining seat adds to baby’s comfort. Reaching for plush toys overhead helps promote gross motor skills. Different styles of music stimulate baby’s auditory senses. Seat rotates 360º to position seat so baby always faces mom. Removable toy bar for easy access to baby. Machine-washable pad. Carry handles make it easy to take from room to room. Requires 4 D batteries (not included).

 



things for boys: Apple and Sultana Muffins

things for boys: Apple and Sultana Muffins

Put your baby into sleep in 1 minutes

Are you looking for a real solution to put your baby to sleep fast?
Is your baby waking up regularly? Not sleeping through the night?
I sugguest YOU with a real solution. It’s a fast, non-intrusive and natural solution:

* Instant baby sleep is currently the ONLY online solution that you can start applying within the next 5 minutes. 

How does it work?

The sound track GENTLY produces energy over the full human hearing spectrum (20Hz – 20KHz) with an embedded pulse that gently eases the brain to the Alpha state well known for drowsiness and sleep induction. The amount of energy is controlled by the parent by means of the music players’ volume control.

The Instant Baby Sleep sound track is delivered as a internet download in a high-quality MP3 format and may be played back using a Stereo / Hi-Fi / Computer Speakers / Laptop / Car radio / MP3 player / Compact Disc player / Cell phone / I-pad  etc. Purchasing the sound track includes a license to burn 2x CD’s for personal use. Most people use one CD for the home and one in a motor vehicle for road-trips.

Safe to use:
The sound track is a digital remodelling of a natural occurrence. It is completely safe to use for all ages of children. It is used by hospitals / play groups / doctors / paediatricians and nurses. We were happy to find out that the Instant Baby Sleep sound track is also used in a Neonatal I.C.U. We do suggest that the sound track is not used with headphones simply because it is difficult to judge the volume.

Tell me more…
The human senses (babies & adults) are subtly engaged as the vibrations of the sound track is heard and even felt by the person resulting in a naturally relaxed sate.
It is most effective with babies and children but may be used for toddlers and adults as well.
Efficiency is increased with repeated use as part of a “sleeping routine”.

Who created the Instant Baby Sound track?
The sound track was created by a professional sound-Engineer at the Megaphone Media recording studio in South Africa. Megaphone Media is a broadcast quality facility operating world class sound engineering equipment.