Kids and Computers - when could yours do cbeebies website by themselves?

[xoz]

Just curious to see what others have experienced.
My 3yrs 6 mths old dd1 loves cbeebies website. She can't do it all for herself. She can do a lot of the stories and some of the games now ... once she's been thru them with me enough times. It's probably been the last 6 months or so she's been starting to able to do it. SHe can click Point and drag (sometimes), but she has real trouble with things like the fimbles footy game where you have to use the mouse to control the players position, and if it's keys for controlling position she has no chance. There are also obvious restrictions due to not being able to read.... she finds that very frustrating. Apart from the reading issue, when can expect some peace and quiet when she's on the PC?

not a lot of bollocks at all carla.

all kids have different skills.

dd can do a mouse quite happily at almost 3 but tends to click the wrong side because she is left handed (any tips?). She has cd roms she can navigate around and likes matching games on the bbc and nickjr websites. ds has been happily using a mouse since hewas about 2.5 and before that had a special keyboard computer game.

dd2 has started hopping on the pc and playing about with the mouse. she is 22months old. i think with a bit of guidence she will get the hang of it properly soon. we have a trackerball mouse which i find easier and dd1 does better with it than a standard mouse. dd1 has been playing the cbeebies site for abour 3yrs but only in the last few months can she do almost all of it without help.

LIZS, I know you can get left handed mouses but can't for the life of me remember where I saw them.....will investigate and get back to you.......

Even better, I found this site which tells you how to switch your current mouse over for left handed use!

This is fun.....I wish there had been stuff like this when my sister was little, she had loads of problems being left handed. This shop looks good!

It does seems a bit odd to call it a load of bollocks Carla, not that I think your child is a dunce! My ds couldn't use a mouse properly until he was almost 3, and he certainly found it easier when I slowed the cursor speed down. I think it depends on the child and on what programs you start them with, probably. My ds started with Pingu games where you pressed the arrow keys to navigate through a maze, so he realised that he could control what happened on the scren like that and then was keen to use a mouse.