Technology at home



Technology in our house is abundant! I noticed that our littlest girl had picked up my tablet, taken it to the dining table and begun playing on it. She has a few games on there that she likes, but so far hasn't been able to navigate by herself. Well this time she's managed to unlock it and open up a jigsaw game. She sat there for ages playing by herself. Is that any different to going into the playroom, opening a bag of jigsaws and getting them out? Well not really, is it?

The littlies have lots of apps and games on my tablet. They're always stealing it so they can play. So much so that for the kids Christmas presents they had tablets of their own. The littlest hasn't, I think thats a bit extreme as she's not two yet! My sunshine had a tablet that came free with my phone upgrade at the carphone warehouse. This tablet is pretty good for his needs. It has all the usual games that he likes and access to the internet. I watch what he's upto on it but mostly he enjoys watching youtube clips of 'fireman sam' and the like. Some of his apps are sneaky learning games although he doesn't know he learning! Angry birds teaches him about trajectory. Reading eggs is his favourite word recognition game (and he's doing well on it I might add). He also has a lego builder on there so we don't have to take bucket loads of lego around with us all the time!

My biggest girl had a Kindle Fire which is brilliant! She has internet access which we watch over, but built into the device is a parental settings button which I love. It prevents her from going onto the internet without us knowing, it stops her from purchasing content from amazon too. All password protected. Genius! She has games on there including 'Minecraft'. Lots of our home educating friends play this. So many in fact that theres a new 'minecraft' group in the offing. Another excuse for that all important socialising that everyone keeps going on about *rolls eyes*. She also has books on it. meaning that she can dip into any of her books wherever we are. She's always been a bookworm so this is perfect. Since she left school she's not done as much reading but I'm thinking she's having a period of deschooling (which I'll do my best to post about another day). So she's being given every opportunity to read when she has her tablet around. Bedtime reading is a favourite for her so having her kindle at bedtime is working out just great.

We, along with the vast population of households, also have our fingers in the iPie. In that we have lots of tech with an 'i' in front of it. My husband has an iPad, iPhone and an iPod. He loves his tech too! It means we can get hold of him whilst he's at work. My big girl has learnt to send and receive emails on her Kindle (more than a lot of folks of a certain age can do!). So now she can email her dad when we have wifi access. Its great when she gets an email. Its like the postman knocking on with a parcel throughout the day. She only has four emails to send to but I'm hoping some more people will want her address so we can have a penpal type thing going on. Its improving her spelling and writing skills and those all important social skills ;)

Technology in the home under these circumstances can be great. We're loving it and its all so accessible nowadays. I just need to convince Grandad to sort out his router and then they'll have wifi there too. Maybe Grandparents can learn alongside them too....