Friday, March 1, 2013

More Educational Awesomeness

I don't often endorse products or services, but I can't say enough about the app called "4 pics, 1 word."  I started playing by myself because I love words and crosswords and all sorts of things like that.

Well, Squib saw it on the iPad and decided to take it on and it's developed into a family project. The results were, frankly, shocking! Once I worked with him and helped get his brain start to see the common thread in the four pictures shown...well, I have to say that he started to shock me. He was guessing words he'd never even spelled yet, so we got to practice some new words. We got to discuss multiple meanings of the same word. We got to agree and disagree and debate our points (this is actually important as well). We got to practice constructive ways to work out our frustrations.

In other words, it was ALL GOOD.

I was amazed, really, at what my seven-year-old learned to do in just one sitting. You could see his progress as we worked. It honestly shocked me. Of course, his malleable mind is probably more open to new ways of thinking than mine. He's very imaginative and artistic and can apply that to other subjects.

Altogether a wonderful app for family fun. Great learning device for children to start figuring out how to relate words and their uses. It presents itself as a game and they like the challenge. You will have to help out and maybe add some clues yourself on occasion, but, IMO, you should be sitting down with your kids and "playing" things like this with them anyway. Don't be afraid to tell them when you're stumped and think out loud so they know how you're going about finding solutions.

The greatest gift you can give your kiddos is to teach them how to think!
Scat

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