But I was a bit disappointed to find out the guitar controller little more than a glorified toy. A very fun toy, mind you — remember those little plastic guitars where you turn a crank and out pops Mary Had a Little Lamb? It’s more FUN that that. And I’d imagine the same for RockBand. Wii Music also looks fun but it doesn’t even have instruments. But why not go the extra mile and make a controller that works like a real guitar, with buttons that match the chord positions, so people could really learn to play? And while you’re at it, why not make a Piano Hero with a keyboard controller that teaches how to play piano for real? How hard would it be, and why hasn’t anyone done that?

I’ve wondered for years, just not intensely enough to google it I guess, because this morning, I found out someone has.

Here’s a video game that helps people learn to play the piano for real. And they’re coming out with a Guitar Wizard soon, too. Apparently I need to become more hip to the educational toy scene than I am to video games.

Do any of you out there own Piano Wizard? If so what do you think of it? I’m going to learn more about both items and update this page when I have more info.

And oh, what a difference that system has made. My kids have always been smarties, but once Ethan started kindergarten he got a bit burned out on… well, everything. Whether its was boredom or the frustration of trying to fit the mold he’d been pushed into, he’d definitely lost his spark. Maybe a little background would help? Bear with my rant, or skip to the part on Ubuntu.

My kid’s teacher was taught, like most early childhood ed majors, to grossly underestimate smart kids. I left our first meeting being told that experts agree kids his age simply can’t read and quantify like an older child, even if he appeared to be doing so — he was simply adapting to a pushy parent. I’m not. I just let him be and he does his own thing. If she could have done that too, the year would have worked out better, but it bothered her that he didn’t fit her lesson plans, and she had her ways of letting us both know it. So started a bit of a bad year for my kid and me.

Once his teacher asked the class to draw pictures to represent 5, so they could begin to associate the number symbols with actual quantities. Ethan drew a big 5 and called it good. His teacher came by and said, “No, I don’t want you to just write a 5. I need you to make something that means 5.” Not a problem. Three strokes later and his picture did indeed mean five. It now said “10-5″ — so much for kids not quantifying!

On another occasion, I’d asked his teacher for a level up on the books he was bringing home. He was able to read somewhere on a 2nd grade level before he started school, so the beginning phonics books were a major turn off. His teacher, though, was certain that he wasn’t really ‘reading’ and comprehending, and that if he was bored with the books, he should be writing a sentence about every book rather than trying to move up a level — an assignment Ethan truly despised.

I was sorry to burst his bubble one afternoon as he came skipping out with a new book called “School” that didn’t have any words at all. “And with no words, I don’t need to write a sentence, right?” Wrong. He was not happy in the least. I told him to jut try to think of something to write so he could just get it over with as soon as we got home. He stared out the window as though he’d not heard me at all. And then, just as we were leaving the parking lot, I heard him mutter, “I hate school.” Now how is the mother of a kindergarten supposed to respond to such a statement? I asked a question. “Why do you say that?” Without breaking his stare out the window, he grumbled, “Because it’s a sentence.”

This child who’d previously been simply thrilled to start school, had done a 180. I talked to his teacher; she said she didn’t see anything wrong, and besides, she had enough work to do with the kids who were struggling. I talked to the principal – hoping maybe she’d offer to let him attend later-grade academics in the afternoon. She made some suggestions to the teacher, who enriched the lessons a bit and moved a bully off his table, and I backed off and started registering for charter schools. Ethan, meanwhile, became less and less enchanted with learning.

Until we got this laptop.

It’s small, it’s light. And its cheap. Ubuntu, if you haven’t heard, is a slick little version of Linux that installs fast, runs well, is easy to use, and doesn’t cost a dime. Plus you’ve got open source alternatives for most software you’d need on a windows or mac anyway. You can find out a bit more about ubuntu on Zareason’s video page. And you don’t even need a new computer. I plan on formatting my desktop for this. Let me know if you’d like the install CD and I’ll happily — and legally — make you a copy.

I’d originally bargained with Zareason for a desktop, and when they offered a laptop, I was going to use the smaller lighter one to make getting around town a bit easier while working. But the kids fell in love. It started with the open source version of Othello, and Ethan’s finding that it was actually pretty hard to beat. Then he found the other games. Then he found how to make new documents and started writing little documents, like, “Ethans Favorite Foods” and “The cost of a Wii” which he plans on turning into a webpage . He found the Ubuntu version of ‘calc’ to be terribly exciting — Friday he figured out that 11,111 multiplied by itself equals 123,454,321 — “It’s a Palindrome!” We found an online kids dictionary that will let you search phonetically, and an online typing tutor. When Ethan called me in last night to show how he’d “Kicked Can” on Othello, I knew I had my son back.

kicking can on lagno

And if Ethan’s not using the laptop, my sweet little Mary is. They’re both loving learning again, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

What a coincidence that I met first met Cathy, one of the founders of Zareason, when we were working together on a learning-portal project for the One Hundred Dollar Laptop Project “OLPC” (One Laptop per Child). At the time, I thought it was a great idea, but I can’t say I was truly converted to the idea till now. And while I’m not up anymore on how the OLPC project is going, I do know Asus will sell a sweet little system this fall that runs roughly $200 which I think Zareason will be distributing if all goes well. Cheaper than a gaming console — and oh what fun.

Supplies for a Math Box ‘O Fun
- A box — I used one from a soundcard
- Foam craft sheets (I bought a pack of 48 and I have more than half left over)
- Permanent Markers
- Scissors
- A ruler for measuring and drawing grids
- Empty plastic Easter eggs (for a favorite game the kids made up)
- Cheerios, Fruit Loops, M&Ms, or any other small countable object that’s age appropriate for your kid.
- IF your kids are past the mouth-exploration stage and are somewhat patient, perler beads (the plastic ones you put on a peg board and fuse with an iron) make a great learning tool.
- Baggies (again if they’re age appropriate) or small containers to hold the games
- I’ve also bought math flash cards as the kids get a kick out of these. They get lost / ruined fast though
- Giant Dice (You can make your own with paper polyhedra here)

I had the kids help me make these games whenever I could, and took several days in between each game with several short implementations before ‘letting them’ help me come up with the next activity. They really got excited about it that way.

- Talk about more, less, and equal-to. Put down a few piles of something small and good to eat. Crackers, skittles, halved organic grapes if it suits you. Which pile does the kid want and why? Which has more, which has less? Can they make the groups equal? At first let them ‘just do it’ then ask them how they knew…. My kids’ favorite response, “Cause I took away your money!” made little sense to me, but they got big laughs out of it. They couldn’t really say why what they did made the piles equal, but they thought about it anyway and eventually with a little nudge were able to explain it.

- Cut up a few of the foam sheets to use as ‘cards’ — I wrote numerals on some, operators on others, and evaluators on others still. Keep them in one container and use them with whatever game they happen to be playing. In the more or less game, you can help them count the items in each group and assign a number to them. If you want to, you can even say, “Ah, well if you have five skittles and I have seven, let’s take away one of mine (put down 7-1) and give it to you (5+1) .. now we both have six! (=6)” If they don’t get it yet that’s okay. They’ll still get a kick out of the game and will pick up that idea sooner than you think.

Number cards made of foam so they don

- A whole foam sheet with a grid drawn on it serves well to list the numbers 1-100. They start to notice how the numbers line up, and it makes a great tool for counting items. You can make one of these grids for each of you if you’d like for your more or less game.

- Sequences: Mary loved discovering that 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 1+3=4, etc. As you can see here, I also let her be extremely creative in her dress and hair styles.

An eclectically dressed four-year-old playing with addition cards and m&ms -- not sure how my camera was so whacked out on this one

- Eventually help them discover that they can group the objects into 10s for easier counting. Once I felt like they had that idea down, I sat down with them and used another whole sheet of foam labeled it with columns for ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands. We only used the ones and tens for the most part but it helped get the idea down.

- We also made toys out of perler beads by fusing them into sticks of tens, squares of hundreds, and then taking ten hundreds to show a cube of a thousand. The kids had a blast making these into patterns for each 100 set too.

perler bead blocks

- Yet another whole foam sheet with a grid makes a nice learning tool for times tables. Put six objects across for example, and three down, and let them discover how the numbers magically add up to 18 (which happens to be the very number they put the last item on! – trust me they’ll find this amazing!)

- Estimating: My kids LOVE guessing games. One game Mary made up involved putting a few of the counting objects in an empty plastic Easter egg and having me or Ethan guess how many objects were inside it by shaking it, etc. Whoever got closest, won the loot. Or for guessing right on, she’d put out three numbers (using the aforementioned cards) and we’d have to guess which number was correct.

- Another fun guessing game: Have them pick numbers and roll dice to see whose number comes up. So they grew up in Vegas, what can I say.

- Dividing: Give them a group of items (number it with the cards) and a group of people (or stuffed animals) to share them between. Let them figure out how to divide the items up fairly.

- Cookie fractions: Trace circles on your tan foam sheets and make them look like cookies. You can half some of these (write 1/2 and .5 and 1 divided by 2 on the backs). Cut others into thirds, fourths, fifths (make a Y shape and then divide the two larger sides into two to get pretty close fifths), etc. Play game about dividing them up fairly.

- The Dollar Challenge: Visit a penny candy store (or a vendor of penny novelties if you don’t want to rot their teeth – but I’m a bad mom that way) and let them spend up to one dollar. If they go under, their loss. They can’t go over because they won’t have enough to pay for it. (I give them the six cents extra for taxes since I’m not expecting them to calculate that just yet)

Anyway, the point of all these is to keep it fun and let them be CREATIVE. It’s a bit like investigations math, but with a little one-on-one encouragement and gentle direction. And they eat it up.

Also be sure to check out the National Library of
Virtual Math Manipulatives and Cyber Chase Online for some super games they can play on their own.

• Before you ever start trying to teach your child to read, read to them out loud a lot, whether it’s children’s books or whatever book you happen to be reading. Just like you’d talk to your child before trying to teach them how to talk.
• Just as you enunciate clearly and loudly to teach your child a new word, words they read should be clearly written with BIG letters and should also be spoken clearly.
• Start with words that will be relevant to your child (Momma, Daddy, other family names, animals, body parts, etc), reviewing old words and learning a few new words each day.
• Don’t start with overly complicated words, but you don’t necessarily have to avoid complicated words for a long time either.
• Make a BIG DEAL about their accomplishments
• ‘Games’ are great as long as the child enjoys them, but don’t bore them with ‘tests’ or by trying to show them off to friends. Keep it fun for them. In fact, try to stop playing the game BEFORE they’re ready to quit, and they’ll look forward to playing again.
• Don’t ‘dumb-down’ words for your child, but don’t be so critical of mistakes that the experience is unpleasant for them. For example, you wouldn’t teach your baby to say ‘wah-wah’ instead of water, nor would you yell at them for saying ‘wah-wah.’ Just point them in the right direction, gently.
• Your child does not have to have the alphabet ‘down’ before starting reading, any more than you’d expect them to be able to recite it before their first word.

For more information, I _highly_ recommend reading How To Teach Your Baby To Read (The Gentle Revolution)
by Glenn Doman and The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. My parents used this method 30 years ago. It was effective then and still is effective today
Read more about the Gentle Revolution here.

Another AWESOME resource is starfall.com. My kids absolutely adore that website, and they’re now both super computer savvy to boot.

If you’re LDS, you know that reading the Book of Mormon daily brings huge blessings to you and your family, but did you know your children can be blessed intellectually as well? Buy a large-print book from the distribution center (hard covers hold up much better) and simply have your child sit in your lap and point with them to each word as you read it. I don’t force my kids (4 and 3) to read with me the entire time or even sit still the entire time. I read with a normal speed and inflection and stop to answer whatever questions they have. I’ve found as long as the experience is pleasant for them, they want to do it often.

Once they’re interested in reading a few words, such as “And it came to pass”, you might start teaching them a the most common words. Here are some Book of Mormon reading cards with the 160 most frequently used words (each of them being used well over 150 times and some of them thousands of times). Just print these pages on card stock, cut the stack down the center, then cut each stack into 2.2″ tall strips. Have fun!

Oh and I almost forgot. My sister-in-law MaryBeth dutifully pointed out how instrumental the Game Cube has been in our childrens’ early reading adventures. Aren would get frustrated waiting for someone to come tell him what the screens said, so when they did come and tell him, he’d pay close attention, and often make them repeat it once more. He is an awesome reader now. Ethan’s been less motivated that way lately. He’s like his dad & just skips all the dialogue to get on with the game. Sometimes I make his game play contingent on stopping to read the screens, but then we’re faced with a negative incentive (read it or I take the game away) which is unfortunately less effective. But as for the short screens you can’t really skip past, even Mary (who plays less) at age 2 could tell you what each one said, even when written on plain paper. Hooray for Nintendo!