Forget the costly flashcard system. I’ve been using books and mostly powerpoint slides to teach my kid. From his ABCs and 123s to currently teaching him to read words. And to me, it has been effective.
He has also been using the PC to play games and do simple surfing by himself. That’s him on his favourite Wiggles website, using our normal adult size mouse. He loves to click and drag objects and I think it’s really a good activity to train his hand-eye coordination plus improve his patience. While he doesn’t know how to get on to his fave websites yet, he does know how to navigate around a site pretty well. And if the bandwidth is low, he’ll even complain that “the loading is slow.”
Like, what do you expect with a mum who spends most of her waking hours in front of the PC? But chill it. My kid doesn’t spend all his waking hours in front of the terminal. Only a total of an hour a day at most, and at different intervals.
That I can ensure…at least until he knows how to boot up the system by himself.
Kids are becoming high tech now, no? I’ve seen a news on TV recently about this school where the grade five kids are using PC instead of paper and pencil. There might come a time when all students will be using the PC instead of textbooks.
niceheart: I think that’s how it’ll go from now. PCs have become a necessity.
Comment by niceheart — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 @ 1:07 pm
Interesting but wont it affect his eyesight???
DR: Something I’m concerned about that’s why I limit his usage. But LCD screens are at least better than the CRT ones…
Comment by domestic rat — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 @ 1:19 pm
Chloe is into her own computer with Sesame Streets now..
At first.. she needed help. .and we had to do stuff for her.. but Papa BoK would be teaching her. .and asking her questions.. about what she would do next.. and now she is very good at it.. especially the painting part. She can click on the items she wants.. and move them around.. 
Kids are way too smart now.. 
MB: Chole is smart! Kids pick up on gadgets real fast don’t they? He even found a button on my mouse to scroll up and down which I didn’t even used before! But he sometimes get lazy with it cos it can be quite tiring and then start to whine for help…
Comment by Mama Bok — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 @ 1:32 pm
That’s nice way of ‘educating’ a child. I have only used the PC to show Zara her photos.. and sometimes to show her some Barney sites, when she interrupts me during my working hours.
ZM: In time to come, I think she’ll figure out how to use it…cos Zara is smart!
Comment by zara's mama — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 @ 4:49 pm
I got chilled once by my hubby for letting Rayner play the Thomas the train website. He was against the idea of me exposing the little one to computers at such a young age. Haiz…..I only told him, you are so lao gu dong leh….Rayner’s school also teaches them using the PC…..you want your son to be mountain turtle ah?
Jan: Haha…tell your hubby that kids must be adept with PC these days. Times have changed!
Comment by Jan (My lovely Rays) — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 @ 5:05 pm
Kelly uses my notebook to play games and listen to stories too. Maybe 3 times a week. She is deft with the mouse as well. Sometimes if I did not plug in the mouse, she will operate it as well with the control pad on the notebook. Yeah… she also knows how to use the word, Loading..downloading.. uploading.. hahaha.. very cute!
Lil’ Joy: Ya, sounds so cute right? And Kelly is good huh, knowing how to use the control pad…that’s quite challenging!
Comment by Lil' Joy — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 @ 11:09 pm
from pics, I am assuming your monitor is LCD?
At least it’s not harmful to his eyes.. unlike those CRT we used to have.. he’ll be a comp whiz soon enough!
Erika: Haha…I wish!
Comment by Erika — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 @ 1:26 am
Damien only press one button on our PC, the re-start button!! We seldom expose him to the comp, we’re lazy parents..hehe..but we’ve signed him up for computer aided program with his school, which starts next year..hopefully he’ll pick up the skills from there..
Eileen: Once you expose him, he’ll pick up really fast. For sure one…
Comment by Eileen — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 @ 10:39 am