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Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

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Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#21

Post by throw_away1525 »

I can highly recommend Amazing Tales, it is a pen and paper RPG for kids her age. I play with my daughter and she LOVES it. You only need a couple of six sided dice, although you can optionally spice things up with 8, 10, and 12 sided die if you have them (or you can make it special and buy some from your local games shop).

It's basically collaborative storytelling, and the possibility of failing dice rolls makes it exciting (you always 'fail forward', failures never really hurt the player but just open up new opportunities). The book also has tons of tips that you would probably never think of on your own - for instance, don't let your child name their character after themselves. Having a separate name allows them to keep some emotional distance between themselves and their character, which makes scary situations less scary for them!

https://amazing-tales.net/introducing-amazing-tales/

The PDF is 6 bucks, I felt like I had gotten my moneys worth after our very first session.

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#22

Post by rebelshrug »

Snap Circuits are great: https://www.elenco.com/snapcircuits/

Also a big fan of Legos (and so are my kids).

Highlights magazine is great for that age and can fill up some time.

Step-by-step drawing books can also be fun, and can usually be found at libraries: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/reviews/drawing-book-for-k...

Can also take her stargazing and teach her about constellations. There are mobile apps to help you find them, but books and searching for them yourselves is also fun.

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#24

Post by open-source-ux »

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is excellent for kids (and adults). There are tutorials for any topic (https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en). A lot of people are not aware that the Raspberry Pi magazines (MagPi) and books are free as PDFs. Or you can purchase printed books or magazines.

- Magazines: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues

- Books: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/books

Micro:bit

The micro:bit is an even smaller pocket computer for kids. The BBC was a foundation partner, but now a Educational Foundation:

https://microbit.org/

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#25

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tobbe2064 wrote: post #9
mingusrude wrote: post #5

If you intend to play something with her, I can recommend the board game Carcassone. Even if it's not children's game, it's perfectly playable for a 7-year old with some adjustments to the scoring (skip field-scoring). No reading or calculation apart from simple addition is needed.

There is Carcassonne Junior https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41010/my-first-carcasson...

Relatedly, There's also Dragomino, a kid friendly version of Kingdomino.

There's also the "Princess Princess Ever After" edition of the classic card game "love letters". Minor rule changes, just a visual update mostly.

Neither are explicitly educational, but both are fun and have strategy.

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#27

Post by kubik369 »

spiffytech wrote: post #17

There's an old game from the 90s I loved : The Incredible Machine . It's all about devising elaborate Rube Goldberg machines to solve puzzles. The cat knocks a ball into the goldfish bowl, which tips over and fills a bucket that operates a pulley that flips a switch that opens a door. That kind of thing. I remember it being very freeform and exploratory, teaching cause and effect and physics and thinking through comp…

In a similar vain, there is also Crayon Physics [0]

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/26900/Crayon_Physics_Delu...

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#28

Post by rodrigodlu »

theshrike79 wrote: post #4

The Hello Ruby books are _amazing_. They won actual design awards: http://www.helloruby.com The girl in the books is just named Ruby, the books really don't have a connection to Ruby the Programming Language.

I can definitely relate to this. I bought this for my daughter 2 years ago, she was 5.

It's more a introduction to what can be seen in any kids related programming apps, like Scratch, and it's a paper book, so it's less abstract than a screen on her tablet.

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#29

Post by citeguised »

spiffytech wrote: post #17

There's an old game from the 90s I loved : The Incredible Machine . It's all about devising elaborate Rube Goldberg machines to solve puzzles. The cat knocks a ball into the goldfish bowl, which tips over and fills a bucket that operates a pulley that flips a switch that opens a door. That kind of thing. I remember it being very freeform and exploratory, teaching cause and effect and physics and thinking through comp…

Another very similar recent game for iPad is Petterssons Inventions [0]

0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/petterssons-erfindungen/id5246...

Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

#30

Post by idocoder »

I can recommend www.gocoderz.com

This is a web based educational program that teaches kids how to code robots and problem solve.

Some of the activities are real life scenarios - such as the Amazon cyber robotics challenge. In this activity kids code the Amazon robot in a simulated warehouse.

Enjoy!

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