Gaming... for three-year-olds...

Alan Johnson alan at datdec.com
Wed Dec 16 12:05:29 EST 2009


On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:31 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio <ken at jots.org> wrote:
>
>> Okay.  Kenette 2.0 is approx. 3.5 years in age.  She's currently getting
>> into games on her "laptop," a Fisher Price doohickey that even has a
>> "mouse."  Anyway, suggestions on games that might run on a somewhat more
>> open architecture like, say... Linux?
>>
>>
> A web browser with flash.  My son started at 3 and is now 6.  He goes to
> nickjr, webkins, club penguin, disney.  He clicks on everything.
>

Starfall.com has an amazing set of learning tools for reading eduction,
including a bunch of games.  It is only one of many, but surely one of the
more significant, tools we use to teach our kids to read.  Of course, one of
the tricks to this kind of early learning is to make these things
interactive one-on-one time with other humans to decrease the negative
effects of screen time.

We did this without our son before he could use the mouse on his own and for
some time after that.  He is ~4.5yr now and fully literate, so we try not to
let him spend too much time on startfall.com unless he is teaching his
sister (she's ~2.6yr and has almost mastered the alphabet sounds), but he/we
play many of the other games suggested in this thread now.

He'll be getting his own computer in 6-8 months I expect, which will run
Edubuntu if it is still relevant by then.  I installed that on a laptop for
a friend's kid and he loves it.  Plenty of games and other tools to play
with including most of the FOSS options mentioned here, and access to the
full Ubuntu repos if you want more.
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