Squeak for 3-year-olds

Steve Wart thecows at home.com
Mon Apr 30 07:28:42 UTC 2001


I agree that building (and destroying) things is important for young
kids. At this age they seem to be desperately trying to develop a casual
facility with everything around them, whether it's sand toys, crayons or
electronic gadgets. And the average home is chock-a-block with
electronic gadgets.

When Daddy spends most of his day on the computer, kids are really
serious about figuring out what that is all about. I don't want to
create the impression that I'm trying to "teach my son about computers"
-- for me, it's just a way to show him some of the stuff I do, and maybe
teach him some rules about my work space.

There is a mutual fascination when the two of us play with this stuff.
He definitely wants to be here -- when he wants to go play with cars or
puzzles or anything else, he is clear about that too. I get a kick out
of it because I get to see him go from bashing on the keys to making
connections with some pretty complex concepts. It's really just a game
and the only rule is that it has to be fun for both of us.

The connections I get to make surface in questions like, "what do I need
to teach my kids and why is it important?". If I can figure that out I
think the "how" will become much easier.

Cheers,
Steve

Alan Kay <Alan.Kay at disney.com> wrote:
> 
> For those of you who have very young children, you are much better 
> off having them start to learn to build things with their hands. Most 
> computers are not equipped with enough tactile feedback to be great 
> learning environments for very young children.
> 
> A great book to read for those who are interested is "Towards a 
> Theory of Instruction" by Jerome Bruner. It doesn't talk about 
> computers but it is one of the best books about designing good 
> educational environments for children of various ages.  Last year I 
> wrote a chapter for a book about kindergarten that discusses the 
> suitability of computers for 3 and 4 year olds. This will also go 
> online sometime this summer.





More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list