Einstein Never Used Flashcards

Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn-- And Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less

by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Diane Eyer, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

it is so amazing to watch my daughter learn. it's fun to watch her explore things and figure them out and see the lightbulb go off in her head. if she is interested in figuring something out it can hold her attention for a pretty long time. for instance, she'll get bored with the insanely complicated shape sorter I got her pretty quickly...but put her in front of her car seat or stroller and she will spend a good five minutes or longer trying to get the buckle snapped without getting frustrated. and once she gets it done she wants you to undo it so she can do it again.

there is a great book i picked up when she was first born that i never finished, but intend to soon, called Einstein Never Used Flashcards that talks about how kids learn, and that by pushing them too hard you end up hampering their natural tendencies to experiment and explore. basically the authors liken a child's mind to a highway and if you cram it too full of information at one time you end up with a traffic jam. they also explain the different stages of learning and how a child's mind works at different ages and give a lot of good experiments to do with them to monitor their development. I rarely recommend reading baby books because i find them to be alarmist and one-sided, and promised myself that I would essentially publish only "cliff notes" on this blog to save all my readers the time that they don't have to read...but this is one i highly recommend every parent read.