131–140 of 157 posts
We're also fiddling a bit with Google's App Inventor, which uses http://education.mit.edu/drupal/openblocks jut like Scratch.
Love him. Unconditionally. And make sure he always knows it. Everything else is just details. With this, things will inevitably fall nicely into place, no matter what tactics you take. Without it, he will be fucked up no matter what you do and will be coming to hacker news in 2028 posting, "Ask HN: I'm confused and depressed and don't know why."
I grew up confused and depressed, meanwhile, my parents did their best to show me every day they loved me and still do, but I feel entirely distant from them. I'm over 20 years old. GG logic, gg.
I would definitely teach 3yr & 1yr a lot of Mathematics & Finance. Flashcard and iPhone apps definitely helped. IT skills become more of a necessity once they hit school. I see Programming as a form of art, unless you are interested in it. It's not going to be of any interest to them, like it is to me.
Finance? I'm extremely skeptical, but my time on HN has taught me to be curious instead. Expand?
- like saving up for a rainy day.
- saving a small amount like $1 a day = $365 saved a year.
- how compound interests work.
Having started young, they will be money wise when they grow up and not having to work for every pay check.
You're already 15 months too late. If you haven't started on Baby Einstein, do it right now.
In addition, instead of teaching ABCs, teach him to sing Q..W..E..R..T..Y.. . Trust me, it'll make his life a whole lot easier.
You can also buy DVDs where kids sing their multiplication tables. Unfortunately, the ones I have come across is in Mandarin. But why not have him learn a second language at the same time?
If he doesn't have a sister, buy him dolls so that he can pull them apart to see how things work.
You might think I'm jesting, but I'm aware of parents who are doing some of these things.
I read through almost all the comments and no one mentioned spoken/written non-computer languages. I would say introduce him to at least one foreign language like spanish, french, german, portuguese, japanese, or chinese. I learned spanish as I learned english, by age 3 I was fluent in both. I had the advantage of having a spanish teacher for a mother, but it gave me the building blocks for understanding the rules an…
Of course he's still a bit young, but it helps to start as early as possible, especially with the string instruments.
Read to him when he is young, with him when older. It is the most stupidly effective academic intervention I'm aware of.
Read to him when he is young, with him when older. It is the most stupidly effective academic intervention I'm aware of. Actually evidence suggests that this is not true. Energy spent reading to kids helps a bit, but what makes a long-term difference is to be seen frequently reading for yourself. Otherwise you wind up in the trap that the kid learns that reading is for babies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This! My son has grown up in a house of readers and loves to read. He consistently tests above grade level, doesn't have his own computer (allowed to use my wife's occasionally) or TV (only one working TV in the house). Meanwhile, his friend down the street who is a year older and has his own laptop computer, TV, XBox, Nintendo DS, etc. spends his summers in remedial reading classes.
Growing up in a house of readers undoubtedly gave me a massive head start on all of my peers, but I also had my own laptop [1], TV, N64 (it was the 90's), and gameboy and did far above my grade level on reading tests. If you feel good about not letting your kid mess with that stuff, more power to you, but don't confuse correlation with causation. [1] Actually I had my first computer, running MS-DOS, well before I cou…
I would just forget about computers and programming completely and focus on the building blocks by a playful approach to solving day-to-day problems with logic and reasoning. Like how do we decide which things belong together? You can also play progressively more complicated iteration games like for-each-time-this-happens-let's-do-this-this-and-this! Or make complicated rube goldberg devices out of household objects…
Learning how to think is much more helpful than any programming language introduction. When you have learned to think and investigate stuff, then programming comes naturally. Richard Feynman's father spent a lot of time teaching his son how to think and what thinking is. That was more important to Feynman than any mathematical lessons his father could teach him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=695Flhmjmg4#t=2m56s Pare…