Recently I was surprised to learn that my third grader niece is learning computer programming at school. At the age when my generation was struggling with basic mathematical skills, today’s kids are learning how to program. Even though the programming included moving a turtle with basic movement instructions, it teaches the elements of programming at a very early age. Imagine what kind of professional programmers this kids will become in the future.
There is another cool educational software for kids aged 2 to 10 that can help your kids learn so much using some fun activities. This educational software is called GCompris. It is a freeware software and is created by KDE. It is available for almost all the platforms including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and more.
The software has been designed keeping in mind that a parent or teacher is going to help the kids or monitor the kids as they are learning through this software. It comes with an administrative portion which is to be used by the parents/teachers. We can create groups and classes for the kids from this part. We can enable or disable the activities and check the progress reports from here.
When kids are going to use the software, they access the activities part of the software. They can learn the basic use of a personal computer like keyboards, mouse, monitor etc. They learn basic English, words, letters, numbers etc. They learn basic arithmetic, numbers, various mathematical operations like subtraction, addition, multiplication, division etc. They can learn about mathematical tables and lists. It also offers some basic reading exercises.
There are puzzles and quizzes about the world geography and science. There are many games included in this software too such as hangman, chess, four-in-a-row, tic-tac-toe, sudoku, tower of Hanoi, memory games etc. The software also includes learning through braille.
You can download GCompris from https://www.gcompris.net/.