Will they ever get off the gamebox?

The most common fear in parents when dealing with autonomy of the video gaming.

We've all heard about de-schooling, whereby parents are encouraged to allow the child re-discover themselves. No schedule, no lessons, no expectations. Just pure freedom to let themselves go and re-discover thier own intrinsic motivation, without us diverting them off thier natural course.

Well, my story today is about me and my kid's journey of video gaming, so far.

Today, I had the opportunity to say, Yes, they do get off thier butt and ask to do something new. They can and is capable of wanting new things(and not necessary just new video games) and new experiences. They are capable of getting fed-up playing infront of the tv and yearn for a change of scenery.

Gecko Jnr shown me this. On and off in the past 2 years, he will have a glut of video gaming which will last anything between 3 weeks to 3, 4 months or even more.

But then, there will come a day that he's satiated and decided the video games is boring (HORROR!!! I never thought I will ever hear that word- video games, boring!!?? LOL!). This is the time, he'll ask for new experiences.

Last year, he asked for sailing classes and an electric drum. Unfortunately, he is under age, no sailing school will take him in, and as for the drum, we just didn't have the budget.

This year, he asked for fencing classes, which he will be starting this week, and an electric keyboard, which we can afford.

Yesterday, we spent hours infront of his pc, playing his old Tanko construction game, demolishing, building and moving all those diggers, cement tanks and platform trucks around his little Tanko city.

Now, if you make an effort to disregard everything, and just focus on your child even for just 1/2 an hour, you'll realised lessons can be derived from such simple, unscheduled and un-coordinated situation.

Yesterday, Jnr not only paid alot of careful attention planning his city (could be age-related), but he was also very interested in naming all his buildings, in very creative ways. He was doing what is known as "divergent spellings", as described here in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling#Divergent_spelling

There was Cipperz Fish Monger. I said to him "Chip-pers?" He said, "No mum, it's not spelt CH, it's spelt "Ci", so it's pronounced "Kippers". Good point LOL!

Then there was Padd Lokk, well, I'll let you figure it out what do this shop sells.

We also had the opportunity to discuss and understand the concept of singular and plural as in where the apostrohe stands, before or after the "s", means different quantity.

Then we went out for the afternoon, catching up with friends. We had a great time.

Came home after dinner, Jnr went straight back onto his pc. He started another game called Star Wars Pit Droid Puzzles. It is a game of planning and sorting, ensuring all the tiny multicoloured pit droids (they looked like colourful worker ants)
ends up in the right spot. Kinda like The Lemmings.

Jnr was soon busy clicking away, placing directional signs, syphoning the Pit droids to thier individual colour post, adding in self-spraying paint stations to change the colours of the Pit droids to match the station they are heading to. And so much more.

It was really interesting to observe how his brain works, planning, assessing and implementing his solutions, as his little fingers were tapping away on the keyboard and clicking away at the mouse.

His divergent spelling continues on thru this game. As he progress thru the night, he was saving and labelling his many creations with very creative names, and spellingz.

So, will they ever unstuck themselves from the gamebox?

My answer is, yes they will. If you just be patient, and still continue to offer an array of choices, like foods, drinks, parks, window shopping at the local toy shop or go check out some new games? For you'll never know when will be that day when your offer will seem much more enticing than that boring old game that they have been sitting in front of, for weeks.

A trip to the local pizza place to pick up a pizza for lunch (i know there is such thing as delivery service, but the objective here is to entice them to go stretch thier legs abit and take a break.) A short trip to the local shops to buy a loaf of bread, with a reward of a lolly or ice cream, for everyone needs little incentives to entice them to do something, sometimes.

I am convinced Jnr's interest in fencing classes is from him playing Pirates of the Carribean for weeks. Therefore I can't complain about video gaming for it has helped spawned many new interests, discussions and not forgetting the numerous opportunity and platforms to explain "lessons" to my kid.

Our free online learning resources...

If you're stuck for ideas as to what to do, here's a list of the websites, that we dip in and out, approved by Junior as in "it is exciting and fun enough", worthy enough of his attention.

Some of it is really for my reference.

Maths
-----

http://www.math.com/school/subject1/lessons/S1U1L2GL.html#

http://www.visualmathlearning.com/index.html

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/math.html#geometrygames

http://home-ed.info/Resources/maths_resources.html

Science
-------

http://www.sciencewithme.com/index.php

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/digger/index.shtml

French
------

http://french.about.com/od/kidsmusic/French_Music_for_Kids.htm


History
-------

http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/

History Timeline, mostly for grown-up reference.
http://www.historyexplorer.net/?World_History_Timeline


General topics
--------------
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/games/questionaut/


Yesteday, we did this -
http://www.kidsknowit.com/interactive-educational-movies/free-online-
movies.php?movie=Pirates

It is an animated story about history of pirates, and there's a questionair at the end of it.

And if you still have no clue where to start, and would prefer a curriculum guideline of some sort, here's a good link.

Curriculum with it's objective and purpose explained.

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes3/?view=get

Unschooling with computer games.

I've came to accept that Gecko Jnr with his ASD is just not capable to handle any sort of learning that's to do with writing and workbook. It's just too much stressful for him to concentrate on such boring and un-enticing 1D environment of a piece of flat paper with rigid printings all over it. He needs 3D images that can presents cause and effect results, and not forgetting all those lovely sound effects too!

Hence we're going full scale multimedia learning by installing the ClueFinder Adventures Yr 3, 4 and 5. Gecko Jnr is quite happy switching between these 3 grades, searching for something interesting to do. Sometimes he'll get hooked for an hour or so for it can be quite brain-intensive work all these mental maths, but yet there are times after all those searching, he walks away from it, accomplishing nothing. Sometimes he picks something that's just too difficult for him, and get frustrated and angry, working thru it. The graphics is not funny and entertaining enough to sustain son, but the mental challenges seems to be enticing enough for him to continue. We'll just have to wait and see if Gecko Jnr will stick with this program.

This is something we've just discovered. Just because Gecko Jnr is very much a computer games person, this doesn't mean he is interested in just about any type of computer games. After much buying and installing of pc games over the years, we've realised that son's actually drawn to and stayed with pc programs that have cute and funny characters, like Jumpstart Program. We've used this program before during pre-school age which worked brilliantly for Gecko Jnr.

Hence we've also installed the Jumpstart Math Advance for Grade 3, which he stayed on for 1 1/2 hours yesterday.

We're also checking out the Dorling Kingsley's History explorer CD, with it's timeline from 5 locations and era from Eygpt, Inca Empire, Imperial China, Medieval Europe, right trhu to the 1920s Age of Industrial. With lots of colourful graphics and effects and enough funny "graphic reactions " to keep Gecko Jnr going.

Anyhow, it just seems inevitable our collection of workboks is destined for ebay.

As always, I still love reading, and son still love being read to, so we're still working thru many interesting books before bedtime.

Topic we're covering - The Illiad, God of War(History); Pollinators/ Seed Carriers/ Tree's re-production system/ Sharks (Natural Science); ClueFinders Addition, Subtration and Multiplications (Maths).

Unschooling History

Hi Julie,

How's the eyes getting on? So what have you guys been up to?

I've got an interesting article here for you about homeschooling and socialising http://www.drlaurablog.com/category/home-schooling/

Well, i did my arts and painting session, but unfortunately as always, Gecko Jnr graciously declined to join me . Well, it shouldn't come as a surprise considering my son do not like the sensation of glue or anything sticky (other than playdough) on his fingers. What have you guys been up to? This is what we did, and hope it might be of interest to you. Gecko Jnr's into his latest PSP obsession with a game called 300, March to Glory. It's a story about one particular battle (don't remember the name) during the ancient history of the Persian Empire/ Greece, between King Leonidas and King Xerxes. And we've managed to Wikipedia it, had a good read and a really interesting discussion. I was struggling with all these Latin names, and surprisingly Greg corrected me on all of them, for he's learnt it all from playing the game on his PSP, LOL! Well, another example of learning without realising it LOL! Anyhow, we've managed to track Persia (now Iran) on the map.

Yesterday, feeling all fired-up, I went to the library to get more books and got the dvd for the movie 300. We watched the movie, learnt (absord more like it) fantastically alot in just 1 hour, about how people dressed and talk in the olden days, we noticed the different apperance and dressing between the Greeks, Persian and all the diffrent nations that came forth to war, under the one king from Eygpt. Very intersting for I managed recognised a few, all with thier distinct and unique talents, the Mongolians, the Indians with thier elephants, and many more warriors from the vast Byzantine empire. Got to know about the different type of battle tactics and weapons utilised in the olden days and believed it or not, mode of communications (from the used of messengers on horses to the sound of the horn to trigger off the next round of assault (arrows, lots of them) before the invention of tele-communications LOL! If one can overlook the violence and gory of the movie (it is a battle movie afterall), I think this is a fantastic movie to showcase the magnificence and richness and brilliance-ness of our past ancient history. In those days, it truly is about how much have you got to show for. And it shows why all those kings and ruler send thier vast armies to conquer other countries, to capture and owned the most precious commodity of all. Other than land, human power(armies, slaves, philosophers and citizens) must be one of the most valuable recources, for with more soldiers and warriors, one must be truly stronger and capable of expanding one's empire. How intersting it is compare to today's method of battle and monopoly.

Today, when we're talking about some conquerer, we're talking about someone's genius-ness in opening new market and cornering market shares, like Bill Gates and Richard Branson (yes, all these tycoons is nevertheless Kings of thier own right, isn't it?). It's still all about power and money, isn't it? Last week, I was feeling defeated and low, about to start considering sending Gecko Jnr to part-time schooling. But I think this is one of those few moments that makes me feel we are on the right track to educating Gecko Jnr.

During my foray in the library, I've even manage to find 3 different books, all with different "fun-based" methods on learning Maths. Plus I've managed to get a huge and thick encyclopedia, which I believe will be residing with us for a long while. I just need to remember to keep re-newing.

Well, so far for now.

Hugs and Best Wishes,
Mama Gecko

I'll say....not enough days away from those electronic pixels!!!

I have to admit that I do worry about Jnr straining his eyes, due to too long hours of staring at the computer screen. Which is why I do constantly seek out outdoor activities that he can do, for a bit of fresh air and exercise. And little things that we can do indoors too, which unfortunately is not many, as he is always not interested. So I have to say I am relieved to see him dragged out his box of 3D Star Wars puzzle in the shape of Dart Vader head, and started working on it. So far, we've managed to complete the 2nd stage this puzzle this evening. Over the weekend, Jnr and Papa Gecko's managed to put together a science kit that I've bought - an electric pulley, which was fantastic as that got Jnr playing with it for a few hours. Hurray!

In the last 3 weeks, we've gone swimming twice, and participated in den buidling in the heathland near us which was quite nice as that got us out in the nature for a good 4 hours. Jnr did his 2 session of skiing on consecutive Saturdays. Last week, we went for a movie called Flush Away and spend the whole of the next day in the city, window shopping. And this week, we went mushrooming with Professor Fungus at Alice Holt Park. It was a beautiful day with lots of sun and we ended up spending the whole day running and climbing around the park. And tomorrow, we're going for a Roald Dahl's play. So, we're only clocking an average of 2 "non electronic activity" day, within a very active electronic medium- filled week. This can be quite worrying, especially now that the cold weather is setting in. Mama Gecko's brain need to be ticking....busy thinking up some more activities to distract Jnr away from those very attractive and addictive pixels!