My first blog

Education today is in the fast lane.  Parents are still charged with the responsibility of helping their children succeed not only in school, but in life as well.  My kids are grown and they now are working with their children.  My daughter spoke recently of some of the things that she does with her twins that I did with her. For example, when we went to the mall if the kids wanted to go to the toy store, we would go, but they knew that they couldn't buy a toy.  That was something to ask for at Christmas time or for a Birthday.  Instead, we would always visit the book store after the visit to the toy store, and I would let them pick out a book.  They knew that Grandma would shower them with toys at Christmas, isn't that what Grandmas are for, and they really liked their books.  We started very early reading to the kids, and there is a bond that takes place between the parents and kids when the child sits on a lap and hears a story from a loved one.  That bond is more then between parent and child; it is also between child and books.  I would like to hear ideas from others on this blog about what you have found that works to encourage the love of "life long learning".
I would be remiss if I didn't say something about technology and it's role in education today.  Last year, after we had tried it in a few classrooms, we equipped all of our classrooms with smart boards.  If the schools don't keep up with technology, we will loose some of the kids in the classroom.  It was a big investment, but it is already paying off.  There are many things that a parent can do at home to make education interesting to their children.  Let me sight an example.  When my daughter comes to visit, I set up two computers that I have loaded with Ubuntu Linux that I've downloaded off the net.  Linux is a free system that has thousands of free programs for education, and any other thing you might be interested in doing.  I use Linux because it runs very well on old computers, and the kids can't hurt the system.  I don't expect everyone to have extra old computers laying around the house like I do, but many of these programs are free on the net for a windows based computer.  Let me give an example.  One of my Dentist's assistants was telling me about one of her kids having problems with math in school.  I downloaded a program called Tux for Math and gave it to her.  The program starts out at a level of just finding the numbers on the keyboard to adding, subtracting, multiplying and division of larger numbers.  The numbers or problems fall out of the sky in the form of asteroids on the screen, and when the answer is typed in and the space bar or enter key is pressed a rocket shoots the asteroids out of the sky in an arcade game that kids love. I gave her the program several months ago, and the kids still use it. There are other programs on the same website. Later I'll post the link so you can download this program for your kids.  The program is available in Linux, unix, Windows and Mac.

Say, I'd love to hear from you about programs that you have found helpful.