Friday, August 7, 2009

Kai & Elli's Brief Encounter with the WWW

Kai's intellect has always amazed me. From a very early age, I taught both he and Elli how to use the computer. Of course, at 2 and 3 there was very little for them to do except play on Elmo's World because they provide lapware. This is where the child can hit any key to perform an action. As they grew older between 3-4, I provided them with access to our home PC. I created windows profiles for each of them with their own logon and password. They learned early how to identify their names and how to identify their letters. I made their password the letter "a" so they could easily logon.

Once they were logged on, they would see their own desktop. Kai has a Transformers wallpaper while Ell has Minnie Mouse. I have provided each of them with shortcuts to internet sites that were age appropriate. I then associated each of the shortcuts with an icon. This helped them learn and remember the associated icon with the site they wanted to play on.

Before long, they were launching the sites and playing the games on Noggin, Nickelodian, Sesame Street and StarFall. They learned to Exit a window or application before they could properly say the word "exit". For the longest time they were "wexxing" their windows! I taught them the proper lingo, minimize, maximize, close, launch, etc. Kai always seemed to remember my mini lessons and Elli was never too interested.

They completed Kindergarten and are getting ready to enter first grade in a couple of weeks. Both of them can read the early readers and have learned their sounds and can write pretty well. I love to pick up their drawings and writings to see what they have tried to spell. It is so darn cute to see how hard they try to communicate in writing.

This summer they have spent a lot of time playing new computer games online, like ToonTown and Club Penguin. In the past few days they have made their way to YouTube and have enjoyed watching the "Charlie bit my finger" video. I wasn't too sure how they got there but figured it was a link from one of the kids sites to the Charlie video.

Yesterday after a brief moment away from my laptop, I noticed a Google search page was open with an odd entry. I knew right away Kai had been playing. I began to decipher what was in the search bar and as it became clear, I got the biggest laugh at his phonetics! It is very obvious what he was searching for... Sponge Bob Square Pants.

In speaking to him about this, he informed me that he uses the internet to get to clubpagwin (club penguin) and youtube. Google suggests the correct spelling when you spell it wrong. He sounds the words out the best he can and then enters them into google which happens to be our default home page.

I showed Pop-Pop my search page. He got a big laugh too and that's when he realized he had been finagled by two 6 year olds. Pop-Pop proceeded to inform me that he inadvertently helped the boogers get to YouTube! Kai had earlier approached him and said "Pop-Pop, how do you spell "you". Of course, Pop-Pop says y-o-u". A little while later, Kai returns and says "Pop-Pop, how do you spell the word "tube". Pop-Pop, not putting it together until now, says "t-u-b-e".

Soon after, I snuck up on Elli and found her on YouTube watching a romantic music video. I suprised her with "What are you doing!!?" She jumped and "wexed" all of her windows. Wow! how did she know what she was doing was wrong or that I would not approve? And, how did her reflexes work so fast as to "wexIT" so quickly?!

She replied with a quick, "nothing". I said, "young lady, you were watching a video, what did you see?" She said very quickly and with a tearful, nervous voice, "I don't know. I saw nothing. I don't know what I saw, Mommy, what did I see?" In a firm voice, I replied "Elli, we are not playing around, this is serious and I need to know what you were looking at and why you closed everything so quickly." Elli proceeded to inform me that she no longer wanted to play on the computer and that she wanted to go watch TV. I repeated myself. This time she buried her face in my stomach and said with a muffled voice "I saw a boy and a girl laying down kissing."

With the straightest face and firmest voice possible I told her it was inappropriate to be watching YouTube vidoes and that she should go find something else to do. She ran away quickly! I sat down at that very moment and locked down the internet. I should have done this a long time ago. Who knew these kids would be so sharp!

I must say, they are very disappointed that they cannot get to Google. Instead they can get to kids.yahoo.com search page which does not do quite the job with helping them spell or assuming the site you want. However, kids.yahoo.com will only direct them to kid sites and they can only reach sites that have a family rating unless I put in my password to unrestrict the site. In this case, they have to come get me to approve it.

1 comment:

  1. This is so funny. I like Kai's spelling of Sponge Bob. I really like how they tricked your Dad into spelling You Tube for them. LOL!

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