games and devices for small children

[Christopher Hobbs]

How about some more spam from me for the evening?

I've noticed my son (1 year old) climbing up and trying to touch
things on our TV anytime it's on (regardless of media). I'm starting
to wonder if he's ready for some simple games or maybe to interact
with a touch device. We've got an xbox and a couple of android
phones, but I don't know that he's ready for the kinect and I
certainly don't want him gumming on my phone.

Anyone have recommendations for cheap-ish tablets (maybe android
powered) or simple (kinect?) console games that toddlers could play?
Anything for 2-4 year olds would be fine as well, he'll get there soon
enough.

[Michael Sims]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 18:28, Christopher Hobbs <ch...@altbit.org> wrote:
> with a touch device.  We've got an xbox and a couple of android
> phones, but I don't know that he's ready for the kinect and I
> certainly don't want him gumming on my phone.
>
> Anyone have recommendations for cheap-ish tablets (maybe android
> powered) or simple (kinect?) console games that toddlers could play?
> Anything for 2-4 year olds would be fine as well, he'll get there soon
> enough.

There a bunch of android apps that are appropriate. Some of them lock
down the phone, some of them do some funky stuff like make noise every
time the phone is touched and draw on the screen, etc.

One thing I'd warn you about is CORDS. Little kids like to suck on
cords, and though they seem to be safe enough not to electrocute
anyone, they can be destroyed. Once saliva gets into a USB or similar
cable jack, it's done for, it'll never work again. So unless you own
stock in Cables 'R Us, keep the kid away from your cords...

--
Michael Sims

[Justin]

It's not cheap, but our daughter (21 months) has been using and loving the iPad for awhile now.  The iPad has been amazingly durable.  We slapped a rubber skin[1] on it and it endures drops to the ground, her walking on the screen and other actions I'd never dream of doing to a $500 device.  The awesome thing is how intuitive the UI is that she's been able to figure out how to unlock the screen (no passcode though), browse through the apps to find what she wants, navigate apps, hit the home button when she wants to change apps, etc.  The knowledge translates over to my iPhone when she gets a hold of it and she somehow manages to find all the games that have auto-magically synced to my phone too.  The nice part about the iPad vs. Android is the number of games and interactive books available.  We started with some animal sound/picture type apps, then progressed to flashcard type apps and interactive books.  It's still an electronic device so we try to limit the time she has on it. 

Hope that helps!

Justin

[1]

[Niels Olson]

How much screen time is she getting? What is her reaction if you take the ipad away after a 2 minute warning? Would be interesting to follow up in a few years.

Sent from my iPhone

[Justin Chen]

She only plays with it every few days now and it's usually for about 15 min before she gets distracted with something else.  Taking it away isn't too bad if we just move onto another activity like playing with legos.  It does come in handy when we're out and need an emergency distraction.  We don't allow any videos or video-like apps, only interactive stuff. 

Justin Chen
http://about.me/justinchen 

[Naveen Michaud-Agrawal]

It's amazing how zombie-like kids become in front of any video content. Our 18 month-old plays with our ipad (her favorite activity is to play Elmo songs in iTunes), but once we made the mistake of letting her watch some kids songs on Youtube. She pretty much because unresponsive and would throw a fit when we tried to take the ipad away. Luckily she hasn't figured out how to get to Youtube by herself.

--
-----------------------------------
Naveen Michaud-Agrawal

[Matt Murphy]

Naveen, that reminds me of myself.  

I bought our 15 month old an iPod touch b/c she loves to play with my iPhone.  I even installed the same talking hippo app that she likes to play with.  However she has very little interest in her device and still takes every opportunity to play with my phone.  

[Sam Livingston-Gray]

Funny, my daughter (now 3) was really into OK Go videos for a while
("the messy one", "the doggie one", and "the band one" were her
favorites). She hasn't asked for them for a few months, though.
She'll sometimes ask us for "[Curious] George on your iPhone", but not
terribly often.

It's still a rare enough, and a short-duration enough, thing that
we're hopeful she won't get the bug too bad later. (=

-Sam

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Naveen Michaud-Agrawal
<naveen.mic...@gmail.com> wrote: