CricketBeautiful
Forum God
I am a Zark.
0 fics uploaded
Registration Date: 04-04-2004
Posts: 1211
|
|
Be very, very careful about the "science kits for kids". Dad got a whole pile of them for Son, and at least half of them were total garbage.
The motor boat and door bell were horrid. The wire was too fine (broke), and the connections didn't work at all. Dad had to get his soldering iron. Now, how many households getting these kits have soldering irons, and how many kids / parents would go get it, as opposed to giving up in frustration? The "brain model" was flimsy and the plastic pieces warped enough that you couldn't quite put it together. The "lots of experiments in one" was one computer chip with six different ways to wire it. The "flying plane" had warped wings. The slots on the loom were so shallow the threads kept coming off.
Those all came from a major "educational" store.
We were able to rescue it, turning it into troubleshooting and fixing, but the goal was to learn how an electric motor worked, not how to troubleshoot something you've never seen working in the first place.
He's now building bookshelves with them, and dissecting (clean) diapers, and teaching them how to varnish, and showing them how to touch the Scottish thistle (which, if it were hard to grow, would be called a rose and highly valued, rather than a weed), and avoid poison ivy, and use triangles when building. (Son's tower in school was strongest and highest; he built a good base and used lots of triangles in the design.)
I remember a 75-in-one electronics kit. The resistors and capacitors and batteries and stuff were on a board, wired to springs. You shoved wires into the springs, to make the circuit. The manual had "connect terminal 35 to 28" instructions, as well as the real schematic. I cannibalized it for a Guide demonstration, and have regretted it ever since having kids.
It's one of my red buttons, giving kids stuff so they "enjoy science, do experiments" which are so badly designed and/or manufactured that the kid learns "Science is hard. I can't make it work. It's all a bunch of garbage."
__________________
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
- Viktor E. Frankl
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by CricketBeautiful on 26-10-2007 at 15:59.
|
|
23-10-2007 15:27
|
|
Transmute Jun
Queen of the Bird Missiles
I am a Swan.
40 fics uploaded
Registration Date: 04-04-2007
Posts: 20978
|
|
You know, funny thing is, I never wanted a handheld video game system. I see kids with them all the time. The Moms are out and their kids' faces are buried in the games and they won't talk to anyone... it's social removal. I certainly spend a lot of time in front of the computer, but when someone is next to me I talk to them. (Uh... except DH when he's interrupting my fic-writing,  )
BUT... long story short, I got a free Nintendo DS Lite. And we have two VERY long plane trips coming up (to Australia and back) of 17 hours + each, so I decided to cave and give it to her, along with a couple of games. Now if she gets one, DS will want a game too, so I am picking up a Leapster for him.
Oh, the shame! I'm doping my kids! But I think I'll just withhold new batteries from them until we're traveling again...
After all that's said and done though, the Nintendo is likely to be a Christmas present so she doesn't get bored with it before the trip. 
__________________
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Transmute Jun on 25-10-2007 at 12:42.
|
|
|
25-10-2007 12:41
|
|
|
|
|
Last Christmas she asked for a 'real' doll, but then she never played with it. I think she just figured out somewhere that she was SUPPOSED to have one... and once she did she didn't feel a need to play with it, KWIM?
