Hi group/ software question
Millie Rosa
Hi group,
I've been reading your posts for a little while, and I want to chime in with an introduction. I am Millie; my son is Will. He is only 2 years old, but he is definitely unschooling; I have always just followed his inclinations and helped him with what he has wanted to learn. He wanted to learn letters well before his first birthday and at 14 months started recognizing words. He is reading now, hundreds of words by sight (including state and country names and all kinds of stuff I would never have expected a 2 year old to want to know), and starting to have success in sounding out words he does not know. He learned all about the solar system last year and continues to search out new information, and is now interested in different types of spacecraft. He is working hard to learn maps, and knows about half of the states and I would guess 40% of countries. This is HIM learning this, it is not like I have ever said to him, "Okay, let's learn this." He just gets interested, asks
millions of questions, and learns. He has been very interested in time for a while now, and is trying to learn to read an analog clock, though I am not quite sure he how to explain to him that the 4 means 20, for example.
Anyway, we have just gotten this computer and he absolutely wants to use it. I have let him mess around on Word (he just types rows of letters, etc...and apparently sometime when my back was turned messed w the settings). So, though 2 seems awfully young to be using the computer (but then it is also young for reading), I think I need to go get some software for him. I looked at the Sam's club and everything I saw seemed to be, like ABC and color drills. I definitely don't want to buy anything like that for him. I would like to find something open-ended, creative....I guess a game? I don't know...does anyone have any suggestions for a good first program?
Sorry to be so long...I look forward to getting to know all of you.
Millie Rosa
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I've been reading your posts for a little while, and I want to chime in with an introduction. I am Millie; my son is Will. He is only 2 years old, but he is definitely unschooling; I have always just followed his inclinations and helped him with what he has wanted to learn. He wanted to learn letters well before his first birthday and at 14 months started recognizing words. He is reading now, hundreds of words by sight (including state and country names and all kinds of stuff I would never have expected a 2 year old to want to know), and starting to have success in sounding out words he does not know. He learned all about the solar system last year and continues to search out new information, and is now interested in different types of spacecraft. He is working hard to learn maps, and knows about half of the states and I would guess 40% of countries. This is HIM learning this, it is not like I have ever said to him, "Okay, let's learn this." He just gets interested, asks
millions of questions, and learns. He has been very interested in time for a while now, and is trying to learn to read an analog clock, though I am not quite sure he how to explain to him that the 4 means 20, for example.
Anyway, we have just gotten this computer and he absolutely wants to use it. I have let him mess around on Word (he just types rows of letters, etc...and apparently sometime when my back was turned messed w the settings). So, though 2 seems awfully young to be using the computer (but then it is also young for reading), I think I need to go get some software for him. I looked at the Sam's club and everything I saw seemed to be, like ABC and color drills. I definitely don't want to buy anything like that for him. I would like to find something open-ended, creative....I guess a game? I don't know...does anyone have any suggestions for a good first program?
Sorry to be so long...I look forward to getting to know all of you.
Millie Rosa
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2'
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/12/04 12:55:50 AM, willsmamamillie@... writes:
<< He has been very interested in time for a while now, and is trying to
learn to read an analog clock, though I am not quite sure he how to explain to
him that the 4 means 20, for example. >>
Show him the minute-marks. He could count those, and even if he's not up to
the idea of "counting by fives," he will soon get there.
Maybe you could get a BIG clock and mark the minutes. I've seen some big
wall clocks at Target lately, so I bet the're at Walmart too.
-=- I looked at the Sam's club and everything I saw seemed to be, like ABC
and color drills. I definitely don't want to buy anything like that for him.
-=-
Why not? Just because it's something he already knows doesn't mean he
wouldn't have fun playing with it.
One of the things my kids have ALWAYS done when they've played computer games
is to think about how they were designed and what they can and can't do.
That's some pretty high level thought.
There's a game called "A to Zap" and if you think of it as teaching the
alphabet, it's no good for a kid who knows the alphabet, but if you look at it as a
piece of art, its really pretty beautiful, even for big kids who can read
15-letter words. It's "loading" music is a family item here. If something is
taking a while, someone will start doing the little ten-note A to Zap "waiting"
song.
-=-I would like to find something open-ended, creative....I guess a game? I
don't know...does anyone have any suggestions for a good first program?-=-
Zoombinis maybe.
Putt Putt (an of them)
Thinking Things (Holly will still play with those; you can easily adjust the
difficulty levels of any of the puzzles)
Don't see playing as learning to the point that you reject playing that you
think is not going to teach him. You don't know what he'll be learning, and
you don't even need to know. I saved a crib toy and it comes out
occasionally. It's "just a toy" ? No, it's a wooden, musical physics demonstration. You
pull a rope and a lever moves and rings a bell. There's a wooden bell and a
metal bell. Aside from being "educational" even for adults who might want to
take a few seconds to see how it works and how it was built, it's just pretty.
Relax. That's my best suggestion. Don't think of learning as a train moving
as fast as it can forward, but as lounging in a pond, where plants grow and
change and animals and bugs come by, and the water moves in ripples, and
sometimes it's shady and sometimes sunny, sometimes hot, sometimes cold.
What we see as a child, we see through those eyes.
When we see the same item (or music or book or movie or plant or animal)
five years later, and twenty years later, we see it differently and learn other
things.
Sandra
<< He has been very interested in time for a while now, and is trying to
learn to read an analog clock, though I am not quite sure he how to explain to
him that the 4 means 20, for example. >>
Show him the minute-marks. He could count those, and even if he's not up to
the idea of "counting by fives," he will soon get there.
Maybe you could get a BIG clock and mark the minutes. I've seen some big
wall clocks at Target lately, so I bet the're at Walmart too.
-=- I looked at the Sam's club and everything I saw seemed to be, like ABC
and color drills. I definitely don't want to buy anything like that for him.
-=-
Why not? Just because it's something he already knows doesn't mean he
wouldn't have fun playing with it.
One of the things my kids have ALWAYS done when they've played computer games
is to think about how they were designed and what they can and can't do.
That's some pretty high level thought.
There's a game called "A to Zap" and if you think of it as teaching the
alphabet, it's no good for a kid who knows the alphabet, but if you look at it as a
piece of art, its really pretty beautiful, even for big kids who can read
15-letter words. It's "loading" music is a family item here. If something is
taking a while, someone will start doing the little ten-note A to Zap "waiting"
song.
-=-I would like to find something open-ended, creative....I guess a game? I
don't know...does anyone have any suggestions for a good first program?-=-
Zoombinis maybe.
Putt Putt (an of them)
Thinking Things (Holly will still play with those; you can easily adjust the
difficulty levels of any of the puzzles)
Don't see playing as learning to the point that you reject playing that you
think is not going to teach him. You don't know what he'll be learning, and
you don't even need to know. I saved a crib toy and it comes out
occasionally. It's "just a toy" ? No, it's a wooden, musical physics demonstration. You
pull a rope and a lever moves and rings a bell. There's a wooden bell and a
metal bell. Aside from being "educational" even for adults who might want to
take a few seconds to see how it works and how it was built, it's just pretty.
Relax. That's my best suggestion. Don't think of learning as a train moving
as fast as it can forward, but as lounging in a pond, where plants grow and
change and animals and bugs come by, and the water moves in ripples, and
sometimes it's shady and sometimes sunny, sometimes hot, sometimes cold.
What we see as a child, we see through those eyes.
When we see the same item (or music or book or movie or plant or animal)
five years later, and twenty years later, we see it differently and learn other
things.
Sandra
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/12/2004 10:30:03 AM Central Standard Time,
SandraDodd@... writes:
Show him the minute-marks. He could count those, and even if he's not up to
the idea of "counting by fives," he will soon get there.
Maybe you could get a BIG clock and mark the minutes. I've seen some big
wall clocks at Target lately, so I bet the're at Walmart too.
~~~
I bought 3 elcheapo clocks at Wal-Mart. (red, white and blue, my youngest
child's favorite color scheme) I took one apart and scanned the face into the
computer. Then I used that to make 2 new faces, each with sixty ticks divided
by 5. Then one of those was labeled "minutes" and one "seconds".
Then I took two hands off of each clock, leaving the hour hand on one, the
minute hand on the next, and the second hand on the third and placed the
appropriate faces on each clock. I left the hour hand with the original face, but
that's not really necessary.
Then I just hung them up over a doorway somewhere in the house. I think it
was in the kitchen. I waited for them to be noticed, and eventually they were,
and by lots of people who came and went. Questions were asked and answered.
They were located in a place where no other clocks could be seen, so it
happened that even the adults in the house came to rely on them to get the time.
Eventually, Will asked enough questions and did enough studying of the clock
faces that he just knew how to tell time on any clock, and no one even noticed
when it happened.
The clocks are now propped up on a bookshelf in my living room, sorta
Dali-ish and I still refer to them once a week or so when I need the time.
Tuck
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
SandraDodd@... writes:
Show him the minute-marks. He could count those, and even if he's not up to
the idea of "counting by fives," he will soon get there.
Maybe you could get a BIG clock and mark the minutes. I've seen some big
wall clocks at Target lately, so I bet the're at Walmart too.
~~~
I bought 3 elcheapo clocks at Wal-Mart. (red, white and blue, my youngest
child's favorite color scheme) I took one apart and scanned the face into the
computer. Then I used that to make 2 new faces, each with sixty ticks divided
by 5. Then one of those was labeled "minutes" and one "seconds".
Then I took two hands off of each clock, leaving the hour hand on one, the
minute hand on the next, and the second hand on the third and placed the
appropriate faces on each clock. I left the hour hand with the original face, but
that's not really necessary.
Then I just hung them up over a doorway somewhere in the house. I think it
was in the kitchen. I waited for them to be noticed, and eventually they were,
and by lots of people who came and went. Questions were asked and answered.
They were located in a place where no other clocks could be seen, so it
happened that even the adults in the house came to rely on them to get the time.
Eventually, Will asked enough questions and did enough studying of the clock
faces that he just knew how to tell time on any clock, and no one even noticed
when it happened.
The clocks are now propped up on a bookshelf in my living room, sorta
Dali-ish and I still refer to them once a week or so when I need the time.
Tuck
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Barbara Chase
Hi Millie Rosa,
As Sandra said, he may really like the ABC stuff... and then again he may
not. I'd suggest seeing what your local library has for software, and then
you can try out all kinds of games to see what your son likes before you
buy anything.
ciao
--bc--
As Sandra said, he may really like the ABC stuff... and then again he may
not. I'd suggest seeing what your local library has for software, and then
you can try out all kinds of games to see what your son likes before you
buy anything.
ciao
--bc--
[email protected]
In a message dated 5/12/04 12:35:51 PM, tuckervill2@... writes:
<< The clocks are now propped up on a bookshelf in my living room, sorta
Dali-ish and I still refer to them once a week or so when I need the time.
Holly and I were at Lowe's (a big hardware/garden/homeremodelling thang) and
they have outside clocks, for garden and yard purposes, and some are pretty
big! And rainproof!
Sandra
<< The clocks are now propped up on a bookshelf in my living room, sorta
Dali-ish and I still refer to them once a week or so when I need the time.
>>That is so cool!!!
Holly and I were at Lowe's (a big hardware/garden/homeremodelling thang) and
they have outside clocks, for garden and yard purposes, and some are pretty
big! And rainproof!
Sandra