13 January 2008

It's all child's play

It has been said that Macs make computers child's play, but we were still surprised at Rose's abilities.
When she is allowed to use the computer, she will press a key on the keyboard. If Lana has been using the Mac, it will ask for Lana's Password.
So Rose clicks the button which goes to the list of users.
Every member of the family (except Martin) has an account. This way we can control Internet and application access and track usage via the parental controls features.
Rose scrolls down to her name and clicks it. She then types her password "rose" and presses enter. This gets her in. Then she clicks Firefox and selects her favourite "Starfall".
She then begins to play her games which are all involved in helping children read.
That isn't too bad for a child how is just over 3.5 years old. Perhaps it was the early exposure she had as shown in an earlier posting.

6 comments:

Karna O'Dea said...

I am interested as to what sites your little girl is using to help her learn to read . I have a 7 year old mildly autistic son who likes using the computer but needs a lot of help to get him to learn to read and therefore i was interested as to the websites you can suggest you have found helpful for your children

Karnak
(Julian's wife)

DavidofOz said...

We only use the computer as a peripheral learning tool. The primary means of learning is via books, pen and paper. We focus on phonics and exposure to lots of books printed or audible.
Starfall is a great site as an addition to the core being taught in the normal way.
The book "Why Our Children Can't Read" is an excellent book.

Therese said...

I think that is the biggest computer screen I have ever seen.

DavidofOz said...

It is quite large, and of course Rose is quite small, so it looks even bigger! It is is 24" iMac. We had a good deal on the computer once the new ones were introduced.

The Woman of the House said...

We tagged you for an award: www.journeytotherese.blogspot.com

God bless you,

Fe said...

*grin*

Our Puggle is about the same age as your Rose, and yes, it's _astounding_ how well they can do.

If I forget to log out, he can go to the user name in the menu bar, and select his account. He hasn't actually learnt his password (I don't think we've shown it to him) but he then comes to get one of us to type it in. He has learnt to type 'bananas' and 'cat' thanks to YouTube (a lot of Dr Seuss and Bananas in Pyjamas!).

He's also very fond of dragging and dropping pictures in Appleworks, as well as labelling them. I still haven't introduced him to Starfall yet, but I keep hearing about it:-)