pull down to refresh

Planning on giving my 6yo an old laptop to play with, he's gotten a hang of the mouse/touchpad/typing concept on my knee, but I'm looking for suggestions of apps/webapps I can load for him that are at least somewhat educational... gamified education would be ideal for holding his attention

It'll be a linux box but afaik a lot of steam stuff works on it? Web Apps are fine too that I can set up icons for

this territory is moderated

Minesweeper

reply

I didn’t discover how minesweeper worked until my 20s. It’s so much fun!

reply

I remember when I was very young, I would play by just guessing. I had no idea what the numbers meant. And I still enjoyed it.

reply

Be careful before setting an expectation of unlimited screen time. That can be something that's hard to reverse. Kids get addicted quick.

reply

Screen time is rationed heavily on their existing tablets and never 2 days in a row

Laptop is just be an either/or within that that introduces some utility

reply

Give him some of the original game boy games. Donkey kong, which is good for problem solving. Mario, which is good for puzzles. Tetris, which is good for thinking ahead. Many of those games were before their time. And when its time to stop, its easy to put away.

reply
20 sats \ 1 reply \ @n01 2 Dec 2024

It's easy to run these with an emulator also.

reply

Right. Now its pretty easy to get those games for free online.

reply
10 sats \ 1 reply \ @n01 2 Dec 2024

I love Nintendo games. Best for kids. Zelda games are great also.

reply

Zelda is very fun. There are so many ways to win in that game!

reply

certainly the linux universe has a section that is special for children and has a very complete educational platform, really that old laptop will be very useful for the cognitive development of your child, and hopefully other users can take advantage of the benefits of the educational universe of linux. good luck for this contribution.

reply

you can try DebianEdu

reply

I’m sure if you search Kahoot! or Quizlet for a while, you will find quizzes that are suitable for your son.

reply

Install Scratch for Linux

ScummVM for old school adventure games which are great for developing problem solving skills

reply

Minecraft 💯 Tinkercad Hour of code

reply

Some old school emulators and roms. Many gems of games

reply

I was about 7 when I started playing C&C games back in the day. I think they and any RTS (AoE 2 etc.) games are pretty educational.

reply

Uno!

reply

deleted by author