I promised my kid they’d get a laptop when they learn to read well enough.
This turned out to be a good motivator and they can now read full books.
The kid likes competitions and challenges. I would like to come up with tasks they can learn to do with the laptop.
The reason I want my children to have access to a computer specifically, is that while TVs and phones are used to consume, computers are used to create.
I will be installing some Linux flavor on this machine, as it is a bit dated.
I was thinking about things like:
- Write a short story
- Install a graphics editing program
- Draw a picture of a cat
To get them started.
Probably I need some easier ones first.
I’m not exactly young anymore and things have sure changed a lot since I learned my way around a computer. But here are the things I remember being fun for me back then:
Drawing around in paint (you already have that covered)
Creating presentations. Maybe like: Make a presentation about your favourite topic. This might involve collecting pictures either from the internet or getting them from a camera / phone on the laptop.
Playing some games (in my case pinball, but that’s definitely not very up to date). You can learn quite a bit about clicking through menus etc from playing games.
Something else that would be important to learn early is created folders and keeping some sort of system with your files. I struggle to come up with a fun way to teach that though. Maybe someone else has a good idea?
The presentation idea is good and maybe I can tie in some other fun thing, like identifying plants or something.