Our children and the internet

A favourite phrase in our house recently has been "Let's google it and find out". Our children have already realised that we don't always know the answers, but that the internet probably does! Like, why does this white glue dry clear? Or, what's the deadliest animal in the world? In fact, they asked me yesterday if there was anything that google didn't know! When I was 7 if my Mum and Dad didn't know the answer I'd have to go the library and look it up, or find someone who did know, by which time I'd probably lost interest in the subject anyway. But in this day and age of instant answers our kids can find out virtually anything, anywhere.

In a lot of ways, the use of ICT is a part of the school curriculum that we don't need to push them to improve. Most children love the chance to go on the computer, and for pre-school and nursery age children, there's loads of games to practice co-ordination and mouse skills. As they get older, there are games available on the internet linked to all the subjects they study in school, and other than directing them to suitable sites and then keeping an eye on them to make sure they're not going on sites we don't want them to, we can leave them to improve their computer skills, and practice their maths, or literacy, or geography, at the same time. A lot of schools have suggested websites for games that are linked into the work they do in school. And helping your child to write an email to Granny, or make and print out a birthday party invitation is fun and helps with their learning too.

As a parent of a 4 year old and a 7 year old I can already see the time on the horizon where they'll be wanting to use the computer for things that I don't necessarily approve of. There's nothing to stop a child from setting up a facebook account with a false date of birth. (At 13 they can, according to the rules of facebook set up an account anyway). And once that's done, they can share all their personal information and photographs with the whole world. Well, I say there's nothing to stop them, but there is - themselves. I'm not really looking forward to being a parent of teenagers, and only time will tell if I am successful in teaching them responsibility, honesty and safe behaviour as they grow up, but I'm sure going to try. I am realistic and know that I will not always be able to control what they do online, but I hope that I can teach them enough to do it safely. Because the day is going to come, and it might not be that far away, when they know more about computers and the internet than I do.

Having a Maths day.

I looked at the jumbled heap of toys, clothes, food and a large blue sleeping bag on the living room floor and realised that this activity had actually worked. My two children had understood the concept of a Venn diagram, and found objects that fitted into two hula hoops labelled "things that are blue" and "things we could take on holiday", with the space where the hula hoops intersected overflowing with the blue sleeping bag.  We were having a "Maths day". Is this a bit geeky, or is cool? I like to think it's the latter, but then I do love Maths. It was the first in a series of "challenges" that I set them, with little prizes as they completed each one - chocolate coins, sparkly pencils and stickers.

My four year old loved the idea of taking 5 big steps and 10 jumps then climbing up 12 steps to find the treasure, while the 7 year old found circles and cylinders in the kitchen. They both made me cuboids out of lego, after first sharing the pile of lego pieces equally between the three of them. (Yes, I know I've only got 2 children - we were playing with Flower, the 4 year old's imaginary friend that day).

Here's another idea - if you want 5 minutes peace (exactly 5 minutes that is), set a stopwatch for 5 minutes and sit your kids next to a window overlooking a road. Get them to fill in a tally chart that records the colours of the different cars that drive past. If they're up for it they can then make this into a bar chart. They might need your help for this bit, depending on their ages - this is why it's only 5 minutes of peace. Mine actually co-operated on this one, and worked together to spot and record the numbers of cars driving past. I have no idea how accurate their recording was, but did that really matter? Probably not.

You can adapt these to older kids too. Draw Venn diagrams on a piece of paper and write in the objects, or names, if hula hoops and toys are too babyish. Make it more difficult by adding another circle and labelling them with things that interest them: Names of x-factor, big brother and BGT contestants, or whatever they're into. They could do a survey among friends and family of favourite types of TV programmes, or music, or hair colour, or time spent on the internet every day! Then ask them to present the results in an appropriate type of chart. Play "I spy a shape" with more points for more unusual shapes. E.g. 1 point for a circle or square, 3 points for an oval, 5 points for a hexagon or pentagon.

I think Maths is fun and my kids love these kind of challenges. My only problem is the time it takes to tidy up after a Maths day - now where did they get that blue sleeping bag from?