Some pictures are worth 1000 words especially when you know the story behind them. Easter Saturday morning I got up about 7.30 and wandered through my silent house in search of my morning caffiene. I noticed as I went past that Jonathan was out of bed so expected to see lights and hear the television but no...
My quiet little mouse was exploiting the opportunity to play one of his games on my new laptop (more RAM better graphics faster processor than his hand me down desktop) He has actually sat up slightly for the photos compared to how he was when I walked in.
And what was he playing ... the second day of the school holidays and on my light speed machine? An old version of Reader Rabbit First Grade with a number of tasks related to classification, spelling, rhyming and maths. I actually sat down to watch him play for a while (once coffee was in hand of course) and discovered not for the first time that for him playing computer games is a lot like watching TV with a parent - the better for a shared conversation.

That relaxed time in the morning had several outcomes...

First later that day we had a bit of an ergonomics lesson at his desktop - making sure the seat was the right height in relation to the keyboard and that his feet had a footrest (the old bathroom turtle step is recycled)

Second I was inspired to think about what a game that reflected his own environment and culture would look like. New Zealand is a pretty small market but he was actaully struggling with the American word pronounciation at times in the spelling game (let alone learning American spelling :) ) and while sure there is some value in him being able to classify North American wildlife it would be nice if at seven he was thinking about New Zealand species.

And last but not least it was interesting that the game he chose to play was this one. He had a number of far more sophisticated games in the graphics and entertainment sense but this was the one he chose to spend his time with.