The kid’s grandparents got him an Amazon Fire tablet and I loathe the thing. It teaches literally nothing about computing and the games they have for kids are barely even games, and are more focusing on advertising various IPs.
I’d like to get the kid started, as he learns to read, on something that will be more useful than detrimental, let that soft little brain soak up some actual computer science, literacy. I teach him about basic electrical circuits and how that translates to computing, if, and, or, xor, nor, etc. He’s got some familiar with hex (colors) and the concept of binary (on/off).
But what to get for a first computer? I almost want to get him something Linux based and turn him loose. Is there anything like that, that would require him to learn some command prompt and basic computing skills?
Every time and try and Google it, I get a bunch of crap suggestions and ads.
It’s great that you want to support your kid and hopefully get them away from the focus-destroying dopamine traps that are many „kid friendly“ apps. But please ask yourself what your kid likes first, not what you want them to be interested in. It’s perfectly fine to restrict tablet time and let him focus on what he likes, be it computer stuff or football or cycling or reading or painting or whatever. If he really interested in Linux and nor, xor etc that’s great, but don’t force it on him.
And that is coming from someone who bought and built his first own computer around that age and wrote his first few lines of very basic basic code not long after. Not because it was expected of me, but because I was interested and given the opportunity to follow those interests.
So, if that kid is interested in computers, Minecraft is a great game for kids. It encourages creativity, problem solving, perseverance and, maybe later, collaboration. It’s also possible to play together and scale their experience to their age: get started in creative or peaceful, then let them discover mobs and mods when they are a bit older, then let them play with friends.
If the kid likes building and Legos, you might want to look into Lego Boost and Spike, although they are rather expensive.
Oh, and paint. Kids love paint, be it MS paint, Paint.net or any other open source alternative. Show them that with a computer they can create, not just consume.
Shit, Minecraft is a great game for adults. I will follow up on some of these suggestions for sure.
Minecraft has a ton of potential. So many ways to develop creativity, problem solving, redstone, and using commands.
Then there’s modding. navigating the web to find safe ones, navigate the file explorer to put them in the right spot. Troubleshoot mods that don’t work together. (I remember having to manually change hundreds of Item IDs before they changed the system).
5 is probably too young to start with mods, but texture packs would probably go well, open up paint and start scribbling on blocks. Eventually give them paint.net (or anything more complex than Win Paint) and start messing with layers and saving things to the right file type.
Does the kindle fire let you do USB transfer for music and books? Transfer stuff manually. (Amazon taking the download feature away from the store, so books will need to be got elsewhere) I’m a big fan of Standardebooks.org, all free and public domain, not a lot of children’s books, but should be good by the time they’re 10. Although the LCD screen probably isn’t the best for reading, I’d get them an eink for reading time. Also easier to separate reading time from game time. Also if you can go to the public library for physical books. The simple responsibility of borrowing a books, taking care of it and having to return it on time is good. (I’m rambling off topic…)
Install a bunch of easy puzzle games. I’ve always like Flow, there’s also simple math ones, sudoku, jigsaws, word searches, find the object, there’s probably a hundred others.
The tablet is only as detrimental as you make it. Find games with an actual story that the kid has to read. 5 might be a bit young for RTS games, but those will definitely make him read and think. When they get stuck, show them how to find the guide online and read just enough while avoiding story spoilers.
Thanks for the reply. I got started with RTS pretty young. They just rereleased the Warcraft Battle Chest!
buy him an automation game like shapez. its style relates to children I think and it is easy enough for them to learn how to think methodically
Looks pretty sweet. Steam on sale 80%. Got full. Game and all DLC for $2.58. Thanks for the tip.
you are wildly overestimating what a 5 year old is capable of understanding. wait another 5 years and see if the kid is even interested at all. if so, get him a mid tier pc and call it a day.
You’re wildly under-estimating what a 5 year old is capable of, let alone a 10 year old.
Well, the amount of comments just going with the premise of a 5yo kid actually understanding logical operators or circuits is a little bit concerning, seeing as mine can barely do the car puzzles with the arrow commands, and they are 6.
Uh oh.
What kind of stuff are 5yo supposed to be learning? I just hope it’s not to the detriment of those things. Like how people who skip too many grades never get a chance to learn social skills because they’re too busy with more theoretical stuff.
Listen every kid is going to go at a different pace, and they’re going to follow their own interests. Right before covid lockdowns started, so he spent his formative years at home with Mom and Dad, who worked from home, and who are both highly educated with masters and doctorates, and you don’t get that kind of education without being able to teach. So he was around adult language constantly and had two parents that knew how to take complex subjects and boil it down to its most basic forms. Like one example of teaching him logical operators was with a little plug-in night light/ flashlight that he has in his room. He could figure out no problem what the circuit must include. A power source, a light sensor, and a three-way switch, and so he can understand that that light sensor was checking to see if there was light and if so it would stay off, else it would turn on. I did a big project over the summer with installing PVC piping into a raised garden beds and ended up with a ton of extra parts. Splitters and valves and what not. And with that I was able to teach him some of the more advanced operators, and, xor, and nor. Like We would plumb one pipe from the water source and then split it and then put a valve on each side and then connect them back so it had one outlet. And from that or with some other connectors you can teach basically all the operators and even binary. Plus we would read books with him every night, and still do, four or five books a night, and often we talk about the books to develop critical thinking. We also encouraged transcendental thought (tell your brain what to do, ask your brain what you should do), and abstract thought. There was one awesome book for abstract thought that I can’t remember the name of, but every page was like a picture of a tree but each leaf was a hand. And the text would say something like, “what if leaves were hands? Then the tree could climb you.” And for a while we would make up his own all the time. There’s also a series of books called like Astrophysics for Babies, Optical Physics for Babies, Relativity for Babies, so we would read those and combine them with little experiments we would do with my telescope or my big laser. Also spend a lot of time reading the dictionary and going through an encyclopedia, each written for kids, like “my first encyclopedia.” He’s been in Montessori school for a year now and has a wide range of interests; they teach meditation, yoga, karate, and all sorts of practical and life skills. Stuff I never even thought about at his age. It’s pretty cool. We know that every child will experience their own heartbreak and letdown, and will internalize things as trauma no matter what we do. I wish my brain was still soft and as hungry as a kid’s. They suck up whatever info you give them.
4-5 books a night?
Jesus
I mean good for you and them, but that is wild
Everyone’s different, though, as you said, so for sure work with what you have and try and be the best you can for them, so that they may be the best they can
I mean, short kids books. Dr. Suess and whatnot.
Just make sure he has a computer and he’ll learn
Perhaps a Raspberry Pi 500 (or the older Raspberry Pi 400), can do all the things an ordinary Raspberry Pi can, but comes as a complete device with built-in keyboard. Runs Linux and is rather easy to use.
I’ve recently introduced my 5 year old to Luanti (open source Minecraft clone). He loves it, sees me open terminals (Linux only house), use the in-game terminal which I’m teaching him to use, learns what keys are where etc. and personally I’m OK with that for now. Baby steps.
My own computer route was to play games initially (load “”) then move on to coding later. It is much easier to learn coding now than it was then but just moving him off the tablet will already be a huge win. If he shows an aptitude or interest in it, coderdojo or similar will be waiting.
Oh! If you do decide to do something similar, I hooked the laptop up to the TV with keyboard and mouse and it was a huge win both in fine motor control and fun!
Good luck!
Another vote for scratch. Most kids that age want quick results and not to spend ages debugging something. Funnily enough I’ve seen the same scratch interface used to program industrial robots.
How much time one on one are you committing to spend with the child? This will make the difference.
Alternatively, think about some sort of robotics kit. Doing stuff in software is great but if it changes something in the real world, even better. Have you thought about something arduino?
Just for balance though, make a raft, a treehouse, a tent, make a fire without matches. It’s all problem solving but I bet any kid will remember getting muddy more than writing a neat while loop.
Scratch is the standard response for this stuff.
I tried to get my kids interested in programming around that age. One of them showed an interest, but bounced off it. I think it’s primarily a domain problem: kids rarely want to compute. Some are interested in games, but the theory of how to create a fun game is pretty tough, so they get discouraged and lose interest.
The kid is five… don’t.
I feel surprisingly insecure in my own parenting style and capabilities, if it is normal for such a young kid to even think about some of that stuff. When I was 5yo, I was eating pebbles outside and climbing on trees thinking I’d surely get to clouds this way.
You thinking back to when you were 5 is similar to what I was thinking. I’m not sure if giving kids tech that early on is a good thing. That said I’m not a counselor and not a parent so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
My biggest question is can your child read and comprehend what they are reading? I would think it’d be rather difficult to have them learn anything about tech if they are missing that skill.
Beyond that, looking back on my childhood (I was around that age in the early 00’s) I wish that there was less tech in my life then and that I was bored more often. That said I totally understand why some parents give their kids tablets or YouTube to get a break, parenting from the outside looking in is hella stressful and exhausting.
Yeah, it’s a hard balance to find, trying to maintain your own mental wellbeing, career, social relations like friends and family, household, money with all that comes with it, and then also try and bring up a small human in as healthy and as encouraging an environment as possible.
Sometimes you just have too much going on, especially in today’s world, so I also do get the occasional breaks given by some screen time.
But it can also be productive, it doesn’t have to be mindless and meaningless content. But it’s sort of understandable to default to anything at all that can give them something to do for a moment, if you need to.
But I’m not much of a parent either, in the way that I don’t really know what I am doing. I can’t imagine most do either.
Well, if anyone is seeing this, I decided to buy a Pi 5 and a case and we’re going to get some Linux variant running, and I’ll set him up with some browsing capability and some kid friendly apps.
Ok, Ive just started doing this with my daughter. Im using windows because I know it.
Find a few of their “favorite” websites with games. Sesame Street, Paw patrol, whatever their poison. And put them in the hotlist.
“You want to play some games?”
Then they have to chose their profile, put in their “password” open the browser, and pick from their hotlist and work on basic mouse skills. Also get a TINY wireless mouse, it will make their life a lot easier.
My daughter and I also played through Grim Fandango, Curse of monkey island and just started on the Sam and Max games. All point and click puzzle games. Those are a bit hit and miss on the attention span but I read the walkthroughs before I suggest we play so I can guide the process along.
I like the idea of setting them up with his own profile so he has to log in and then Go through the steps of opening the browser and starting a game. Thanks for the reply…
maybe something like a Raspberry Pi and set him up with html? html and js is still a great way to learn, you get immediate feedback!
