Keyed in on technology

Sydney's current fascination with all things Barbie has led to an interesting discovery, and a whole new world of games. Adept as she is with my iPhone, it's no surprise that she's comfortable with technology. But it was still fun to see how capable she was when she sat down in front of a computer.

It's interesting to watch and see how games become learning opportunities. Sydney is starting to learn letters in preschool. She's not particularly good at writing them (what four-year-old is?) but she's getting better at recognizing them - especially the letters in her name, which means she's able to type S-Y-D-N-E-Y.

Sure, there's a bit of hunting and pecking going on as she scans the keyboard for the right letter. She gets that from her dad. (I'm throwing that in to see if he really reads this.)

Last weekend, I started looking online for Christmas gift ideas and comparing prices. Mattel's website linked to Barbie.com, and there I found all sorts of online games and videos, all of which - of course - featured Barbie, her sisters (she now has two younger sisters besides just Skipper, I've learned) and other characters that all true Barbie lovers simply have to have.

Some of the games ask you to type in your first name so you can then be greeted by Barbie, "Hi Sydney..."

My preschool techno whiz struggled a bit at first on the games requiring her to use a mouse. Her hands are just too small. Again and again I tried to help position her fingers to click the correct button. Then I remembered Jeff purchased a mini-mouse long ago to go with the lap top. I dug it out, plugged it in and Sydney's been happily playing games ever since. Babysitting Chelsea (Barbie's youngest sister), choreographing a dance for Ballerina Barbie, and designing fairy princess Barbie dresses and accessories - Sydney's attempting to master them all. She even has AJ hooked on the Barbie career game. (Make the pizza just right and get five stars. AJ's competitive streak simply cannot accept that his pizza has earned a mere four stars.)

One of my clients sells specialty keyboards and mice designed for kids (color-coded keys for consonants, vowels, numbers, punctuation marks, etc.) I'd thought about getting one for AJ last year. Now that I have two kids interested, I'm thinking one of those sets just may have to join whatever Barbies I find - under the Christmas tree.