Sunday, December 12, 2010

Teaching Computer Skills to your Toddler

Do you have any idea how many carelessly thrown-together, shoddy games for toddlers are made by advertastic sites in the hopes of making more money for offering something slightly "educational"? It's bite-sized spam and yes, mostly written by non-native English speakers. I wonder how many hours were put into this programming masterpiece:

I don't know what's going on here and frankly, I'm a bit frightened myself.

So Halle, at two and a half, is an alphabet whiz. She knows her colors, her opposites, and her numbers. She doesn't need any educational aids for those - but I would like to encourage her to learn how to navigate a computer. Pressing keys (one at a time, not a blitzkrieg), using a mouse, clicking and dragging, operating the wheel, and so on. It's difficult to find quality games these days. Sigh.

El Buho Boo is the only thing I've found thus far, but Halle adores it! She constantly asks me to start the "ink game!", in which you press any ONE key to animate fish, shellfish, and other sea creatures such as a squid who inks. If you're two years old, it's hilaaaarious.


Since Christmas is on it's way, does anyone have a recommendation for games or software? She's always been fascinated with my laptop but as I've never allowed her to touch it, she'd pretty much given up. Now she's hesitant to use it and I never meant for that to happen. I'm sure it's just a matter of time, and a couple more ink games!

Oh, and since we're talking computer lessons, I couldn't help but let her try out Microsoft Paint. The classic, minimalistic application that the dinosaurs used to make graphics with. Here is her first MS Paint drawing ever, world!