My plan to teach my 3 year old daughter programming looks promising.

Lego parts used to teach my daughter programming

I have a 3 year old daughter. She is a challenge to raise but she always makes me proud. My time with her is very limited but since day zero I do my best in making our time together as positive as possible. I dont want to be the pressurising parent that obsesses about making a clone of theirs but I truly believe that problem solving skills can be developed from a very young age. So I did my research and came with a way to teach my daughter programming using lego bricks.

The target

Model core mathematical functions and basic algebra using lego bricks

Time period

2 years

Facts

3 year old daughter

Unlimited supply of simple lego bricks (child friendly)

Lego parts used to teach my daughter programming
Lego parts used to teach my daughter programming

The girl knows numeric representation up to 10 and she can count objects and identify basic colours and shapes.

How I started.

I sat down with her and build walls with the lego bricks. I use a variety of techniques and told her to throw them to see how the break. Eventually she could identify the strongest and would do it from scratch.

Last summer she started drawing (vaguely) shapes using pen and paper.

Today I told her to make a triangle using her legos. I left her alone and I observed from a distance. She was just making random shapes and I thought “ok maybe I m aiming too high here”

I eventually hear her shouting “triangle, triangle”. I maybe parent blind (Failing to observe the truth because I am a parent) but I am very proud of the result.

triangle using lago bricks made by a 3 year old girl
triangle using lego bricks made by a 3 year old girl

Notice the bottom layer. She made the triangle but it wouldn’t hold itself together. She could just call me at that stage but all those construction lessons paid off.

Next steps

Tomorrow I will give her two pixel bricks only and see how she handles that.

I will then follow with colour limitations and then introduce the notion of lengths of sides.

After going through all the shapes I believe we will have a substantial way of explaining a problem so that she can go ahead and try to solve it.

 

 

What’s wrong with dreaming?

Cyprus! What ever idea you may have there is always someone who will come and say:

This will not work in Cyprus.

I am fed up with this mentality we have. Actually somebody planted this in our head since we were kids! Study to pass exams and get good grades so that you can get a good job! GOOD JOB? In what context? Who and what defines good? Is it money? Personal satisfaction? which could definitely triggered by money. What about happiness? Going to work and just being happy. And why call it a job?

Even the word job  sounds like something you would hate. Although quite cliché, my motto is:

Find a job you like so that you never have to work again.

I was just sitting with some friends at home and we were discussing about the stuff we want to do and why we cant do them! We are actually not willing to take the risks. We have been bubbling about it for the past 4 hours. I thought about it over a cigarette in the bone cutting cold outside (because we quit smoking inside the house due to the recent addition in the flatmate list), and after reading between the lines it occurred to me that although we were all patronising each other about the risks and dangers, we were all just saying to ourselves:

Come on MOTHA FUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Just take the risk and give your dreams a freaking chance!

WTF?

I made this blog just to attach my so long waiting for domain name xatzis.com, to something new! My original intention was to just write about the things i do and the things i know! Some sort of an on-line Curriculum Vitae per say! Then my wife’s water broke and after 7 hours I became a father to a beautiful baby daughter! So “Mary” was the first thing that came to mind tonight that I finally have some time to myself.  And here she is striking an awesome YAWN pose on my Samsung galaxy s2!