Learning All the Time
Lotus has been focused on Neopets for the last several months, working at it nearly every waking hour. Well, when she's not riding horses or playing with the dogs, or making clay sculptures, Christmas cards (hand-made), baking Christmas sugar cookies, and playing tag with the neighbors, that is.
Unlimited computer time? You bet. Am I worried? Absolutely not. I can see what Lotus is doing every day (our computers sit less than 5 feet apart), but I recently made my own Neopets account so that I could see the full effect. Not only is she writing html code (my eyes glaze over at the first <, LOL), she's making banners in Paint, adding lettering, and making them into clickable links. She's changing fonts and colors and backgrounds and adding music, all with writing the correct codes. She's brave and tries things without knowing exactly what is going to happen. It's so cool to watch her.
Besides html, she's learning to write coherently, her spelling is excellent, between her shops and auctions and games, there's tons of math to be had, geography as she meets girls from as far away as Latvia, England, Australia, etc. These also lead to discussions of time zones, hemisphere, seasons, and the like.
Buzz spends a lot of time on Neopets as well, though he's not yet into the coding. He's primarily working on his spelling and writing as he composes e-mails, and math as he sets up shops, purchases items, and wins points. All good.
Recent conversations have included boiling points, freezing points (thanks to making Jello and having some cold weather), tiger moths, metamorphosis, in addition to cultural references thanks to the plethora of Christmas tunes on the radio (Bing Crosby, Elvis, etc).
My head is spinning here and I've barely touched the surface of things going on here. Learning happens all the time, whether I want it to or not. ;) And the best part? My kids don't even think of it as learning. They're just having fun. :)
Unlimited computer time? You bet. Am I worried? Absolutely not. I can see what Lotus is doing every day (our computers sit less than 5 feet apart), but I recently made my own Neopets account so that I could see the full effect. Not only is she writing html code (my eyes glaze over at the first <, LOL), she's making banners in Paint, adding lettering, and making them into clickable links. She's changing fonts and colors and backgrounds and adding music, all with writing the correct codes. She's brave and tries things without knowing exactly what is going to happen. It's so cool to watch her.
Besides html, she's learning to write coherently, her spelling is excellent, between her shops and auctions and games, there's tons of math to be had, geography as she meets girls from as far away as Latvia, England, Australia, etc. These also lead to discussions of time zones, hemisphere, seasons, and the like.
Buzz spends a lot of time on Neopets as well, though he's not yet into the coding. He's primarily working on his spelling and writing as he composes e-mails, and math as he sets up shops, purchases items, and wins points. All good.
Recent conversations have included boiling points, freezing points (thanks to making Jello and having some cold weather), tiger moths, metamorphosis, in addition to cultural references thanks to the plethora of Christmas tunes on the radio (Bing Crosby, Elvis, etc).
My head is spinning here and I've barely touched the surface of things going on here. Learning happens all the time, whether I want it to or not. ;) And the best part? My kids don't even think of it as learning. They're just having fun. :)
posted by Zany Mom at 7:31 PM
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