Little Kids and Right Brain Learning Techniques

As a parent of a young child I am continuously astounded by the new things my son learns every day. This last year I have been spending time reading about how children learn while my husband has been working on a series of right-brain learning apps with a business partner. I thought it was about time to blog about these learning techniques after recently having a discussion about Western vs Asian approaches to learning. Right-brain learning is a fascinating topic, especially when discussing it during a 3 course fondue dinner with an expert. ;) 


The right side of your brain, often called the image brain, absorbs information instantly and automatically. Most of us have well-developed left brain functions but an underdeveloped right brain function in key areas. Memory linking and photographic high-speed imaging (rapid flashing) are right brain functions that children can do very easily. In fact, everything we see is instantly stored in our subconscious right brain mind. The problem is, most of us don't have the ability to bring those image memories out to our conscious left brain at will; we haven't developed the right brain left brain connections that enable it. Dr. Makato Schichida is a pioneer in the development and success of right brain accelerated learning methods. He founded over 400 Child Academies in Japan and has written more than 100 books on the subject of right brain education. Basically it all comes down to practicing how to make these connections between the two hemispheres of your brain. The learning apps we just released use these right-brained learning techniques, such as rapid flashing, to make the connection between right brain left brain learning in children ages 6 months to 12 years. 


We have 5 new iPad apps with hundreds of images and flash cards included and did I mention they are free in the App Store, currently available for the iPad. There has been a lot of hard work and research that has gone into these apps and for all the parents I know I hope they try these out, my son Sebastian is 2.5 and he loves them. You can't go wrong when something is free, educational, and entertaining for your child. Would love any feedback on these apps either in the form of a review on iTunes or via email/comment. 
Thanks for reading!

Our Return: 29 days in Cabo

A tired cranky toddler at Cabo's airport

Wow what a trip.  Spending a month in Mexico may have been one of the highlights of my life.  I am so blessed to be given this opportunity and I thank my lucky stars that we only had a few hiccups along the way.  I have been reiterating some of my favs and cons to my friends and family now that I am back, and just being able to speak to everyone through a reliable internet service and hearing their voice once again on the phone has been such a treat.  Having a new smart phone (iPhone 4S) and not being able to actually utilize the features while in Cabo was a bit of a pain....I know I know first world problems and all.

We came back to a bunch of slushy heavy snow and one FAT cat.  Seriously our cat got really fat even though we used an electronic cat feeder that measures out the food.  Maybe he got some extra treats from our friend who was house-sitting, or maybe not being chased by a toddler all day long for a month left him lazy.  I missed our kitty so it is nice to see him again.

We were delighted to have met so many people down in San Jose del Cabo from the Minneapolis area.  We even had a few friends sitting up in 1st class with us on the flight home.  Now that I am back I miss eating our meals outside and having the doors and windows open all day long, the fresh air and sunshine was definitely a mood boost.

We return to plenty of work for our business Wood App Developers which is always something to be grateful for.  We were asked to speak at the Mobile March conference next week here in the Twin Cities and my husband is preparing a topic on our app Awesome Ninja for the 3d Gaming Session.  Not only do our own apps continue to sell but more people are hiring app developers globally to see their ideas come to life in the app store.  Currently, it is an exciting industry to be in; maybe this is how employees of AOL felt during 1996, that they were in the right place at the right time.  In that light I will leave you with this internet meme recently submitted to Rate This Pic.

So True

Mountains and Cowboys

Local Baja California Sur cacti varieties

We made our trek to the mountains in a half day trip and it was a great time.  Seeing the cacti and the long stretches of sun-bleached rocky land reminded me painfully of my summers spent mapping parts of Dillon, Montana for my geology field camps.  We had to hit the brakes a few times when we would come around a curve and see cows grazing a few inches from the road.  There are no barriers or railings of any type on these cliff roads and Graham was astounded by the dozens of crosses and memorials we saw along the side of the road.  We had planned a trip to Miraflores which was only 10km or so from some natural hot springs in the Sierra de la Laguna mountains.  Because our car rental agreement states that we may not take our car off road, and because the reviews of the "roads" to the hot springs seemed a little sketchy we decided to waive the hot springs visit.  I was pretty bummed about that but I don't think a toddler would have allowed me time in the hot spring anyhow.
We made it into Miraflores with a sleeping kid in the backseat.  We got out to stretch our legs a bit and Sebastian woke up and decided to join us outside.  It was a hot day and the local ladies of this village were walking around in flowing skirts, with flowers in their hair, and carrying umbrellas.  We walked across the street and played on the steps of an empty plaza that looked as though it was used for festivities for the town's patron saint the Virgin of Guadalupe.  In fact, every single tiny house had a shrine for the Virgin Mary, or the Lady of Guadalupe, standing at the entrance to their house.  I was amazed that so many of these homes were basically shacks or perhaps simple cinder block cubes, but that the owners of these houses had put so much care and money into their beautiful shrines even going as far as purchasing paint and decorations to adorn them.  While we stretched our legs in the plaza a bit I noticed that a half-dozen ladies with umbrellas stood at the edge of the square and had a morning chit-chat session.
We left Miraflores and decided to head back home and try to make it in time for lunch.  On our way back we ran into hundreds and hundreds of cowboys (both male and female) on horseback riding along the shoulder of the road.  This caused a traffic jam and raised so many unanswered questions for us.  Where were these cowboys going?  I thought they were hired by the local ranchers to round up the cattle we had seen but why were there hundreds upon hundreds of them?  Also, they were dressed rather nicely in starched button-down shirts and spiffy cowboy hats, also none of them had packs attached to their saddles so they could not have been going out for long.  They were not decorated to the point of a horse-show though, and we were in the middle of nowhere at this point with no buildings or arenas in sight.  I told Graham I wanted to google it and try to figure out what was going on but he reminded me that there would be nothing online about this event.

Also this past weekend my husband and I were lucky enough to hire a babysitter for 3 hours and have a nice dinner together at 7 Seas in San Jose del Cabo.  After a month of just the toddler and myself for every moment this was grand.  When I am back in MN my son frequently has time at play groups, with family, and at various activities we attend and we have missed all of those.  When we come back next winter I will look for some sort of preschool that he will hopefully be able to attend for the month or two.  While my husband and I had dinner at 7 Seas watching whales and surfers we were able to eat quietly and uninterrupted at a nice slow pace, and in one sitting!  These simple pleasures really make the whole eating deal a much nicer process.
I can't believe we are now on day 28 of our adventure and preparing to come back home.  Luckily we have still managed to work and release apps while we were here and had a banner day yesterday with the amount of downloads of Rate this Pic.  Also my husband's newest learning app for children with another business partner is being well received in Asia and the press release just went out this morning. I will plan to blog on that soon because it deserves it's own entry.  Thanks for reading!

More Adventures in Cabo

It is tricky to rent and drive a car in Mexico when the entire Baja is preparing for the G20 in July. After finally renting one for a couple of days we set out on our most recommended path to Todos Santos. Nearly every night the gringos in town compare notes on the best eateries, beaches, villages, and so forth. We have sat in on so many of these discussions (often at the hot tub each night) and have found that Hotel California keeps coming up. This is the hotel from that old Eagles song, though that too brings up more debate. On our way to Todos we planned to stop at a beach about 11km south of there and let our little one stretch his legs and play on the sand a bit. Well after going through a half dozen frightening checkpoints where scary men wearing black walk out onto the highway and point at your car and direct you to the side of the road we were a little shook up. These men were everywhere. They carried assault rifles, or some type of scary looking gun, and wore bullet proof vests. Also the highway was actually a half dirt half concrete road with no definite boundary between lanes. Thankfully we had a DVD player to keep Sebastian happy, but it only worked the way there.

It took so much longer than google maps estimated and was nauseating. Thankfully we found the random bumpy dirt road to the beach (playa Los Cerritos) and hit the jackpot of all beautiful beaches. We watched about 3 dozen amazing surfers dodge rocks on the waves, and ate another delicious lunch of shrimp stuffed avocados while our son played. This place was so cool. But it turned late and there was no way we were going to fit in another stop. It is so hard to remember that when everyone recommends these beaches and restaurants that they certainly don't have a toddler with them who is still in diapers. 2 year olds aren't too excited about lounging in a chair and watching the surf.
Later that night we ate on an organic farm (Floras Farm) in the desert which was totally new for me. The brought me my salad that had carrots, avocado, jicama, Swiss chard, lettuce and tomatoes from the veggie rows only 10 meters away. So fresh and delish! We have truly been spoiled with the food here in San Jose del Cabo.

At this point we have reached a bit of a bump in the road because my husband had to take a last minute flight home to MN due to some tech issues, so my son and I have gone back to walking the hills of our neighborhood. We hope to return to our scheduled vacation in the next few days once my dh returns with a couple more laptops since he is still developing iOS apps while we are here. Yes, that means I am writing this on an iPad which is insane since the touch screen annoys me and the images are wonky. I hope before this trip is over I will be blogging about a future trip to the Baja mountains which I am planning for next weekend. Fingers crossed.