Junior gadgets
Providing your kids with new technology isn’t the parental cop-out the purists would have you believe. Henry Northmore checks out the latest stuff aimed at pre-teens.
ith the world becoming
ever more reliant on mobile phones. computers and gaming consoles. it’s no wonder kids are becoming
more tech-savvy. Children are
being born into a world of
gigabytes. Wi-Fi and Intel Pentium processors. so it‘s not
surprising that a selection of
companies have designed new
gadgets and toys based on PCs. consoles and more.
Vtech is one of the market leaders. lts Challenger laptop (3, £29.99). aimed at four-to-seven- year—olds. offers 40 curriculum- based activities including English. maths and basic French. all built into a fun learning system that
guides‘ taking you through 18 word. tnaths. logic and memory games. For slightly older kids (five-to-eight years old) there's the next step up with the Advance Xtra with 80 activities such as
geography and science on top of
what the Challenger has to offer. Inspired by consoles is the V.Smile Learning System (1,
£49.99) with child-friendly
joystick and mashable buttons. It’s
also introduces basic computer.
keyboard and mouse skills. It even
does a Petal Power Laptop (5,
£19.99) for girls with ‘cyber fairy
aimed at three-to-seven-year-olds. and comes with changeable cartridges (sold separately) which offer educational gaming. And for kids on the move there's the V.Smile Pocket. a kind of super
chunky GameBoy. with plenty of
Disney. Shrek and superhero- based games to learn along with. Leapfrog is the other big name in the field. Its Fly Pentop (with built-in calculator. scheduler and more) still hasn't been released in the UK. but if things follow the US it will be a massive seller when it arrives. It does have a number of techy educational toys available in the UK. Its Leapster Handheld Multimedia Learning System (4, £59.99) supports educational games. a digital art studio. electronic book reader and interactive video player. Aimed at the four—to-eight age bracket. it
even picked up the Silver in the 2004 Practical Pre-School Awards.
Again. America has far more on offer when it comes to kids' tnobiles. But KidsOK has launched the ‘i-Kids‘ GPS phone (2, price depends on contract). This offers a limited pre-set (by the parent) list of numbers with a simple interface and a built-in
CPS. so you can keep track of
your child‘s movement online. We‘re not suggesting Big Brother- style monitoring but it should add peace of mind.
There also seems to be growing
evidence that videogames won't
turn your child into a psychotic. ASBO-attracting deviant. In fact, they might help hand-eye coordination and logic solving development. It's not all Grand
The r Auto and Doom. Loads of
games are aimed at kids. from movie tie-ins (such as the excellent Lego Star Wars with the original trilogy getting the building block make over this autumn) or Mario‘s outings across the Nintendo network. A great parent‘s perspective is offered on
Andrew Bub's website gamerdad.com. where games are reviewed and realistically evaluated for quality and
suitability for various ages. Given
THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT VIDEOGAMES WON'T TURN YOUR KID INTO A PSYCHOTIC DEVIANT
that a recent BBC survey revealed 100% of all six-to-ten-year-olds play games. it‘s something that should be handled intelligently rather than hysterically.
Vtech and Leapster are available from all good toy shops including Early Learning Centre, Toys R Us and Argos. For more info on the i-Kids GPS phone and contract rates check kidsok.netllkids.
30 Mar-13 Apr 2006 THE LIST 101