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Ask Slashdot: Best Linux Game For Young Kids?
First time accepted submitter pseudorand writes "I have a 3 year old that I've so far kept away from TV and computers. I met a gamer who has a 1 year old that plays xbox (probably better than I do). I believe kids should experience the real world first, but computers will obviously be a basic job still for the foreseeable future and I'm afraid I'm letting my kid fall behind. I'd like to responsibly introduce my son to computers so he can start developing hard-eye coordination, typing skills and learning UI concepts. What's the best (Linux, of course) game to get a kid started with? Shoot-em-up's are obviously out, but I'm more concerned with something that will help him understand how to interact with a mouse, keyboard and screen and hold his attention rather than something 'educational' because there's plenty of (probably more effective) ways to teach math, reading, etc. that don't involve a computer. So far I've tried Tux Racer, which held his attention for 10 minutes or so. He doesn't quite get pressing multiple keys simultaneously yet."
nethack or if you can find rouge both great games from my childhood
Good times.
Jesus, you're thinking of giving a kid a game that early? On linux too? Do you want him to grow up without a chance in hell of being able to speak to Women? How about you just let him shit his pants and play with wooden bricks? Looking forwards to your next post - "Which beers should I introduce my 12 year old to?"
Great for giving an understanding of ballistics, gometry and strategy. It does involve explosions but it's not graphically violent like Unreal or those kind of shoot'em ups.
I'm not sure if there's a Linux port or not, but I highly recommend the Gressquest of the One True Pro.
Jagged Alliance 2. It's never too early. It's never too late. He will learn how to use the mouse. He will learn how to use the keyboard. He will learn to fear death.
For a 3 yr old, GCompris is hard to beat.
My kids know three languages I2/3 of 3 kids have 3 fluent, the third has 2 fluent and is starting 3rd). But that's nothing compared to their geography. The Snap Maps game was awesome, I play it myself. http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-geography-map-snap-usa/map-snap-Africa.html
Gently reply
Have you looked into Edubuntu (http://www.edubuntu.org/), Qimo (http://www.qimo4kids.com/) or Foresight Linux Kids Edition (http://www.foresightlinux.org)? While they aren't games, they are distributions designed for kids with pre-installed applications and games for ages 3 and up.
Ri-li is a game very young children might enjoy. It has a toy train running around the track, and there's not much to do - just click the button to switch the train tracks if you think it might crash. It has lots of motion and train noises, and is simple. I have heard from more than one parent that their child really enjoys playing it.
I started the grandkids off with the Childsplay http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/ and Gcompris http://gcompris.net/-en- educational games collections as well at Tux Math and Paint http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org They all are in the OpenSuse repositories or could fool with Quimo http://www.qimo4kids.com/ as a live CD or as a dedicated install.
I found that having two mice connected was a big help in getting them started so I could show them what to do without having to take their mouse away.
Tux paint was a hit with my kids though that got bored of it after a few weeks
Fun as hell
Enigma is a game where you control a marble with the mouse to solve puzzles. There are a ton of puzzles, and most of them will be out of reach of a three-year-old, but the mechanics aren't difficult at all.
By choosing linux, you expose the child to a different way of working to accomplish the same task. This means when the inevitably encounter a different OS they will have to learn new skills, but will then have a distinct advantage when it comes to learning the third OS or a major upgrade occurs. You also need to consider that most kids are exposed to smart phones and computers so have some experience with this anyway.
Your language example was well chosen. Learning a second language has many additional benefits. Latin is an excellent choice for someone interested in science.
Or pbs.org Assuming Linux has decent flash support.
Try Sesame Street Games. They're mostly flash games, but they should work. My kid started playing them when he was 2, liked them a lot, and learned to use a mouse from playing them.
I recommend TuxPaint:
My kids have had great fun using the program, especially with the special effects tools and sound effects. Rather than a structured environment it encourages free play. You can add in your own photos as stamps or just use the extensive collection.
Companies like AGD Interactive have re-released a bunch of Sierra adventure games (a lot of them with better sound and graphics), for free, ranging from Mixed Up Mother Goose through to the King's Quest series. They all run quite well under WINE.
I'm not sure why you're against Shoot'em Ups, unless you mean something more along the lines of First or Third Person shooters. Or more specifically, a game that involves violence by or against human beings. Or are you including any kind of shooting at all? Shoot'em ups are just dodge'n'shoot games, generally 2-D space games with crazy numbers of enemies and firepower to dodge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot'em_ups
Hand-eye co-ordination is best learned in the real world. Take him outside and play with real objects (I've heard it's called "catch") in a natural (non-human constructed) setting.
As for the other two things, typing skills and UI concepts, they can be trivially learned by him 10 years from now just as easily. He'll pick them up on his own before that, anyway.
I always equivocate. Well, almost always.
OpenTTD or simutrans are cool building games.
World of Goo is a great kid-friendly game, in addition to being a good game full-stop. It is mouse-only, but some of the puzzles would be very challenging (in a good way!) for a small child. Don't expect him to beat the whole thing though. So that's a good first one. Another good game (although it requires some more advanced reading skills) is Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles: http://www.howtogeek.com/92615/wind-and-water-puzzle-battles-an-awesome-game-for-linux-and-windows/ I wouldn't pull this one out right after World of Goo though. So you should look for a few other games to put in between these two.
It is never too early to learn excavation and economics.
He should try emacs
At age 3 though, I doubt the kid will understand anything about the underlying OS. Just enough to click on the right icons to get his favorite artificial babysitter, er program up and running. Do try to at least go for programs that encourage creativity and thinking instead of mind numbing "hand-eye" coordination. The hand-eye coordination will develop naturally as his brain develops. Go visit a park and tech him social skills, so he has a chance to interact meaningfully with others.
Some of the humble bundle titles (chocolate castle, crayon phisics) are pretty good and educational, stimulating the brain. A three year old is a bit too young, but I would suggest you play together -- this way you can help the child, strengthen the bond between the two of you and steer the educational and entertainment process.
However, please keep in mind that there was an article a few weeks ago that exposure to TV (and maybe a computer?) at an early age may hamper a child's cognitive development.
Why not crack open a good printed book with nice illustrations and read to your child? Or play some old fashioned games. Or kick ball, learn to ride a bike, etc etc. You'll be thankful one day that you did. And your child will, too.
Install Wine and run any of these fine children's games by Humongous Entertainment.
PuttPutt and Freddie Fish were childhood favorites of myself, my brother, and now my own son.
I'd suggest you go buy a used Wii for him. You should be able to pick one up for around $50 secondhand if you look a little bit. It should be no problem for him to pick up and play with.
Besides, the best computer games require the ability to read. No offense but I suspect your 3 year old isn't very literate yet.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
start by generating a world with only 1 civ, so they won't have to deal with goblins sieges. then later on, after they learns crop irrigation, and how to forge iron weapons introduce them to the full game.
My 2yo and 4yo daughters are addicted to minecraft, and they're surprisingly proficient at the game. They also play on a variety of websites, but minecraft seems to capture their imagination best. I 2nd whoever suggested Edubuntu, but not for a 3 year old.
Entertaining, creative, non-violent.
This child needs to be able to grow up in the modern world, not rusticate with your biases against computers and games. It is hard to teach adults a new language, they never become facile speakers. In the same manner, if your child grows up with the ability to use computers and a little later, some programming he will be far better off. That said, he should not spend 150 hours/week on Warcraft. Games help you to master computers - up to a point, after that they waste time.
Check with the various online computer learning places, like Khan academy. Suggest Khan academy establish courses for children of various starting ages, and let them progress to the adult programs, you would be amazed at how far and fast they can progress if they are smart enough.
In the old days, in tribes, kids learned it all as fast as they could, snakes, bees etc.
We are now so far removed from that time, that we forget the learning plasticity of kids, let them go for it, but control the time waste aspects the kids want - leave those as a reward. every hour of A gets and hour of B etc.
http://ri-li.sourceforge.net/
Poisson Rouge (Red Fish) is a delightful collection of simple games for preschoolers. It does require flash.
TuxPaint is also great.
GCompris. Yes, it's boring for an adult, but there is a wide variety of activities - some of which he'll like. It includes TuxPaint which teaches mouse use and drawing. You're late with TV. Get "The Letter Factory", "The Word Factory", and "The Storybook Factory". Let him digest them one at a time - each needs a few months to sink in, then introduce another - he'll be excited. Don't hesitate, if your kid can't read basic words already, your late with these videos.
Wordworld, Dinosaur Train, Sid the Science Kid. All on PBS (assuming US here). Also, get an antenna so you can get PBS Kids during more hours of the day (for scheduling, not additional watching) your cable company does not carry all the subchannels and Kids in not #1 all the time.
I'm a fan of limiting TV. We limited ours to 1 hour per day early on and have migrated to 2 hours (she's 6 now). The "Factory" DVDs are excellent and teach reading. If you're going to teach your kid anything "academic" it should be reading - everything in life is easier if you can read. There is nothing wrong with educational stuff, but free play and getting creative with physical objects/toys is also important. Education is not lame - you sure you're from around here?
And don't worry a bit. Your kid will know how to use tech stuff better than you by the time he's 5 regardless of what you do. But if you must, get him an iPod or iPad and get lots of puzzle games - Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, whatever that silly alligator game is.... But limit screen time per day.
On my Android phone I've entertained a 2 year old with several of the Shapes games, and from Humble Android Bundle: Snuggle Truck and Toki Tori.
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
http://hexahop.sourceforge.net/
It's cute too. I'm not sure if your kid will understand the puzzle mechanics, but at least the first few levels should be understandable.
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. It was the staple of my childhood, and I enjoyed it a crazy amount. Looking back on it, I think it was the basis for my logical reasoning skills, and therefore my programming ability. It also gave me a good introduction to games.
It's a good example of a game that was educational, where gameplay was still a primary concern. It was actually fun, and even with the name, I didn't really think of it as educational as a child - it was just a fun game.
It's old now, but I seriously recomend finding a copy and going with it - I imagine it'll run great in a virtual machine. I can't overstate how fun that game was for me as a child, and how good it was at making you think logically. Even my parents enjoyed playing it with me and my sister, as the difficulty could be scaled up to be challenging enough for an adult.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
simpe platformer controls + press shift to rewind time.
Tux Racer? It's been a while since I played it, but I was fun and required maybe two or three keys.
My soon to be 3 year old nephew can add and remove icons on my mom's phone better than she can, she can't figure out how to change the wallpaper and he'll change it to a different picture of him self every time he gets the phone. If i hold him while in front of my computer he'll poke at links in chrome by touching my monitor and look at me like why isn't this working. The Leappad 2 is great, $100 upfront then around $20 or so for the games, not a bad deal. However, kids learn different ways and while some can use keyboard and mouse, or console controller early on, others can not. The best thing to do is let them explore on their own, within reason of course.
I have a 6-yr-old and a 3-yr-old. So far the smaller one is happy enough with a few kid-friendly games on mom's iPhone (very sparingly, a few times a week at most) but I'm finding the 6-yr-old very engaged with online casual puzzle games. He's not quite ready for escape-the-room-type stuff, but there are quite a few kid-friendly puzzlers out there - check JayIsGames.com, you can search by tags and I use "kidfriendly" and "puzzle" (and "flash" because I'm not downloading anything, even if I did have Windows around)
While others may disagree, I'm happy to let the local schools teach the basic 3 R's; later on I'll supplement the history and geography and science. Right now I'm more interested in making sure he has analytical skills, including skeptical thinking and inductive reasoning. He's not the math/science geek I was at his age. So I'm trying to make sure he learns as much as possible about puzzles and different ways of solving them. "Rubble Trouble" is a current favorite, but that's only after we've gone through most of the Bonte stable (especially "Factory Balls"! he solved virtually all of them, not bad for (at the time) a 5-year-old)
As for the 3-yr-old, he loves Angry Birds first and foremost, but is just as happy tossing the birds to the left as to the right. He's developing differently and takes things at his own speed, so we're kind of feeling our way forward. (by contrast with the older boy, who's basically a carbon copy of my wife's personality) If he ends up more like me there'll be no keeping him away from the more analytical, strategy-type games - violence-based or otherwise - and he'll be wanting to modify the games as soon as he's finished with 'em... I'll certainly be showing him puzzles of every shape and size until we find a genre he likes.
Kids can only be steered so far. But there's enough out there that you can find something that you and the child can agree on for almost any combination of "you" and "the child"!
Perfectly Normal Industries
How about http://www.starfall.com/ ?
My kids loved it when they were around 3-4 years old.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I wouldn't recommend any. At 3 years old he's too young to need be exposed to computers at all. And I wouldn't worry about him 'getting left behind'. Once a kid with no computer exposure starts using them at school they'll catch up with those who have been using within 6 months. It just seems to be something that kids soak up whether they start it at 3 or 6 or 10.
Don't forget the eye-foot coordination. Plus, he'll be able to dance.
Sent from my ENIAC
Care to explain (preferably with cites and not just shit spewing) how using Linux gives anyone the advantage when learning another OS?
Hunt the Wumpus. None of that stupid graphics shit for those with no imagination.
I did not start on computers until I was 14. Nobody says I am behind now. Why rush it?
Unless your friend is specifically referring to Happy Action Theater (where you simply stand on camera to play), he/she's lying/heavily-exaggerating to you. A 1-year old, even a hand-eye coordination prodigy, wouldn't be able to play even a children's XBox game.
Try qimo (http://www.qimo4kids.com/), its an entire linux distribution centered around kids games. I started my daughter on it when she was 3 as well.
If you forbid games to your kid, you are going to fail miserably. If he doesn't play games from young age, he won't learn games are a waste of time and will spend adulthood playing till he realices. You will only feed his addiction. Instead, you should let him play and then ask him what did he learn, what was it useful for, and tell him about health issues that may arise. Let him be.
Put a boy in front of a paint program, and what will he draw? Yeah... Mine 5-year-old immediately drew things getting killed. Tux Paint even has stamps (clip art) of military equipment, emergency services stuff, a cross, fire, mushroom cloud, and various tools for beating people to death.
It's fairly easy to make new stamps (clip art) for the kid. You can add an AK-47, RPG-7, iron maiden, rack, breaking wheel, etc.
Tux Paint isn't even limited to violence. The stamps include a hypodermic needle. The line tool makes it very easy to draw a swastika. The text tool lets you add the mark of the beast ("666") to your drawing. You can add stamps for pot plants, pills, sex toys... the possibilities are endless!
Before this though I shieled him from screen-based entertainment (well other than Hollywood and Disney).
That's a strange choice of what to expose your child to, given the damage that Hollywood and Disney have done to the intellectual commons through copyright lobbying.
Be sure to let him play alone in the dark.
I met a guy with hard-eye before. He's working on the new .xxx domain now.
My daughter started playing WoW at about 2-and-a-half. She was fascinated with going in doors and up/down stairs in it. I was surprised how long it took her to perceive moving around in a 3D game. It starts with her just spinning non-stop, but before long (about 15 minutes) she had the key timings down to do just what she wants.
Sure, WoW's not Linux-specific, but start with something that's open-world with no pressure to do anything (Minecraft maybe?) but plenty of stuff to explore. Then, let them go at it on their own.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/09/ban-under-threes-watching-television
Prof Mitch Blair, officer for health promotion at the college, said: "Whether it's mobile phones, games consoles, TVs or laptops, advances in technology mean children are exposed to screens for longer amounts of time than ever before. We are becoming increasingly concerned, as are paediatricians in several other countries, as to how this affects the rapidly developing brain in children and young people."
Auriferous is a pretty good remake of Lode Runner, complete with the level construction tools.My son and I started playing it and building levels (some good, some interesting) when he was four and he loves it.
Otherwise, I can second all the GCompris and TuxPaint recommendations. My son loves them.
XBill!
That game is killer for hand-eye coordination, and it's fun and cute and free...
You might want to modify it or change the difficult settings though, because it does ramp up from wicked easy to insanely difficult fairly rapidly.
ìì!
Set him up with a Debian Jr box or vm of his own and let him go to town. It's supposed to have some good games packaged with it, plus programming tools and other stuff specifically for childrens. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/
what native linux games for kids? just grab rocknesx20f(nes), snes9x, fusion(sega genesis, master system) emulators and download rom collection through torrent or individual roms from sites for the kids. There is nothing wrong with playing old nintendo and sega games.
Seriously- when my son was 2 1/2, he would spent many minutes playing what he called "map", which involved him typing words into OpenOffice.
Didn't see any harm, as he sort of learned his letters and was using his imagination.
My dad let me play xEvil on the KDE desktop when I was about 10, and I turned out alright considering it had messages in the background like "WINNERS USE DRUGS" and "KILL YOUR PARENTS".
No, really.
Buy him some educational DVDs and fire up VideoLAN. On the PC you'll learn how to navigate menus, click a mouse - all that. It's basic computer skills. Then as a bonus - educational videos.
My kid right now is watching the School House Rock DVDs on his machine. Clicking around like a pro. And learning about about adverbs at the moment.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
http://lord.lordlegacy.com/
As for the other two things, typing skills and UI concepts, they can be trivially learned by him 10 years from now just as easily. He'll pick them up on his own before that, anyway.
What do you bet that in ten years:
Mice will be dead; everything will be motion tracking, eye tracking, touch tracking, etc.
Nobody will type (by "Nobody I mean you can safely round the number of typists in the world down to zero).
Contemporary "UI Concepts" will seem quaint in the way that most people today view command lines as quaint.
I can't offer any practical advice about helping a 3 year old develop, but ask yourself: "What did your parents do in your formative years?" Are you pleased with how you turned out? Can you think of anything that would have made a difference? :-)
Let's assume you're 35 now. When you were a three year old, that would have been around 1978. Taking a guess at what environment environment enriching things your parents provided for you then, I'm going to go with a teddy bear over an altair. Maybe -speak n spell.
I'm guessing the finger paints, blocks, stuffed animals are more useful than technology.
One more thing to consider, most computer games aren't very interactive - you can play finger paints or blocks with your child. How much time will you interact with them if they're on the computer? In a few short years you both will have lots of fun with geek things in the future so enjoy the time you have now - it will go fast.
get a rom for some old ass system 7 or 8 system, let him play stickybear reading, the computer will be simple while still teaching basics, and the edutainment is 10x better than anything released for linux, let alone any platform for the last 10 years.
Why not go with the classics? Get him an old TI-99/4a with the Speech Synthesizer and a bunch of educational cartridges for it. Should be pretty cheap to do. And a composite cable should be pretty inexpensive to get a hold of, which can connect to the RCA A/V jacks on whatever video device he would be using it on.
This space unintentionally left blank.
is not as fun as it sounds.
For children is ejaculation.
...everything looks like a screw.
Come on, please. They're kids: Get them an 8088, a 386 SX16...or best of all, a train set. And a book.
If he's bright and you're willing to play together until it "clicks," I'd highly recommend Minecraft (Linux supported). Kids generally excel at open world games and Minecraft is as creative as games get these days. As far as your ban on FPS's, I didn't censor anything for my kid. He grew up playing GTA. He could explore, blow things up and not be tied down by a quest system. He's well adjusted and non-violent. In fact, he'd rather play Pokémon over hardcore titles... or watch kids movies over adult titles. Even in GTA, he was more concerned with making friends than causing mayhem. The more open his options, the more vanilla his choices became. Of course, all kids are different.
You want him to grow up to be a total faggot, eh?
doom^^3 - children must learn at an early age.
My 3 year old's favorite game (which he is REALLY bad at) is XMoto. It's a 2d motorcycle game.
He really likes GCompris which has been mentioned a bunch of times. ChildsPlay (http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/) is also good for 3-6 year olds.
TuxType is a great one too as soon as your kid can recognize letters of the alphabet.
... What's the best (Linux, of course) game to get a kid started with? ...
You are making the problem worse by force it to be Linux rather than something your child is likely to see outside your narrow view of the world.
More importantly what is more important to the parent: (1) Software politics or (2) the child's eduction? Basically my concern is what *if* the best educational/edutainment software is available only for Windows?
If the parent's concern is truly for the education of the child it would seem to be appropriate to find the best software first and then see what operating systems that software is available for, not to start with the operating system.
Learning Linux is fine and all but that seems a secondary thing.
My son, who is 3yrs and 4 months plays several games...all on Linux. He plays TuxRacer, Tuxpaint, SuperTuxKart, and Speed Dreams,but his favourite, and he really is pretty good at it, is Quake Live. He can move around the levels quite adeptly and he knows how change levels, and go from online to practice mode. He can even get out of the game, navigate the menu, he is using Linux Mint 13, and select a different game. His hand-eye coordination is really good now. But he is only on the computer for about 1 hour a day... the rest of the time he is playing with his cars, and following his dad (me) around. The wife is OK with all of this as well.
As usual, YMMV.
P.S. He can even navigate around and use the Mythbox I've built.
that should work fine.
Shame on you all...
With my 3-year old I started with the iPad instead of the PC. It has a much more natural touch interface and they can get going in minutes vs. struggling to figure out the archaic QWERTY keyboard and mouse/touchpad. As of August the iPad has 30,000+ educational titles and I would recommend Letter School for tracing letters, Doodle Buddy for drawing, Hungry Fish for math, Reading Rainbow for tons and tons of books, Screen Chomp for making basic screen casts, iMove for making videos and of course Amazon Instant Video for watching endless Mr. Rodgers. I also picked up the Ion Midi keyboard at the Target on closeout for $20 and the iPad is also a piano teacher.
:)
I don't think there is too much toddler specific stuff in the Linux realm unless you plan to install Wine and runs Windows Apps. I am not sure if you trying to promote game addiction or learning, but the iPad is a great learning platform for young kids. Also, I would limit screen time to 15-minutes per day until they are about 5-years old. I believe that computers tend to limit a young childs imagination.
I apologize that I didn't answer you question directly but wanted to provide an alternate solution.
And it made Slashdot.
You're arguments are invalid.
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
Astrotit.
WINE doesn't support games like "Frisbee" and "Learning to Ride a Bike at the Park," so you're better off just doing the real thing.
Might as well force him/her to speak Latin at home as well.
In the USA, children from families that speak languages other than English tend to academically outperform children from homes where only English is spoken. The only exception is Spanish. So teaching your kid Latin as a first language will probably help him/her.
I speak English to my kids, my wife speaks Mandarin, and they went to a Spanish preschool. Compared to that, learning Latin shouldn't be too bad.
To get this thread back on topic: My daughter's favorite game when she was three was "Clifford the Big Red Dog: Thinking Games". It was a great game, and helped her learn the alphabet and other skills. But that was ten years ago, and I have no idea if it is still available.
Someone else mentioned sesame street, I'd recommend www.pbskids.org. Educational games by a staff who understands kids, at least to some extent, will serve your child well. My boy enjoyed it from 3-6 yo.
yepi.com, kizi.com have tons of games
My 4yo has been playing these games for years and he loves them. Most of them are child safe, start with something like Milk Quest. I'm for video games (if the child wants to), I believe my son learned to read just because he wanted to play the games he saw me playing. Of course I don't let him play those games for a variety of reasons, but he's happy to play more sterile games where no one dies and there's no interaction with internet creeps (read: most of my friends).
Also don't neglect minecraft. It's probably difficult for a young child to physically play, but at least mine will watch me play as long as I'm making interesting things. The good side (and possibly bad side) is that he may start turning your HOUSE into a minecraft. Mine would go around positioning boxes and furniture so that he could navigate barriers similar to how you might drop cubes in minecraft to make ladders.
Ridiculously cute bunnies, up to 4 players on one computer. My 5 and 3 year old love playing this. Oh, just turn off gore mode so there aren't chunks of bunnies flying around.
> "I have a 3 year old
I have a 2 year old...
> that I've so far kept away from TV and computers.
Away? You mean away from the TV programming? If so, that's the sane thing to do. I myself hate the various CSI incarnations and the eulogy of crime. Now, there are a lot of DVDs for children and good programs like Dora etc. on Nick Jr., Discovery Kids etc.
> I met a gamer who has a 1 year old that plays xbox (probably better than I do).
That's great, but have in mind different people have different abilities (babies included). Your son might be great on another field.
> I believe kids should experience the real world first,
You know, the real world isn't what it used to be anymore. Nowadays, things like Google and social networks are part of the real world...
> but computers will obviously be a basic job still for the foreseeable future and I'm afraid I'm letting my kid fall behind.
Don't fret, from 3 to 11 (I have another kid) he will learn like a glutton and he's unlikely to fall behind. Of course, some are geniuses... everyone fall behind them.
> I'd like to responsibly introduce my son to computers so he can start developing hard-eye coordination, typing skills and learning UI concepts.
You meant probably hand-eye, didn't you? In this case, play some ball with him, boys develop naturally excellent hand-eye coordination by themselves... (I was a once a boy, I can't infer your gender). Typing skills and UI concepts are changing wildly... most kids nowadays use thumbs to type and GUI change almost on a yearly basis. I bet you won't be able to follow him, let alone teach him something.
> What's the best (Linux, of course) game to get a kid started with?
Well, actually, I just installed Mageia with all games I could find and have my eyes on what could be good for my son. I've kept him away from the computer, too, not because I think it could harm him. Rather the opposite: at one year and a couple of months, he liked to hammer the mouse on the table (or on the notebook keyboard before I could prevent him from doing it). Besides the obvious excellent GCompris, I think the following might do:
- Circus Linux (though I find it too fast);
- Cuyo (and other Tetris variants, but this one is kinda cute, though at 3 he might not like it);
- Frozen Bubble;
- Lbreakout2;
- Pingus (looks great and not overly complicated, I have yet to play it);
- Monsterz (like bejeweled, but with cute monsters);
- Palapeli (piece assembling picture puzzle);
- Pipepanic (nice, but maybe too boring for a 3-year old);
- Samegame (also boring, but less so);
> Shoot-em-up's are obviously out,
Maybe I'm being naïve here, but I think shoot-em-up's without human targets (e.g. monsters) could be ok (I personally love Quake-alikes), but I agree that "might" be too much for a 3-year old.
> but I'm more concerned with something that will help him understand how to interact with a mouse, keyboard and screen and hold his attention rather than something 'educational' because there's plenty of (probably more effective) ways to teach math, reading, etc. that don't involve a computer.
Never underestimate the power of fun... my other child learned English watching anime.
> So far I've tried Tux Racer, which held his attention for 10 minutes or so. He doesn't quite get pressing multiple keys simultaneously yet."
I think some games are only fun with the proper interface. Tux Racer IMHO might be better with a joystick. A violin is great in part not just for the sound but for the way one can control it... I guess a music keyboard with violin sounds might need some expertise to "convince" an audience. In the case of car racing simulation, it might be better to acquire a driving wheel and pedals.
That's it. Hope everything turns out ok. Remember to do things together with your son whenever you can -- sometimes the game is less important than the jokes...
pbskids.org and starfall.com are the best kids sites. send him there.
Don't kid yourself. At that age, the kid won't even consider it a different OS. All of the same tried and true desktop metaphors are there. At about 14 months, I set my kid up with his first computer running Ubuntu Linux, and gCompris. In less than 15 minutes of instruction, and a day or two of free play, he was a competent user. When put in front of Windows, he didn't bat an eye at using the system. It was clear that from his perspective, the two worked the same. The transition was no more difficult than using a computer with a different wallpaper.
The advantage comes from it being the less common OS, meaning that they are more likely to be exposed to a different OS. Being able to perform the same tasks in different ways, has been shown to make people more flexible. With changes like the ribbon interface, start bar and now "metro", that flexibility is definitely required.
I'd suggest this is similar to the fact that with English increasingly the global language, that in countries where English is the predominate language, people are much less exposed to other languages, especially in daily usage. You may be interested in reading Bilingualism is Good Brain Exercise for Kids (and Adults).
Quite simply tetris.
Teaches hand-eye coordination, planning ahead/strategy, mental 3d visualization & modeling skills. The infinite growth of difficulty will keep hooked up.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
By force it to be Linux rather than something your child is likely to see outside your narrow view of the world. Might as well force him/her to speak Latin at home as well.
The benefits of speaking a 2nd language at home are too well know to dwell upon. You never know, being exposed to one may have saved you from being chained in your sadly narrow view of the world.
Latin, being not only the root language of the Romance languages, it is also a key to better understanding other European languages such as English, German &c., would be undoubtedly provide the child with great advantage. However since hardly any one is fluent enough actually to speak it at home this is unlikely to be a viable option.
As far as OSs, and their GUI frontends. I (doubt|hope) that the differences between a contemporary Linux GUIs and Windows or even Mac will be anywhere near as great as those between our GUIs and those that will dominate some 15 years from now (when said 3 year old may have to use computers professionally). My boys are conversant with linux, windows and OSX (thought they prefer the latter), and this has certainly not inhibited their skills in any one OS. So I can confidently say, without wanting to appear overly offensive, "you are full of shit mate!"
I'm showing my age here, but it only took those of us who grew up without computers (not entirely true, my first computer was a Kosmos Logikus) a week or three to learn how to use the early GUIs. There's nothing in there that is conceptually difficult for a reasonably intelligent young adult to pick up and learning to use a pointing device is a sinch for most anyone under that age of 60 (which isn't to say some 80 year olds don't find it a sinch either).
Computer exposure for children is somewhat overrated. Given the choice between learning multiplication tables by rote (which the school is refusing to teach my kids, "we don't do that any more") and developing "mouse skills" which is considered essential for modern survival, I would choose the former. Thank FOSS for ... TUXMATH for teaching well, what the school will not (and you only need a keypad!) But probably not quite for a 3 year old (unless said 3 year old is Terence Tao).
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I've got a few years experience with allowing hundreds of kids to play with Edubuntu on laptops at a local tech fair. The games that seem to hold their attention are Potato Guy (which also includes many other scenarios such as Ancient Egypt, Robot Workshop and Robin Tux) and Tux Paint.
bicycle. I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike.
World's FULL of 'computational experiences', my friend. You get them started on games, you will regret it- push your disappointment out as long as you can.
Be different.
For your own as well his well being keep him away from games and TV as long as you are capable. It is crack to kids. The real world will provide him with far more variation in Hand Eye coordination than a game can/will ever deliver. Walking is just as import. Take time to read to him. No matter how hard you try to keep games away from him he will be exposed to them regardless. In no time he will master the trivial skills necessary to master game play and keyboards. I am not anti games but I currently have a 9 year old so I know what you are thinking. Read, Read Read Read to him, far more important. The structure of our language models our thinking, Failure to master basic communication skills will be far more devastating. Consider this, he will probably not even have to use a keyboard when he is an adult because they will be obsolete. Good luck
Rocks'n'Diamonds is a great Boulderdash / Sokoban / Supaplex / Emerald Mine clone. Distributed under the GPL and packaged for most Linux distros. It's a great puzzle game for kids with nice graphics, SFX and brainteasers. Might be a bit too challenging for a 3-year-old, but great for 10+.
Homepage
Care to explain (preferably with cites and not just shit spewing) how using Linux gives anyone the advantage when learning another OS?
Well the real "shit spewing" was being conducted by the AC who made the ridiculous assertion that "by force [sic] it to be Linux" would only make "the problem worse." Whatever the "problem" was supposed to be. Clearly someone, who not unlike you, lacks the experience of using multiple OSs on a daily basis and cannot appreciate the superior understanding of all OSs this inevitably brings. Think of it as having advantages similar to learning a 2nd natural language in the home.
Some poor kids get to use nothing but Windows in the home and at school and end up completely clueless as to what an OS could be, if not outright hostile when called on to use a better one. I've seen this tragedy played out again and again.
I don't give a crap whether it's Catholicism or Linux, imposing your religious beliefs on a 3 year old is just plain wrong. Like religion, exposing them to a variety and letting them make their own choice is going to make them a more well-rounded person/nerd. If they decide to be a Mormon or Windows user and you disown them, that's your own hangups.
Maybe you could see if they'd port this game to Linux...
Teach him to type, for a bit. I had this game on one of my mom's old computers. Then teach him he is in control of the machine. Then show him Spreeder.com and give him/her good books, until, he/she complains :)
Then say "Slashdot is for big people." You will know if he/she has been reading it. And the resulting discussion should be interesting. (Maybe not true now post Taco).
Anyway voice non-parent. Really liked shooting down letters before they landed. Might have made me enjoy gaming too much.
and let him loose
The controls for neverball are simple -- just move the mouse. My kid particularly likes zooming round in circles, and somehow managed to get to Level 8 (over the course of a few months) by making what appears to me to be fairly random mouse movements.
Enigma also has a similar control simplicity, at least for puzzles that don't involve extra items.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Though World War vi might be good too - http://freecode.com/projects/wordwarvi
http://www.xevil.com/
'nuff said.
http://www.osef.org/
That classic game, "Who can pick the most crumbs out of the Sysadmin's neckbeard?"
I'm about to release a arcade space shooter game, called silverspeed. You can download a demo at www.ckmgaming.com. It has simple mouse controls. My three year old nephew can't play it yet, but likes looking at the bosses, he calls them dragons.
I wasn't much older than three when i got my first taste of civilisation (civ1 on dos). Have been playing the series and freeciv ever since.
make games with him, with scratch
http://scratch.mit.edu/
I have have a Linux desktop, which my kids sometimes use.
KPotatoGuy is one I can suggest. My 6 year old is starting
with minecraft, but it's a bit scary and complex still. (It's fun
as long as I am around to coach and make suggestions)
But what my kids (3 and 6) are really into are games on the Android and iOS tablets and phones -
angry birds especially. Consider that they can touch without knowing the alphabet, knowing
what "escape" or "space" or "return" are about. And the left button, right button, and scroll
wheel, etc. These devices are ideal for kids, and software is generally affordable, and the
stuff "just works" reliably - minimal admin, fiddling or administration.
So I really recommend they have access to an iPhone, iPod, Nexus7 (or whatever) and some
different styles of easy games without the crummy adds that land them on spammy "buy now"
websites.
And the best thing about it is that having YOUR computer to yourself is important too!
- Nigel
Best Linux Game For Young Kids?
Ubuntu. For the advanced player, try the server edition without the mouse.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
So you grew up using Windows, did you? I think it was about the 5th OS I used, but that hasn't stopped me from being able to use it.
Shameless plug: for those who have kids a little bit older, DragonBox is our algebra educative game. And we're preparing the Linux version: http://support.dragonboxapp.com/forums/166049-general/suggestions/2946059-release-a-version-for-pc-either-linux-or-windows
Drop us a line if you think this is interesting!
As for personal advice, for 3yo: GCompris
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
Tux Paint can treat all mouse buttons the same. This used to be the default; currently the default is to pop up an animation that shows you how to use the left button.
There is a config program to restore the original behavior. You could also just edit the config file.
There is also an option to make Tux Paint fullscreen, and one to disable the Quit button. Until the kid learns the multi-key exit sequence, he's not going to escape from Tux Paint.
It's cute, it encourages thinking, the graphics are truly beautiful, it is an example of a wonderful open source community, and because the campaigns are easy to edit and code, it can be used as a gateway drug to programming. Hey, even I managed to make a campaign!
FFS, what is up with people who have managed to rub a couple of chromosomes to rub together but can't figure out the basics of raising a child.
Seriously?!? You're worried you're 3 year old is falling behind in computer skills? Here's a few thoughts that cross my mind:
1) The internet isn't going to be able to give you any helpful information. We know nothing about your child, how you interact, his likes/dislikes, etc.
2) Stop worrying about specifics (e.g. computer skills, when to introduce him to star trek, what order to watch star wars in). Spend time with your kid. Do the things he likes to do. Play games (the physical kind). Introduce him to a variety of physical activities.
Introducing him to computers at 3 isn't going to help. He won't be any further ahead, and you may end up creating either an unhealthy obsession for computers, or an unhealthy aversion. He'll let you know when he's interested.
3) Stop listening to the people who say "I introduced my 2 year old child to the program XYZ, and it's every bit as good as physical activity. And their mouse skills increased dramatically". Seriously, mouse skills. Think back...how long did it take you to become proficient with a mouse? a week? Maybe two? Are you seriously worried that those 1-2 weeks are going to mean the differece between brain surgeon and a life of crime? These people are deluding themselves. It has never been demonstrated that screen time has any benefits to children under the age of 6, and there are quite possibly serious drawbacks.
4) Read a book on child rearing. Actually read a few. You seem to woefully misunderstand child development and psychology.
5) Whatever you do (even if it is computer based), do it with your child. Don't treat computers, tv, toys, what have you as an alternative to active parenting. Both you and your child will learn a heck of a lot faster if you are there to watch their reactions, see where they are having difficulty, and respond to the same stimuli they are experiencing.
But most of all....stop asking the internet stupid questions. You're just going to get a pile of misinformed, self-justifying answers.
Hello,
we have just launch http://pedagogicbundle.com/ ! This is for children and others:
for very young:
for others: mathematical tools :)
Éric
http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/
Collection of educational games; memory, puzzle, keyboard and a pacman variant.
seriously, for a 3 y.o., education has to come with the game.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
His imagination will take care of the rest!
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
worm, snake, hangman, etc.
Supertux! Mario clone for linux, plenty of bright colours to capture the attention of the younglings.
Few of you will agree with this one, but I let my daughter play it from 2 to 5 years old. She loved it more than any other game. It was hysterical. If you know this game, it's an awesome first-person shooter with guns, grenades, and blood, played on various urban maps. Last I played, it was mostly very skilled diehards with years of experience. She was slow compared to the other players, so she compensated by using some insane machine gun used for close range (IMI Negev). Her favorite thing was killing guys on the other team, but that was really hard because of their skill and her age. She developed unique strategies. For example, on one map she would smoke grenade her own team's flag, and sit just outside the smoke waiting for the other team to appear with the flag, and then lay into them with the negev. She had a few other strategies, but they were always ambushes to compensate for her low speed and accuracy. She loved grenades and that big inaccurate machine gun.
I never had the heart to IM the other players that a they'd just been killed by a four year old girl. I also never worried that her goal in the game was rarely protecting the flag or trying to get the other team's flag. Sometimes it was just wondering around, looking for a good place to ambush a player. Sometimes she just wanted to see what all the different guns do, or simply explore the map. Even at her best, her kill ratio was awful, maybe 1:4, but she didn't mind the dieing, though if she was trying to do something it frustrated her to have to start over. Most of her ambushes had to be set up very close to home base, or if she wanted just to play around, she'd find a mostly useless part of the map rarely visited by the other players.
I had to end her time playing Urban Terror when she began to read. I never told her what those IM messages scrolling past said, but they were pretty horrible. She wasn't exactly a good team player, and some of these guys take the game waaaaay to seriously. My son is 2 years younger, and I only let him play it about a year, because my daughter would always watch and coach him, so her starting to read IM messages became a problem. She would ask why she couldn't play anymore, but at that age such questions are easily deflected, just like whether or not Santa Clause is real.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
At age 3, touch screen is a far easier input device to learn - if you've got any Android phones or tablets available, look for a puzzle game that caters to their obsession. Mine loves the Train Crisis / Track My Train / Trainyard type games.
I've been playing minecraft with my son for the last 2 years, since he was 3.
At first he couldn't play by himself, so I played while he watched.
Now he plays by himself - either creative or survival mode, and they keep adding features every few weeks.
We didn't even get to playing online.
Best money I ever spent on a computer game.
Get the little buggers to code some unit tests in VI.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
I'd highly recommend Zoodles, though from what I see on their current page Linux is not supported:
http://www.zoodles.com/en-US/home/marketing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm0-ofngVEA
I know it can run on Linux though (I think it's using Adobe Air), as a friend of mine set it up on a Ubuntu machine for his 2½ year old.
Zoodles (as I remember it) has both games with shapes, numbers and colors etc, and a videoportal that includes Sesame Street videos from YouTube, learning them to count and the alphabet.
Check out GCompris or Childsplay. My son of 4 years loves these programs.
lego. the hardware version.
don't make your kid sit and stare at one point (screen) sitting in one pose (chair). it's bad for health.
there is nothing really to fall behind. we all learned, how to use keyboard and mouse at much later age. he still wont be able to blind type for a while (hands too small) and mastering mouse for 6 year old takes minutes, while 3y.o. will struggle due to mouse size compared to hand size.
i am also sure, that for understanding algorhytmic thinking, there are ways outside the limiting screen.
Leaning Linux (or Unix generally) is likely to remain valid learning for over 20 years (I still use what I leaned about Unix in 1979 on Ubuntu today- that is over 30 years ago). Learning about Windows lasts about 5 years if you are lucky. With Windows, the kid's skills would be obsolete before he is old enough to understand what the computer behind the apps actually does.
Plus Winphone 8 vs Android may do for Linux what iPod vs Zune did for Apple.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
poissonrouge.com beats them all.
I know you asked for Linux and I'm on a mac, but what got my kid interested was:
- photo booth where he could make faces and do all kinds of fun stuff with the built in camera / pictures (which he subsequently figured out how to associate with user accounts and use as desktop backgrounds)
- skype with me as I travel often
- email with me, for the same reason (with the benefit of being able to save it
- browser based kids games on the net
His first email to me:
aymisyou
His second:
ded yenayoukoumeybk
So okay, work to be done on spelling but it got him on the computer completely by his own motivation :-)
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Just give him Minecraft or even BFV. Nothing wrong with a shooter. BC2 or BF3 might be a little much.
Wait, What?
Yet change the color and position of the taskbar and many "professionals" here start whining like babies and end up crying under their desk....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's the best game for kids on Linux.
Now stop screwing around and do it right, and get a Wii. You can get them for a song right now since the new one is coming out soon.
As I said before, all of these are GPL, and all of them are available for Linux and Windows platforms (and IIRC also MacOS).
And it gets kids thinking about realistic future career paths like being a fry cook!
Gcompris is an educational suite for kids. It stars out with basic mouse movements, progresses through clicking, double clicking, letters on the keyboard, and on from there. They are all games, that my 2 and 4 year old enjoy, and they learn from as well!
By force it to be Linux rather than something your child is likely to see outside your narrow view of the world. Might as well force him/her to speak Latin at home as well.
Quite right, small children should be made to use Windows 15 and Office 2027, the versions that will be current when they join the workforce. Or maybe Mac OS XX.
I don't give a crap whether it's Catholicism or Linux, imposing your religious beliefs on a 3 year old is just plain wrong.
You must be a complete retard if you think that these two things are in any way equivalent.
OP said *nothing* to indicate they were 'religiously fanatical' about Linux, or that they would disown their child if it used Windows; you just made all this up to suit your bizarre assertion.
I suspect that it's probably your hatred of Linux that is in fact the 'religious belief' and you're projecting your own defects onto others.
Latin, being not only the root language of the Romance languages, it is also a key to better understanding other European languages such as English, German &c., would be undoubtedly provide the child with great advantage.
I'd highly recommend Latin for young children, although it has very little relationship with German and only some relationship to English. Many of the apparent similarities between Latin and German have to do with the fact that they were both descended from a common ancestral language, and German is more closely related to English than Latin. It helps immensely with reading and learning closely related languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian), and of course reading early academic literature in the original.
I am officially gone from
KapuToys for iPhone (and Android) is a great collection of touch based small games (with cute animals in a forest) suitable for 2-5y olds. My 3y old son learned to play some of the easier games before turning 2, but now he can already play already the Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds, too :)
I thought we could start the games with my old Sinclair Spectrum ZX, but I think that path is already lost (to iPad)...
Why is this front page??? Come on slashdot. Tell the parent to go home and fucking figure it out themselves... Where's the old slashdot? The one with relevant news???
Reading will do far more to help your child in the new millennium than playing a computer game at a young age. Throwing and catching a ball will do more for hand eye coordination than playing a computer game. If the concern is about being able to have computer skills for the next generation (such as using a mouse and keyboard, etc.) well, the current generation and previous generation seemed to pick them up quite easily without having access to them as a toddler.
Besides, who is to say that by the time your child is older that the mouse will still even be the primary input device?
Go old school and expand his/her intellect and coordination. There are already enough computer junkies who cannot think for themselves. Do the world a favor and raise your child to be a critical thinker first.
You are right to keep your child away from computers and TV. Yes, you could get your child to be good at video games like your pal, but it turns out that's not really a skill you need to be a successful and happy person.
Buy more books and keep him away from computers for another 8 years or so.
minecraft is a good game to introduce him to. it's pretty cheap, multi platform, moddable if he gets bored, and best of all, it's sandbox, so he can be creative. it would be a good idea to put it on peaceful, though.
i know this might be a cross-grain recommendation on /., but many of the the edutainment apps for ios are great.
i purchased a couple of apps by peapod labs for my 4 year old daughter, and she can go for over an hour at a time exploring, reading singing and spelling with these apps. there are other good apps out there, try avoid the in-app purchase apps as they tend to be more entertainment and less education.
aside from tuxpaint, IMHO the best cross platform releases i've seen are the various humble bundle releases( goo, braid, etc). some of these title might be a bit mature for game playing for a 3/4 year old, but it might be a toddler and parent bonding experience smearing baddies on the screen together.
we also balance computer/tablet time with meatspace activities: reading, playing, cooking,.chores(ok cooking and chores are a bit challenging, but we try to gamify them for higher acceptance).
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
QWOP. It should keep him away from computers for the next several years.
this is simple and a good first start, will give the kid a chance to use a mouse and a keyboard. After playing with this, my kid would tell me to just click the red x to close down the window when they wanted me to quit using my computer and go play with them.
http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-Clickstart-My-First-Computer/dp/B000NRVFV8
By forcing them to use Linux, you turn the child into a smug, insufferable parrot who mouths platitudes about "freedom and openness" without knowing what the fuck they mean. This child will, incidentally, be wedgied, raspberried, and indian burned into a young suicide by his peers.
But you know, turning your child into a mini Stallman could be good for them, too, I suppose. Nothing like spoon feeding your kid a whole lot of abstract politics to make them hate you when they get old enough to realize how badly you've stunted their development.
Oh for christ's sake. This is OBVIOUSLY written by somebody who has zero experience with the ribbon interface, the start bar, or metro. They look different. They take about... 20 minutes to get used to. A few days to be proficient with. And, at least with the case of the ribbon interface & start bar, you'll be more productive with them once you've invested a couple days getting used to them than you ever were with the 20-level menu hierarchies they replaced.
If you're interested in developing hand-eye, try starting him on the piano. Any musical instrument will teach him rhythm musical appreciation and, of course, the ability to read music, as well as giving them a creative outlet. My personal experience on the piano certainly transferred very well to my keyboarding skills on the computer. From a pure computing perspective though, it's too bad Apple didn't decide on using the BAT keyboard years ago... http://images.stanzapub.com/readers/webupon/2008/01/17/101033_82.jpg
I got a 3 year old also. He loves to play minecraft. Mostly in creative mode. At first he was just watching, but then he started playing, first by just walking forward and someone else helping him turn and go and down. But nowadays he can select blocks from the menu, build houses, railroads etc. Minecraft is a commercial game, but as it is Java, it works on Linux too. Oh, and when I said loves, I mean that he is hooked. As in, cries when I say that he has played enough and take him away from the computer. I recommend setting a timelimit and using a klock that informs when time is running out and when it actually runs out.
If you want free games, consider also flash games that you can play via browser. Just ask or think what your kid likes and search for game related to that.
I don't know if anything similar is still available, but the old [LISP] "Turtle Graphics" seems to meet your goals.
My 5 year old started playing video games with Super Mario Bros Wii and Lego Indiana Jones -- but that was mainly because he wasn't allowed near my laptop. :)
He's played some of the educational Tux games (the math / letter ones) but those are a little challenging for him. I picked up World of Goo and he really enjoys that - he actually beat it recently. He likes Toki Tori, too. (That's a really fun non-violent platformer puzzle game). My 3 year old daughter likes TuxPaint (the 5 year old does too) -- which is good for teaching fine motor skills with a pointing device.
Oh, Crayon Physics is fun, though it can require some adult assistance since it occasionally requires reading. +1 if you have a Wacom tablet. :)
A 3-year-old boy still cannot crap correctly, resulting in bad accidents :-/. So I suggest the game of the Goatse which is very teaching for a boy of this age.
Sorry, no mod points...
But my 3yo loves Dragon Box. One of the best games out there!
Of course, he started on a Nintendo DSi before age 1 with Crayola Treasures. (Get the nerf armor for it!!!) Stole his older sister's Linux box at age 2. Moved on to TuxPaint, Flash games, etc. Got addicted to Plants vs Zombies (DSi) around age 3. Now (age 3.75), he's on an android tablet with Dragon Box and those water games. And he begs me to help him play LOTRO.
I am such a bad father... But he seems happy and well adjusted. Still likes playing with his batman hideout toys. Just not all the time...
p.s. Don't overlook TuxMath. Very helpful in grades 1-5 for routine drills.
yeah that little kid must have a real messed up idea of intellectual property, trademark and copyright law. its like he doesn't know a thing aobut it.
It's called the mere exposure effect or familiarity principle. Long-term exposure to products of copyright maximalists makes it more likely that the child will overlook the firms' copyright maximalism once he comes to learn the basics of copyright. So don't feed your child a steady diet of the products of Paramount (Nick), Warner Bros. (Cartoon Network), and Disney if you don't want your child to end up sympathizing with those companies' policies.
I'm afraid I'm letting my kid fall behind
There's no reason to believe he is falling behind. Kids that are introduced to computers in school catch up pretty quickly to kids that have been using them at home prior to attending school for the first time. By middle school, there's no difference in skill or familiarity with a computer between the kids who started early or 'late'. When it comes to computers, there really is no rush.
www.wesnoth.org/
how has this not been posted yet???
Anyways, very fun low-graphics turn based strategy game, only downside I can see is it might be a bit complicated, but it's still fun without understanding a thing about the game & kids have amazed me before on what they can figure out to do.
Chromium is a good hand-eye game, you directly control a space-ship using the mouse. Reminds me of crystal quest on the mac, I still have an LC hooked up for that purpose.
I have 4 children, the two older ones, ages 7 and 4 respectively, can hold their own against me at Call of Duty on the PS3 and enjoy Netflix (kid mode when on their own) and other games on the PS3 & Wii. After learning basic system bus the elder of the two is now learning how to program his own simple computer games using Java on his Raspberry Pi. The younger one has no interest at all, I think he may be our "art" kid, or maybe it's just a phase, we'll see... There is no real point in sheltering them, you're better off being there, helping to explain things so you know what they are taking away from a potentially traumatizing or negative situation albeit on screen or in the real. "Be Prepared" is the Boy Scout motto, and my children will be, and then some. The key is communication, maintaining an open line of communication free of judgement or negative criticism is invaluable to knowing what is on you child's mind. They're not going to talk to you if they think you're going to be judgmental, angry, or apply a draconian punishment for normal kid mistakes.
My kid (5 years old) start to create it own level with Secret Maryo Chronicles ( http://www.secretmaryo.org/ )
He is creating a lots of level. Now the mouse, keyboard has no secret for him. He is selecting multiple object, copy/paste and move them around. He also learn to save often in case of a crash... Or when he pasted ~12000 life and overkill the system. He learn to take stuff from pre-made level to create his own. He figure out by himself to change the path of the element to modify the images. He wanted me to change few items colors... But when he ask me to create more enemies I told him to go to school so he can learn!
But three years old is a bit young for the computer... And some key shortcut are nasty and they can click everywhere...
Give your kid a IPod to play with, touch pad will probably be the future peripheral. You might see a video of it own.
These "Ask Slashdot" stuff are purposely trolling posts. Even bad parents are not going to give their 1 year old a linux box to run games on.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The human visual system isn't fully developed until around age 7. I'd suggest minimizing contact with TVs, monitors, and 3D displays until that age.
I used to play concentration with just regular playing cards I'm not sure how old I was when I started but I started my sons at three . If you could find something like that it might be good for a three year old, but expecting the game to hold their interest with out someone else playing with them.... forget it.
Tetris
Not that it's generally productive responding to ACs, but I have been using Linux since 1993, I'm sure I have worked on more Linux kernel driver code, let alone application software, than you have, and I have shipped software on 50 million+ Linux-based embedded devices. I wouldn't call that hatred. My point was a well rounded knowledge of computers is best served by being relatively OS-agnostic, and my methods were a bit of hyperbole for semi-comic effect. And yes, a dig at organized religious dogma, oh well.
And it really wasn't all that harsh of a post, anyway, my main goal was getting in a Simpsons video game reference :)
I'd highly recommend Latin for young children, although it has very little relationship with German and only some relationship to English. Many of the apparent similarities between Latin and German have to do with the fact that they were both descended from a common ancestral language
I agree that both German and Latin share the similarity that PIE derived languages exhibit and would add that the influence of Latin upon German is not limited merely to this common ancestry. It may only occasionally be obvious semantically, where it usually reflects Roman technological superiority eg. in the German Fenster, which survives in English in the oft used (by Historians of Bohemia) term defenestration. Latin's later influence upon German (and not German alone) has been as a result of "latinising scholars" most especially during the formulation of a normative grammar for Old High German at the imperial court in Prague. Being an IE language German was naturally case-based, but in attempting to formalise a learned version of the common tongue --a tongue the Emperor Karl V described as being fit only for talking to horses --the learned men very consciously tried to shoe-horn German syntax into the Latin case system (or a subset thereof, ie. German lacks the ablative and the vocative) and to standardise the inflections within those cases.
Latin syntax is less obvious in English grammar, (though the rule against splitting infinitives is an invention by late latinisers), where the case system has all but died out --how many English speakers even know when to use whom any more? (and even there the distinction between the accusative and the dative has collapsed.) Well died out entirely perhaps :)
and German is more closely related to English than Latin
That is clear. Of course High German is even more closely related to Yiddish and English more closely to Dutch or Low German. But this is to say nothing of the influence of Latin (or Norman French for that matter) upon either German or English after the Germanic languages had separated from the Romance languages.
It helps immensely with reading and learning closely related languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian)
Latin, being not only the root language of the Romance languages, it is also a key to better understanding other European languages such as English, German &c.,
Now about Hebrew ... ;)
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Being a troll is also a religion. (Speaking as a true Buddhist)
Yes, but telling the difference between a troll and a joke is a skill ;)
Though to be serious - it's not about *skills* for a 3 year old, are you kidding? It's about exposure. And exposure to a larger variety of experiences is generally better for development.
Yes, I was simplifying things a bit. The point was that English is actually a pretty good jumping-off into German, and German (in my experience) is somewhat easier for an English-speaker to pick up than, say, Italian. And of course, once you get away from IE languages, all bets are off: Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin, Turkish, Swahili, etc are all quite tricky for an English-speaker to wrap their heads around, because they use structures and sounds that are wildly different from English.
I am officially gone from
I thought linux was the game. I mean, it took me two weeks to unlock wifi on my laptop when I first installed linux a few years ago. Then, bluetooth keyboard failure attacked, and I had to use tank, nuke, and heal (read driver manuals, sudo mv new drivers in place, and drink coffee). Did I win or lose?
Basically my concern is what *if* the best educational/edutainment software is available only for Windows?
They aren't.
You should try Minecraft. (It can be played on all OS's) It's very simplified yet, requires the use of multiple inputs (ie keyboard and mouse to move about), it allows the user to design his/her own world, a house/s and other things like farms and animal pens all from a pre-generated world, plus with the newest update, you can play along side your kid over a LAN-world. I know for a fact that kids, and surprisingly some adults, get very involved in the game play, and heck, it's very addicting in most cases for both. Only negative thing I can think of is perhaps that you can kill animals and monsters and of course each other (since you mentioned shooter games were out of the question), but look at an overview of the game on YouTube. You might just like the game for your kid.
P.s. The game also has the potential to teach your kid about the basics of JavaScript and can teach them how to tinker with compatibility issues between add on programs (mods) for Minecraft which can be a great base which can be built from.
Because of computer exposure that challenges and motivates her to accel. She still has plenty of playtime and social time too. This poor person wants honest answers to a simple question and instead got a lot of personal opinions and interjection on how to raise their kid. That is just Wrong! Tsk-Tsk!! So, my girl would be one of the many girls who would talk to this persons boy at any age. To answer the question directly; You will have to try each of the good answers given by the good people here to see what works best for you and your son. As Best is relational to ones own experience, YMMV and what is best in one person's opinion is clearly not in another's. Last thoughts... Have you tried zoodles? It was cross platform until they yanked the Firefox kid jail plugin. Which I still have and can send to anybody. Now they just cater to Microsoft and Apple Unfortunately.
Basically my concern is what *if* the best educational/edutainment software is available only for Windows?
They aren't.
True, they are available for Windows and Mac.
I did some research into this topic awhile ago. Here is a list depending on the age group:
3-7: GCompris (http://gcompris.net/-en-) *** Best ***, KDE Education software (http://edu.kde.org/), Tux Software Series (http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org/), TuxPaint, TuxMath, TuxType all excellent, Omnitux (overlaps with Gcompris) (http://omnitux.sourceforge.net/), SuperTuxCart (no education just game) (http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/), SuperTux(http://supertux.lethargik.org/) (entertainment only), Secret Maryo (similar to Super Mario, pure entertainment, no educational value) (http://www.secretmaryo.org/), Frozen Bubbles (pure game, no real education here)(http://www.frozen-bubble.org/), Crayon Physics Deluxe (commercial, puzzle game)(http://www.crayonphysics.com/)
6-14: Scratch (teaches computer programming in an amazingly intuitive way..had 11 year old figure it out with no computer background and no experience) (http://scratch.mit.edu/), Alice (teaches 3d art), (http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice), World Of Goo (commercial, puzzle solving)(http://www.2dboy.com ), Trine/Trine 2 (commercial, puzzle solving)(http://http://trine-thegame.com/site/) (good for developing puzzle solving skills..good graphics), Greenfoot (teaches Java to pre-teens similar way to Scratch) (http://www.greenfoot.org/door), Cogs (Commercial puzzle game) (http://www.cogsgame.com/), DreamChess (Stragety...its chess)(http://www.dreamchess.org/), E-Adventure (teaches people to make their own point/click adventure games) (http://e-adventure.e-ucm.es/), Gbrainy (Math/logic games) (https://live.gnome.org/gbrainy), Inkscape (Vector Graphics..works well with Scratch/Alice as teaching tool and book)(http://www.inkscape.org), And Yet It Moves (Commercial puzzle/alternative physics) (http://www.andyetitmoves.net/), Machinarium (Commercial, flash adventure game..great for kids) http://machinarium.net/demo/, Minecraft (semi-commercial, install on Linux may not be straightforward) (https://minecraft.net/), Botanicula (Commercial, Flash adventure Game)(http://botanicula.net/)
Most of the non-commercial games listed above are readily available hrough the software game channels of most Linux Distros including Ubuntu, Mint (I've confirmed all on Mint), Fedora and Debian. I included links in case for some reason the user friendly Software Install Dialogs in Ubuntu/Mint or default Synpatic Package manager channel configuration doesn't do the trick. The commercial ones come in various installers, most user friendly but a few you may need to make a menu launcher manually.
Children specific OS Distros: I've never tried these but it may simplify your OS installations with pre-installed game/activities: http://www.doudoulinux.org/web/english/index.html ***(this looks VERY good for kindergarden first timers on a computer)*** http://www.qimo4kids.com/what-is-qimo/ http://www.edubuntu.org/ http://www.foresightlinux.org/release/foresight-kids-edition-1-0-release-notes/
Recommend all purposes Distro for early starters (6-and up): http://www.linuxmint.org/ (Not education specific but software installation menus make it easy to find/try educational and non-educational games...ubuntu does to but Mint makes it easier for non-techies...have 9-12 year old using it with no training...no problem)
other list of games for Linux are here: http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080510052539217/Games.html http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080522164112313/Games-Part2.html
While educ
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Oh, forgot to add something, you mentioned kids having trouble using keys for controllers. Suggest getting a PS3 standard controller from a store or E-bay. Plugs in using USB connector and the current kernel (2.6.37+) provides the drivers (hid-sony) See article on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/fofix/wiki/GameControllers
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Apologies, You may have noticed that my link for Mint Linux in my first posting doesn't work. Its http://linuxmint.com/ (not .org). Apologies again for confusion.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I agree, and would extend that to include all morals as well. Not every culture shares the same morals, shit, sometimes people don't agree in the same culture. It's evil that we indoctrinate them with objectivitist (in the philosophical sense, not the Randshit sense) like ``stealing is wrong!'' Children should be able to grow up before they decide what is right and wrong.
There are some cute linux games out there, depending on what you and the kid are comfortable with. Did you play Worms? There are a few clones of it on the Ubuntu software center. There's also a mario-kart style game called tux-cart or something like that.. it's got plenty of card games too, and a few other interesting games. Unfortunately a lot of Linux games aren't made for kids, or even for people, but more as experiments in programming or something. Look for things like hedgewars, with cute graphics. Then try them out yourself first and decide what you think would be best.
If you have steam and don't mind buying games, the Bit.trip games run just fine on Steam. So do certain RPGs. If he can eschew graphics, there are dungeon crawls out there just cute enough to pick up on (don't expect him to win, of course).
You could also grab an emulator (those work pretty well on linux), and grab a rom of some old NES games like Kirby, or even some made for little kids (there were both sesame street and muppet NES games).