When NewMexiKen visits Mack, the oldest of The Sweeties (he’ll be five in December), the first thing out of his mouth is, “Can we play Dragon Tales?” Dragon Tales is a television program for little kids, animated as they all are. Like most of these programs it has an on-line presence with stuff about the show, pages you can print and color, and games. And it was this particular program and its particular games where I first let Mack play with my laptop. (He has enviable skill with the touchpad.)
While Mack still usually starts each session with the original Dragon Tales, he now often takes a look at sites for other shows and their games. Among his favorite are games which are played like the card game Concentration. Cards are turned face down; you turn them over two at a time to see if you can remember which is which and find the two that match. The on-line games for little children keep this simple with maybe only eight or ten pairs. Still I have marvelled as four-year-old Mack does exceptionally well finding the pairs.
Recently he advanced to a real game with 25 pairs of animals printed on one side of wooden cards. He did very well at first, competitive even with his parents. Then he began to beat his mother 14-11, 15-10, etc., and she was trying. This frustrated her, as one might think. She asked Mack how he did it. I mean, he was matching animals she didn’t even think he’d even seen at that point in the game. Short answer — it seems Mack had memorized the grain patterns on the back of the wooden cards.
Clearly a clever little boy. What I can’t figure out is how come a kid this smart has never thought to ask his parents to play computer games on their computers. He thinks mine has an exclusive.