It’s the last week of school!!! We’ve been making plans all season to make it an enjoyable and fun summer, but we’re also plotting ways to reduce that summer slide. So here’s a collection of books, apps, and activities to keep kiddos (ages 3-10) sharp for the next school year.
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“Learning about yourself and what you’re drawn to is one of the cool things about growing up.” – Rachel Childers, musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
To piggyback off our last post, we’re sharing the low-tech devices your kids can use to find their musical tastes.
The Old
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with going old school. If you still have these lying around, introduce your kid to the classics and low-tech tech.
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When Patti and I were brainstorming our holiday gift guides, we realized how different our own kids have it. Some of the things we loved growing up are literally analog. We’re talking physical media: cassettes and CDs, VHS and DVDs, gaming consoles with zero connectivity. Who even owns a CD player anymore?
Tech has allowed us to reduce our carbon footprint by eliminating physical items in lieu of streaming and downloading entertainment onto one device; but that leaves a big gap when kids aren’t supposed to have their own smart devices until 8th grade.
A Matter of Personal Taste
For me, I’ve become the gatekeeper to my kids’ entertainment. I control what they listen to, play, and watch. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to the metaverse, I’ve started to feel like it might limit their ability to explore in a pop cultural sense.
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This past fall, our family went on a cruise to the Western Caribbean. Its kid camp offered a variety of kid activities, including game time in the boat’s computer lab. My son learned how to play Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite with the other kids on the boat. He loved playing, and I loved that everything was on a closed server. There was an additional in-person moderator to keep the kids in check and I was relieved that he was playing with peers he could actually see and interact with.
Now that we’re back, he wants to keep playing these awesome games but it’s different. Without the security the boat provided, he’s exposed the entire online world.
Once upon a time, the playground was THE place for kids to meet up, hang out, and blow off that excess energy. Now, it’s the metaverse. If you’re not tech or digitally-savvy like me, the online universe is like the wild west; and now my soon-to-be 8-year-old wants to be part of it. What is a parent to do? But first, what the heck is the metaverse (in a non-Zuckerberg sense)?
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The new wave of kids born between 2010-2024 is known as Generation Alpha, slated to be the largest, most diverse, and digitally connected generation to date. While the tail end of this generations’ kids are just being born, their reputation precedes them. Remember last year when people were taking to social media about how “rude and disrespectful” this new generation is in Sephora, blaming their millennial parents for their behavior?
But HOLD ON, is Gen Alpha really as bad as they seem or have we become the “Sorry, Boomers” we made fun of in our youth? And is it the parenting or the societal norms that define a generation?
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Child(ish) Advice 