Now, if your preschooler is like mine, she probably knows her way around a computer. After all, my daughter has seen me type away at mine since she was born. Perhaps her first memories are of nursing on my lap as I type, who knows?
We limit screen time in our house, and that includes computer time. However, aside from learning the valuable skills of pointing and clicking, computer time can be educational. Here are some ways that you and your preschooler can explore the world of the internet.
We love Starfall. It has levels like the ABCs for the pre-reading set, followed by reading games for beginning and advanced readers. We’re still in the ABCs category. Each letter makes its sounds, there are pictures of things that begin with that letter, and at the end of each segment your preschooler can play a game that is connected to the letter. The games are very popular around here. The best thing? It’s free and online and doesn’t seem to crash my computer very often.
I’ve already written about animal webcams. Last year we were addicted to the eagle cams that watched the nests of eagles in various parks in our province. We’re also fond of the den cam, and there are African wildlife cams, aquarium cams, and just about any kind of online wildlife viewing that you can imagine. The downside is that these live streaming videos do take a fair bit of computer juice: my ancient computer keeps on freezing at the mere thought.
I also find that YouTube is a fabulous resource. Yes, it’s fun to dance around the room to songs from your youth that you never thought you would hear again. However, it’s also a great opportunity to look up videos of events that you would not be able to easily go out and see. Rockets taking off? Check. Your downtown core at rush hour? Check. My daughter was very excited about the idea of rush hour as a three-year-old. We checked the bridge cams and watched movies of rush hour instead of venturing out in it every day. More recently, we got a magazine that had pictures of armadillos in it, and we used YouTube to watch the watch armadillos curl up into a ball.
How do you and your preschooler use the computer?