Tuesday, July 29, 2008

What my Kids Currently Play...Or Not!

What do 3-year-old twins play as far as video games? The categorical, unequivocal answer is, it depends! It depends on which one you are asking about and how you define playing. My boy loves the Spider Man and Sponge Bob joystick games that he has been given or we purchased for them (or him if you ask his mom). The girl loves the Sponge Bob jellyfish joystick and the colors and might be persuaded to sit all of 2 minutes playing the game. However she can spend hours looking at the control, much to the exasperation of her brother.

My focus then is how do I guide my boys’ attention to less violent more educational games and how do I motivate the girls’ attention to some educational games. An important note is that I play all the games my kids play with them and I limit their use of them to certain periods and number of hours during the day. However, I really do not know what the right number of periods and times should be and what the best games are hence the journey being documented in this blog.

I suspect he plays too much and that she could benefit more from interesting educational games. I can tell you every time I spend time with my boy I can see how he developed skill and understands different concepts intuitively even if he can’t understand what I try to teach him. In other words he is learning to play and learning concepts at the same time. Currently I have not found an interesting game for my girl and she quickly grows tired of them and shows little progress but that too will change!

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