video games

Childsplay is a free, cross platform suite of developmental software for children. Since it is cross platform, that means it will work on Windows, Mac, or Linux. The version used for this post was the Linux version.

One of the great things about Childsplay is that the activities vary greatly in difficulty, so children from about two and a half up can enjoy at least some of the activities. Also, the activities are fairly intuitive, so children are able to immediately grasp the goal of each activity.

The three year old has been using this piece of software for about 5 months now. Over that time she has gravitated toward three of the activities: Memory, Packid, and Puzzle.

Memory

The memory game is great because it has such a wide variety of difficulty. It starts with a 2x3 layout, and after completion steadily gets harder. At its most difficult, the board is 4x6. The three year old has become more proficient, and it's fun to see her logic in action. Even though I love the traditional non-electronic memory, for some reason it always ends in the three year old hording the cards. I've found that the electronic version is a nice change of pace, and at this point will keep her attention longer.

Packid

Packid is a Pacman clone with a twist. Instead of collecting little pellets, you find letters that spell out a given word. Another change from the original is that you must find the letters in the correct order.

Puzzle

Puzzle is pretty self explanatory as well. There is a cut up picture that you must drag from one side of the screen, to the appropriate position on the other side of the screen. The puzzle pieces are all rectangular, so the difficulty doesn't go too high on this one. However, it does help to sharpen observational skills.

A Few of the other activities

Sound matching
Falling Letters (type the falling letter)
Pong
Billiards

If you're thinking about purchasing software for your child, or maybe even just letting them tinker on a computer I highly recommend giving Childsplay a shot. It will practically raise your child for you…or not.

Be sure to head on over to dad blogs for another great round of fatherhood friday posts!

photo courtesy of prasan-naik

photo courtesy of ilovemypit
The three year old loves video games, and I'm proud of it. I've often been told by popular media that video games are the root of all evil, and that they turn your kids into a pile of gelatinous goo, but I disagree. Video games have a great number of redeeming qualities, even for someone as young as three years old. Kids are able to develop more finely tuned motor skills, hone problem solving and observational skills, plus develop a sense of accomplishment.

Motor Skills

When I purchased a shiny new DS Lite a little over a year ago, my wife inherited the trusty old DS Fat. Shortly after this, my daughter became obsessed with PictoChat. For those of you who don't play Nintendo DS, this is a chat program that also allows the user to send drawings, hence the name PictoChat. As a result of the three year old spending time 'playing' with PictoChat, her fine motor skills have improved. On the DS, she is able to practice writing letters, drawing pictures, and navigating the various menus (which alone requires a fair amount of dexterity).

The three year old also enjoys Wii Tennis. She is to the point where she can choose her Mii and start the game, all while navigating via the wiimote. It takes a pretty steady hand, and a bit of patience to accomplish such a task. The Wii has helped push both her patience and control in the right direction.

Problem Solving

My daughter has a kiddie laptop that teaches the alphabet, and has a few simple games. One of those games is a maze type game where you are a mouse, and have to locate the cheese in the center of the maze. The game starts out with a very easy maze, and with each completion comes a harder maze. In the beginning, she was unable to complete even the most simple maze without some assistance. However now, she is able to navigate even the hardest of puzzles with ease, knows left from right (when she actually takes her time and thinks about it), and is very proud of herself for learning how to complete the maze.

Accomplishment

Nothing makes a geek dad like me more proud than when the three year old figures out how to do something with technology. She seems genuinely proud of herself, and that makes me happy… like the first time she legitimately won a game of Wii Tennis, completed the difficult maze all by herself, or built a PC from scratch so she could play some Dora the Explorer game. Well... building her own PC hasn't happened yet, but maybe by the time she's four.

Have your kids been impacted by video games?