Show HN: Building a Game with a 6-Year-Old | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Building a Game with a 6-Year-Old

johnpolacek.com

63 pointsjohnpolacek23 comments

This is awesome. I am hoping to start teaching my kid programming at age 5. I've been working with him on his reading since he was around 2. He is 4 now. He reads pretty well, but amazingly well for a 4 year old. We are on level 2/3 books at the moment.

I was hoping to have taught him basic math skills by now. But unfortunately I have not had any success with that. He doesn't understand subtraction yet, and his addition still consists mostly of counting.

I didn't want to push him to hard, because it is more important for me to instill in him a love of learning rather than teach him specifically how to read, or his multiplication tables. As a result we haven't progressed as quickly as I had hoped, but I couldn't be more proud of him.

The trick I use to get him to read is "no video games until reading is done". There are plenty of days where he opts to not read and not play video games. And there are plenty of days where he reminds me he can't play until he reads.

I have a two year old who loves reading and learning. I make sure he finds learning interesting so the skills and knowledge he's picked up are a natural part of his play.

The negative replies to your comment irked me as being a bit brief and harsh.

But I do wonder where "we haven't progressed as quickly as I had hoped" came from? What made you hope for more? Prior children? Holding him up against brilliant peers? Arbitrary expectations?

I think it's one thing to push and motivate your child in a supportive and happy way, but another to have rough expectations, even if you don't share them with your child. Your experience teaching them can be as positive as theirs is being taught by you.

I can see why you would be curious, or maybe even concerned. My goals are arbitrary. They are definitely not expectations but rather hopes that my child will be able to meet them. He has already exceeded my expectations.

My approach to parenting is an experimental one. I don't assume that there is anything he can't do, I just expose him to ideas or different activities and see how he responds.

I'm happy that your two year old has a loving parent that has thought about how to teach him/her without compromising his play. That must be one happy kid.

I learned to read at about the same age as your kid. Make sure you place the same value on math and programming as you do reading such that your kid sees it as something important and fun. Maybe lead by example and play math-based games every morning or evening.

Good luck, you're doing great already.

I don't have a child yet, but if I do I'd want him to be able to do basic algebra at around that age, let alone reading, which he or she would, obviously have to be at an adult level for. I like how you keep alive the illusion that a child could play at some point in their life; as if.

People assume so much. You don't have to be a Tiger Mom to teach your kid how to read. You just have to keep exposing them to it over time slowly. Its a trivial time investment which empowers them to explore their own interests independently.

I didn't say "no playing until reading is done" I said "no video games until reading" is done. This was because I was concerned with the amount of video games he was playing.

This rule provided a way for him to self regulate his game time, and on the days he does play video games, at least he spent some time expanding his mind.

Dunno, man. I just let my kids be kids.

He is still very much a kid. If you met him, you wouldn't know that he could read unless you asked. To give him this skill took 10-15 minutes every few days over two years with months in between of no reading.

My exact sentiments...

Phaser is awesome. If your kid has an idea for a game, odds are there is already a decent example or tutorial out there to get you started. http://phaser.io

Been doing a game with my (now) 5 year old daughter for the last year. Also uses her own hand drawn artwork, which in itself makes for interesting challenges (mostly collision detection for non tiled sprites) but she's very much the creative director to my lead developer. She loves that we can but is less interested in the how at this age

If you are using Phaser, you can use PhysicsEditor (https://www.codeandweb.com/physicseditor) with the P2 physics to auto-trace a picture into a polygon and load it into Phaser. It is easy and only takes a few minutes.

very cool! I'll try this with my 4.5 year old - he's just about getting a hang of an internet as an 'abstract invisible something' - that like electricity is out there; that it can be turned on and off. And when it's on he's able to see pictures of lion tiger and other animals on our tablet. I might just start by replacing car gif with a lion. Lion on wheels - should be fun heh! :D

Cool! I used to build Lego with my dad, but doing things with computers was mostly by myself. It would be really fun to just build what a child wants, without diluting the creativity with adult 'thinking'.

I'd recommend Construct2, Friendly, gentle learning curve

Super cool. I hope to do this kind of thing with my kids one day. Thanks for sharing it.

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