About

This is Hayley’s blog on her webkinz.

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This is Michelle, Hayley’s mom.

Why does my nine year old have a blog for her video game play you might be asking right now?

When I was young, my parents gave me a typewriter and I would retype my own version of the sports page. Eventually, I got a computer at 11. I find it no coincidence that I work in developing sports sites with a media background.

Want to enrich your child’s learning – find what interests them at the moment and work inside that framework. I try hard to make learning creative and fun. I think you can find something to benefit educationally in almost anything – the more offbeat the better to me. At nine, this is a great age to let her expand into all sorts of things.

This is also different time and age than any of us grew up in and it is imperative that children learn to integrate technology into their life in useful ways. Computer and internet skills will benefit our child no matter what she wants to be (unless it is a Luddite of course!).

I’m a web developer and this is just another way I’m trying to help Hayley learn. Like how we use webkinz itself, I try to find ways for Hayley to have fun AND gain skills. I try to steer her towards the more educational or logic based game play in webkinz. She’s learned some about money and math comparing W Shop and Curio Shop prices. We’ve worked on excel with a spreadsheet for tracking her gems.

And a blog is our latest effort on that path. She can keep track of stuff to help her game play and remember cool things (like her cherry jackpot) while working on typing and spelling. She’s learning how to fill in blanks and use a templated system to post info on the web. She’s learning how to ftp to our server and post the image online, not to mention how to use photoshop in a very basic way.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t keep my kid inside all day on the computer. She isn’t allowed to do that anyway. She’s a constant motion – she plays challenge level soccer and horseback rides. She was on a swim team this summer and took tennis and golf lessons. Honestly after about 30-40 minutes on webkinz, she’s ready to go outside in play. Everything in moderation …

Maybe she’ll get bored and we’ll dump this. But maybe it’ll spur her interest to write more or design video games, or be an internet pundit – but overall I hope I’m helping her be creative and plant those seeds. Who knows, maybe it is just a goofy way to have fun with my kid. I like it here, it is fun for me because of all of the neat kids and parents I’ve gotten to interact with on here.