It’s hard to tell exactly what the plan was with Disney’s new video game, Epic Mickey, out for the Nintendo Wii. Of course it’s a platformer — “platforming” has a rich heritage of successful, exciting games, where the basic premise involves getting your character (in this case, Mickey Mouse) from Point A to Point B by jumping — platforming — from space to space. Epic Mickey’s genre is filled with classics from the 8-bit and 16-bit era like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog, and is paired up against modern-day critical-darling or smash-hits like Super Meat Boy and Psychonauts. The first thing you should know is that Epic Mickey is in no way a learning kid’s game. There is very little in the way of educational value outside the incidental lessons one learns from falling off a cliff over and over.

The second thing you should know is that Epic Mickey is incredibly frustrating to control for an adult with a lifetime of video game playing, much less a youngster who might not be used to the advanced and often finicky control scheme. The truth is that these awful controls and the fact that it’s not a learning kids game effectively breaks Epic Mickey. Read the rest of this entry »

It never fails to amaze me how much everyday life gets in the way. Are we too busy/not busy enough at work? Have we defrosted the chicken for dinner? Organized the service for the car? The list of drivel we occupy ourselves with in the name of Being An Adult is endless. Aren’t we boring? (Or is it just me?) Grown Up Life really does its best to get in the way of fun and adventure but every so often you are lucky enough to get a moment where your world focuses and zooms in and you are shown a truly important lesson. This happened to me this week and I have three little kids to thank for it.

According to the OED, a friend is “a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of family relations.” I happen to think that definition is a bit sparse and I think that my Teenager, her mates The Blonde and The Brunette would agree, although this is a guess as they probably wouldn’t let me into Teenager room long enough to find out, busy as they were this week, twittering and muttering behind her (firmly) closed door. Yes, school’s out for the Easter holidays and, as every parent knows, with holidays come mates, sleepovers and all the to-ing and fro-ing of kids with hectic social schedules, even if they are eight years old and ‘social life’ means hanging out with their bezzie and giggling at nothing in particular for hours on end. Read the rest of this entry »

School may be out for summer, but the learning doesn’t have to stop there. In fact, the real challenge of summer is to let your kids relax, enjoy their leisure time with friends and family and still keep their minds sharp and their curiosity piqued. How can a parent help make that happen? Read the tips below and find all kinds of activities, some that the entire family can enjoy, that will keep your child learning all summer.

1. Encourage daily reading. Kids don’t have to read textbooks or the classics to maintain reading skills over the summer. Summer is for fun. Take them to the library or the bookstore and let them choose anything that interests them. If you are going to the beach or to visit relatives for vacation, somewhere you know they won’t have the distractions of home, they might even welcome reading. Give them a fun novel about kids their own age. Young girls still love the Nancy Drew Mystery series. It builds curiosity, problem-solving and strategy skills. If comic books are all they will read, indulge them.

2. Summer is the perfect time to visit a museum with your kids. Have your family decide together on a place you would like to visit. Look up information about the area. Map out the route together. If you need to be more subtle, stop by a museum spontaneously on the road to somewhere else! If your young child is enraptured by dinosaurs, scour the web for special showings that you could make a trip to. In preparation for the trip, have your child explain to you all about his or her favorite dinosaur. Discuss with your child what they might see, learn and get to do at the museum. Read the rest of this entry »