Thank you - I am going to buy a cheap laptop (maybe two to stop fighting) for each child.
Question: What should go on there? Or should I go for the iPad and push the "educational" games
Question: What should go on there? Or should I go for the iPad and push the "educational" games
Interesting side effect: He now thinks all smooth surfaces are interactive. We were on the train recently and he was swiping the window in order to close the train doors. Blew my mind at the time.
(Actually they both used to, now they grab the remote. Ollie can work it fine now.)
I was impressed.
Moral of the story: A halfway decent interactive interface can work wonders for a kid's ability to unleash his mind.
I'm hoping for a relatively cheap mini-iPad to come out this autumn and I'll get one for each of my two girls, aged 7 and 8. That, or get their rich uncle and grandparents to sort them out. Then I can get my iPad back out of their little fingers. It'll be just me and the wife fighting over it, though actually there are quite a few puzzle games we play together.
I think an iPad is better than a cheap laptop because kids like to touch things and the direct interaction is amazing. Some of the books I read as a child like "The Monster at the End of This Book" are amazing interactive on the iPad.
An ipad may be easier for a child to get started with as everything is just there on the screen.