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Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
51–60 of 102 posts
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP didn't necessarily specify digital games. There are physical creative/STEM games that they can buy online from a link.
That's unleash a discussion on whether electrical engineering toys (usually they are like Arduino but more childish) fits to a girl or girls are better to be kind of social-oriented persons. Personally my take is that it is perfectly OK to learn electronics for 7 y.o. girl but no game can unleash child's interest in any topic. Science spreading must be similar to religion spreading. There are neither Christian/Muslim…
> That's unleash a discussion on whether electrical engineering toys fits to a girl
I think the jury is back on that one and has been for some time. I can't even imagine what might be wrong with teaching a girl electronics. How do you feel about teaching them reading and math?
> Science spreading must be similar to religion spreading
Where does this mandate come from? People believing in what is verifiable mandates also teaching them lies as well? For every fact you learn, you should learn an unverifiable myth as well?
> There are neither Christian/Muslim/whatever games nor books
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_video_games https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/211920/bible-themed-board... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Children's-Christian-Boo... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Christian-Self-Help/zgbs...
A quick google search shows that this assertion is wrong.
> but new believers are keep appearing.
Sure, in baby bassinets. More people are leaving religion than convert to it
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/chapter-2-re...
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#53There'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…
The Incredible Machine was amazing, as was the spiritual sequel "The Incredible Toon Machine"
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#54Not really a book for kids but there is a book called "Drawing on the right side of the Brain" by Penny Edwards. It teaches life drawing and has a series of exercises that help the reader to draw what they actually see.
I think Betty got autocorrected to Penny!
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#55Minecraft. My kids, a bit younger than 7, are ridiculously creative with it. They’re always making redstone music machines and piston machines. The best thing about Minecraft is that it naturally scales to their skill. They began just learning the controls and exploring. Then made simple houses. Etc… The older one is so hooked he builds his own mechanical pressure plates and pistons with Lego.
Do try to use Java Minecraft if you can, because modded technical Minecraft will last forever. Once you’ve “beat” the base game move on to things like GregTech and it’ll never end.
I don't Minecraft but I do have kids. Can you unpack some of those terms?
What is Java Minecraft vs "regular" Minecraft? What is "modded technical Minecraft"?
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#56Something I liked to do around that age was make "newspapers" for my parents - no need to buy or download anything (except paper and staples, I guess). Fold some paper in half a couple times, cut it, staple it together, until you have a booklet that's vaguely small-newspaper-shaped. Give it to her and let her imagination run wild writing whatever she feels like, reporting on recent activities at school, at home, could be the events of books she just read, whatever she knows about in your local community or even the country/world. If she wants to, let her do some research on the internet too, although that's not something I ever did (I don't think we had the internet yet even?). It's a creative writing project, a design project, potentially a research/analytical project. My own "newspapers" were always titled "Today's News" and while I always did them purely for fun, looking back I think they gave me a basic sense of graphic design/layout, helped my handwriting, improved creativity, were an early idea of how to design headlines/titles of articles that are clear to the reader, and other basic writing skills.
Obvious points based on my experience when I made these:
- This is for fun, don't like, grade her on it or anything
- Whatever she learns from it will be very tangential to the fun, but she probably will learn things from it
- If she wants to write made-up stories about imaginary friends and such, that's fine, it's a kind of make-believe play. I did that sort of thing too, it didn't mean I didn't know fact from fiction in the actual newspaper
- You absolutely must read every single edition. Multiple times.
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#57There'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…
Sounds awesome! Reminds me of Gizmos and Gadgets [1]. My kid is also 7, and part of me just wants to push all my fav 90s games like the aughts never existed.
[1] https://www.myabandonware.com/game/super-solvers-gizmos-gadg...
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#58So much of this depends on your kid. What worked for us (8 year old boy) has been Lego, Turing Tumble, Gravitrax, Lego and Lego. RE what's age-appropriate, Turing Tumble he got when he was 6, and it worked fine for him. Legos have been a thing since he was a toddler. Minecraft is also something that our son enjoys, and I don't feel too terrible about him playing online w/ friends, as it is pretty creative, but I do w…
You might also like to consider Lego?
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do try to use Java Minecraft if you can, because modded technical Minecraft will last forever. Once you’ve “beat” the base game move on to things like GregTech and it’ll never end.
I don't Minecraft but I do have kids. Can you unpack some of those terms? What is Java Minecraft vs "regular" Minecraft? What is "modded technical Minecraft"?
There are two versions of Minecraft. Java version is the original Minecraft, but Microsoft rewrote it and called it "Bedrock" for Xbox; this version is ported to a number of platforms including the PC. It supports "data packs" which can change the game but not as extensively as "mods" for Java Minecraft.
"Technical Minecraft" involves building various machines in Minecraft; either in vanilla (unmodded) using red stone, water, and other properties of the game itself to do things - some are quite complex, but they can include things like intelligent mine cart routing, strip mining, and resource sorting.
"Technical modded Minecraft" involves one or more of the "tech mods" which MASSIVELY increase the complexity; one of the most famous is GregTech, which adds machines and electricity to power them.
Arguably the most complicated tech modpack is Gregtech: New Horizons which has you start out digging dirt with a stick and ends up with you on various planets searching for materials. It approaches and scratches the same itch as Factorio or modded Factorio (and arguably is somewhat like Satisfactory). End-game often involves optimizing the setup to reduce load on the host computer itself.
There are also modpacks with similar depth focused on magic; but the two become mixed.
Re: Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)
#60Science Comics is a really well done series of comics explaining various topics. Highly recommend especially if there’s a topic your child is really into already.