Picking Food Up Off The Floor

On-line Learning

The computer has been an invaluable tool for us of late. It’s amazing to think about the electronic culture our boys are growing up in, when I never used a computer until I went to university. We’ve been using the computer mostly for two things (in addition to playing music and watching videos). The first is to look up musical instruments and listen to their sounds, and watch animals via live or recorded feeds from National Geographic. And more recently we’ve been doing iChat with the grandparents and aunts and uncles. Using my new MAC with the built in camera makes it so much easier!

When the boys started being able to point out the sounds of instruments in music I thought they might want to see what the instruments looked like and what they sounded like. So off we went to Google images to find trumpets, drums, clarinets, flutes, oboes and violins. Then I found a few sites that also gave sounds for the instruments (although most were midi so they weren’t great), but I also found lots of ideas for specific pieces of music that highlight specific instruments that we could download and they could listen to. So from time to time when they’re listening to music the boys will ask to look at instruments on the computer.

About two weeks ago we started watching feeds from National Geographic from a watering hole in Botswana, Africa. There’s not always much to see and usually it’s antelope. But sometimes there are monkeys, warthogs, and elephants that we have seen. The other day the boys and I were watching an elephant drink and then wash himself. The boys were mesmerized. They still don’t quite understand what’s going on though. Soon Bran ran off down the stairs and came back with a sock, he wanted to help the elephant wash off by rubbing his sock over the elephant on the computer screen. He said “helping to clean”. I think he thought he was drying him off! They’ve also gotten to watch grizzly bears in Alaska and Elephant Seals in California. It’s so amazing! Although what they really want to see more than anything is a lion or tiger come to that watering hole. I think they have a tiny chance with the lion, but there are no tigers in that part of Botswana. I hope they get their wish. Although I’m sure I could just find a video somewhere else, like YouTube.

If you’re interested in the National Geographic site, you can check it out here.
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica

More recently the boys have been “emailing” the family and friends. My mom sent them this great email where she told them about things, like the fact that she works in a castle (this is true by the way), and that they should have their mommy help them look up those things, like what a castle is. And that there was a bat in the castle and that we should look up bats. So off we went to Google images for a look at castles. We actually got to look at the castle where Grandma works which was really neat. Then we went to the bats page. Brandon was so excited, he kept pointing at different pictures for me to enlarge and every time I would go back to the email he would get upset. So we spent a good half hour looking at bats, talking about what bats look like, what colors they are, what their faces look like, their wings, etc. Then he helped me reply to grandma’s email by telling me what colors the bats were that he saw, and other features that he could remember, like that they hang upside down, have eyes and ears, etc. We had lots of fun! Thanks Mom!

If you have any other suggestions of interesting images to look up, send them our way.

Posted under: Drew & Bran, Family