It's all about devising elaborate Rube Goldberg machines to solve puzzles. The cat knocks a ball into the goldfish bowl, which tips over and fills a bucket that operates a pulley that flips a switch that opens a door. That kind of thing.

I remember it being very freeform and exploratory, teaching cause and effect and physics and thinking through complex interaction chains.

I was probably around 7 when I played it. Very age appropriate.

It's available on a web-based DOS emulator!

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-incredible-machine-1m...

Probably downloadable somewhere too.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_incredible_machine_mega_pack

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/26900/Crayon_Physics_Delu...

0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/petterssons-erfindungen/id5246...

Oh wow. I forgot about this game for a long time, until just now.

Our elementary school didn't have enough buses to take everyone home at once. The bus departures were staggered so a few buses would take some kids home and return for the next groups.

You definitely wanted to be in that last group of kids to leave, which meant you got to sit in your classroom and play one of the three games we had on our two Macintosh SE machines: Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and The Incredible Machine. Hours and hours spent waiting on the bus playing this wonderful game, usually with your friends sitting next to you quietly yelling suggestions at you. Thanks for the reminder!

Mia Mouse/Mia’s Big Adventure Collection was something I recall playing as a kid.

I definitely think I was much younger than 7 though, I’d been playing RuneScape for close to 3 years by the time I was 7. Mia’s is probably still appropriate & engaging enough for that age though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mia%27s_Big_Adventure_Collec...

I think I’m specifically remembering Mia Math, but it looks like there’s Math/Science/Reading/Language, seems to be marketed for education.

[1] https://www.myabandonware.com/game/super-solvers-gizmos-gadg...

It's basically collaborative storytelling, and the possibility of failing dice rolls makes it exciting (you always 'fail forward', failures never really hurt the player but just open up new opportunities). The book also has tons of tips that you would probably never think of on your own - for instance, don't let your child name their character after themselves. Having a separate name allows them to keep some emotional distance between themselves and their character, which makes scary situations less scary for them!

https://amazing-tales.net/introducing-amazing-tales/

The PDF is 6 bucks, I felt like I had gotten my moneys worth after our very first session.

Does anybody know of similar games for non English speaking folks? My kid only speaks German and I have the feeling playing our first RPG will benefit from us all being on the same page in the same language.

Thanks!

It's available in English, Polish, German and Spanish.

I bought the English version yesterday, but I haven't started reading yet.

Obvious points based on my experience when I made these:

- This is for fun, don't like, grade her on it or anything

- Whatever she learns from it will be very tangential to the fun, but she probably will learn things from it

- If she wants to write made-up stories about imaginary friends and such, that's fine, it's a kind of make-believe play. I did that sort of thing too, it didn't mean I didn't know fact from fiction in the actual newspaper

- You absolutely must read every single edition. Multiple times.

And, for the love of all that is holy, please do not throw them away in a couple of years thinking it's junk! Saying this as a kid who used to write books/newspapers and then got most of them thrown away...

The best thing about Minecraft is that it naturally scales to their skill. They began just learning the controls and exploring. Then made simple houses. Etc…

The older one is so hooked he builds his own mechanical pressure plates and pistons with Lego.

What is Java Minecraft vs "regular" Minecraft? What is "modded technical Minecraft"?

"Technical Minecraft" involves building various machines in Minecraft; either in vanilla (unmodded) using red stone, water, and other properties of the game itself to do things - some are quite complex, but they can include things like intelligent mine cart routing, strip mining, and resource sorting.

"Technical modded Minecraft" involves one or more of the "tech mods" which MASSIVELY increase the complexity; one of the most famous is GregTech, which adds machines and electricity to power them.

Arguably the most complicated tech modpack is Gregtech: New Horizons which has you start out digging dirt with a stick and ends up with you on various planets searching for materials. It approaches and scratches the same itch as Factorio or modded Factorio (and arguably is somewhat like Satisfactory). End-game often involves optimizing the setup to reduce load on the host computer itself.

There are also modpacks with similar depth focused on magic; but the two become mixed.

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/store/minecraft-java-bedrock...

And do I need to run the server, or is that only for multiplayer?

You can make the Java client "host a server" (open to network) which is fine for basic play and starting out multiplayer; but you can play single player with no server at all.

The server is nice (and free for Java if you have a machine to spare or even some CPU) because you can make a "persistent world" that's always there whenever someone logs in. But that can all wait for later.

But if you're using complex mods that break on that; you'll know enough to setup a server.

Turing Tumble teaches you to build a binary calculator using marbles and bits of plastic. At her age, it will require you to be pretty hands on, but it’s away from the computer.

Board games with lots of rules can be good for understanding complex systems. Catan and Spacebase, for example.

Playgrounds on Apple devices is great. Full on coding but in an interesting way. Raspberry Pi foundation has a number of projects for Scratch and Python. There’s a book about coding for kids where you hack away at a Python computer game.

Steam has some games for teaching coding. Human Resource Machine is great.

ChatGPT and Dall-E also get lots of smiles. Interact with the API to build a chatbot.

Also a big fan of Legos (and so are my kids).

Highlights magazine is great for that age and can fill up some time.

Step-by-step drawing books can also be fun, and can usually be found at libraries: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/reviews/drawing-book-for-k...

Can also take her stargazing and teach her about constellations. There are mobile apps to help you find them, but books and searching for them yourselves is also fun.

The girl in the books is just named Ruby, the books really don't have a connection to Ruby the Programming Language.

It's more a introduction to what can be seen in any kids related programming apps, like Scratch, and it's a paper book, so it's less abstract than a screen on her tablet.

https://digitalcreativitytools.everythingability.com/

I made the site for university students, but I have tested/vetted all of the tools myself, often with my child who is now just 11. There are some activities you could do with her too. The Inspiration section might throw up some useful stuff for you both.

With regards to game-making, Scratch is a great starting point, but recently we have been really enjoying working with gDevelop - a free, no-code game engine. The videos on YouTube are great to get you both started. Twine (Chapbook) has been a fun tool for creating interactive adventure games, and this Zine-maker is ace https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker

Other interesting game are of course robot turtles (http://www.robotturtles.com/), but she might be too old for it.

And you might like Mark Rober's https://www.crunchlabs.com/

There is human resource machine that my daughter played when she was 8 or so (https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine) which is a brilliant game.

Also all kinds of "crypto" books, from caesar's cipher to morse code books were very interesting

> How to blow soap bubbles 20-feet long and more, by architect David Stein, inventor of the Bubble Thing (which comes attached to the book)

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/558727

https://www.alibris.com/Way-Things-Work-David-Macaulay/book/...

For the unfamiliar - the book is an illustrated guide to how different kinds of mechanisms and designed systems work starting from simple machines, levers, wheel and axle, etc. through to nuclear fission and moving on through computers in the sequels.

David Macaulay's writing and illustrations are top-notch. Honestly, all of his books are great, but this is the one that I actually owned when I was younger so I read it all the time - hard to put into words the impact it had on me at around that same age.

There's also the "Princess Princess Ever After" edition of the classic card game "love letters". Minor rule changes, just a visual update mostly.

Neither are explicitly educational, but both are fun and have strategy.

Whatever you do do NOT buy all the expansions at once! Only one at a time over time.

There are games like Agricola that even when you lose you feel you built something, which can be nice for overcompetitive types.

It's aimed at children around your daughters age (might be a few years too young, I'm not sure). It covers lots of fun science, craft, music topics and has many small activities that can be made at home.

There is a lot on YT: https://m.youtube.com/user/CuriosityShow

Some of the segments are a bit out of date now but most are still totally relevant today.

Kids love "make believe", being heroes, and playing with their parents: just make up your own story, give them some hit points and dice, then invent some checks as you go on.

It's good for their creativity, and you can sprinkle science-y concepts here and there (levers, archimede's principle, solving small puzzles).

I've been doing it with my kids, and they seem to have enjoyed it a lot, and I did more than them, I think :)

Not books or games, and not sure where your child is at with her drawing, but my kids (similar age) have enjoyed following along with this channel: https://www.youtube.com/@artforkidshub

Creative games that we have and like:

  https://www.thinkfun.com/products/gravity-maze/
  https://www.thinkfun.com/products/sweet-logic/
  https://www.thinkfun.com/products/rush-hour/

We have a lot of GraviTrax also: https://www.ravensburger.us/discover/gravitrax/gravitrax-sta...

Turing Tumble has also been a big hit at our place, but it's clearly more for older kids (https://upperstory.com/turingtumble/)

UpperStory also has a new game (Spintronics) which looks awesome, but I haven't had the opportunity to test it.

We've had months where Gravitrax has dominated the house and been very popular. Dedicated table for it in the living room. At one point, my 10yo son and I would make a very elaborate set of tracks every night. We'd start with a three way splitter at the high point and take one run each, and leave the third for one of his sisters. But after a while, unless I have time to play it with him, his interest fades and he does crosswords or reads instead.

Many years ago, I set up something like the tumble game for them. Not computing anything, but more like a maze. Tilted the coffee table slightly and let them stick Lego pieces to the surface and attach rubber bands, then roll marbles down. That was popular for a bit.

The Raspberry Pi is excellent for kids (and adults). There are tutorials for any topic (https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en). A lot of people are not aware that the Raspberry Pi magazines (MagPi) and books are free as PDFs. Or you can purchase printed books or magazines.

- Magazines: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues

- Books: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/books

Micro:bit

The micro:bit is an even smaller pocket computer for kids. The BBC was a foundation partner, but now a Educational Foundation:

https://microbit.org/

Take Arduino. It’s probably more adopted than microbit.

This is a web based educational program that teaches kids how to code robots and problem solve.

Some of the activities are real life scenarios - such as the Amazon cyber robotics challenge. In this activity kids code the Amazon robot in a simulated warehouse.

Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/397430/Zoombinis/

Few things she had liked so far -

  World/Asia/Country specific maps arranged as puzzles.
  Legos/Block games.
  Coloring books.
  Cycling.

My boys are 8 and 4, and they're both only interested in "hack and slash" computer games, so I bought local co-op like Ninja Turtles and Castle Crashers. I tried giving them "puzzle" games, they're not interested. I tried giving them books (and I also read the books for them), they always "Daddy can we play games".

Still thinking how to make them interested in programming. The Pi I gave them, they use it to play YouTube only.

It sounds like they have watched lots of TV and need to have better role-models around and interacting with them.

Maybe (if you have the financial capacity) take a holiday and go explore the world with them without any youtube or games.

I would not allow them to use youtube! But don't beat on em! Kids just follow what they see around them - so to change them you will have to change their environment.

All the best, I imagine balancing work and income with good kids is difficult. My advice, if you earn enough to eat and have a house you earn enough.

Examples of things we've watched recently:

Behind the scenes Korean street food videos: https://www.youtube.com/@yummyboys

Transport journeys through Africa or Asia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN_6jfIoYE4

How various things are grown or made: https://www.youtube.com/@eater plus many others

Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory

Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin

Mark Rober

etc

Tape up a board game out of construction paper and cardboard. Glue stuff to popsicle sticks. Create adhoc, six-sided dice.

Use a firewall to block sites.

Programming is modeling abstractions. Don't need a computer for that. Stepwise refinement, encapsulation, and problem decomposition can all be demonstrated without a machine.

Model a linked list with a stages in a game (on paper). A graph is just a path of streets to the ice cream shop. A tree is an upside-down version of the one outside.

Teach them to make something out of nothing, first principles. Read with them.

What worked for us (8 year old boy) has been Lego, Turing Tumble, Gravitrax, Lego and Lego.

RE what's age-appropriate, Turing Tumble he got when he was 6, and it worked fine for him. Legos have been a thing since he was a toddler.

Minecraft is also something that our son enjoys, and I don't feel too terrible about him playing online w/ friends, as it is pretty creative, but I do worry about excessive time on screens.

Currently we are looking for testers and input from parents, so feel free (anyone) to send me a mail to hn@dibulo.com if you don't mind an early version.

https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2023/04/13/meta-os...

It has some fans among teenagers: https://ai-simulator.com/

For MEV! I love them even 30 years after I got my set, was one of the best "toys" I got as a child.

All old Lego mindstorm are amazing also.

Primo is a toy for even younger people that is cute and teach them about sequences of actions and how to set that.

I guess they'll still produce some stuff on other factories, for the time being.

https://kidsdungeonadventure.com/

My dad set me up with it + his notes from an incomplete attempt around age 5 or 6 and I probably didn't beat it until 7 or 8 (and continued like this for the next few games).

Here's my theory for a game like this vs something that's pure "learn to code/draw": Give her a world to explore that builds the -drive- to create.

I like Myst as a starter because:

1) It's unhurried. I wandered for a year learning what elements in each environment were interactive and slowly making sense of the puzzles. You -have- to simply explore and figure it out.

2) The worlds in it are masterpieces of art and creative thinking. Visually, it remains very engaging (the later games even more so) and you can tell it was a labor of love by a small team (particularly 2 brothers). Just as with books or nutrition, you want you and your children to be consistently exposed to the best of a given subject because that sets the imagination churning on what's possible and starts the process from a high bar.

3) It's a clever way to encourage familiarity and use of professional digital creative technologies (computer, mouse, etc.) rather than building additional affinity for touchscreens (which will happen naturally). Obviously you can create _a lot_ on a phone/tablet, but there's just more junk food around and it's easier to limit sources of temptation/mediocrity rather than fight them. I'd rather train my young child's willpower and self-regulation on easier opponents than modern apps, streaming, etc. :)

tl;dr- Anecdote of one: I consider the Myst series to be an important early step in my eventual journey into creative work and entrepreneurship (high school) and later a hybrid career in design/dev more broadly.

Link: https://www.gog.com/en/game/myst_masterpiece_edition (there are also newer 3D re-releases which retain most of the qualities of the original, but I think the values above are best expressed through the static scenes of the early editions and that, at 7, the new-shiny is missed less).

^ If you skim past the whatever was up with the Win7 reviews, you'll see my sentiments echoed -a lot- in the reviews. :)

I remember Ultima Online and Everquest with its cloth maps. But a notebook from Dad is something else.

https://thehomeschoolscientist.com/kitchen-chemistry/

https://foodscience.psu.edu/outreach/youth

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities/subjects/cook...

> How about just talking as much time as possible?

If OPs seven year old is anything like mine, this is the default. Getting them to stop talking to you is the trick. Sounds selfish and shitty right? But nobody can talk to a seven year old all day every day while on vacation. "Why don't you just talk for 12 hours a day for an entire week straight?" Ridiculous.

And it's worth noting that the cat is out of the bag by 7: they know video games exist and want to use them. Because so many of them are low quality, parents may have to seek recommendations like this thread.

> they know video games exist and want to use them. Because so many of them are low quality, parents may have to seek recommendations like this thread.

But also they know that a not-advised-by-parents games do exists as well and they are pretty easy to reach on the same device which can run every link or ebook from this topic. Tiktok/insta/whatever will magnetize them and this addictive bond has to be considered.

I think the jury is back on that one and has been for some time. I can't even imagine what might be wrong with teaching a girl electronics. How do you feel about teaching them reading and math?

> Science spreading must be similar to religion spreading

Where does this mandate come from? People believing in what is verifiable mandates also teaching them lies as well? For every fact you learn, you should learn an unverifiable myth as well?

> There are neither Christian/Muslim/whatever games nor books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_video_games https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/211920/bible-themed-board... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Children's-Christian-Boo... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Christian-Self-Help/zgbs...

A quick google search shows that this assertion is wrong.

> but new believers are keep appearing.

Sure, in baby bassinets. More people are leaving religion than convert to it

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/chapter-2-re...

This statement has nothing to do with my statements. All you need to see is that religion involvement starts very early, usually 40 days in Christianity. I want science people to learn something from this fact.

> A quick google search shows that this assertion is wrong.

Why are you ignoring thousands of years of history? No religious adept became a religious adept because of books or games. Even more: trend of declining religion as you have mentioned started when all those books and games starts to be produced (reminds me Jevons paradox in the sence of the more religious books/games for kids are there in the market the less religious penetration is observed among the kids). Talks is what matters, I do not understand why do I need to repeat this triviality for so many times.

> Where does this mandate come from? People believing in what is verifiable mandates also teaching them lies as well? For every fact you learn, you should learn an unverifiable myth as well?

I am not telling about teaching lies, I am telling about teaching early. Am I really seem like so unintelligent person to accuse me in encouraging of telling lies?

> I think the jury is back on that one and has been for some time. I can't even imagine what might be wrong with teaching a girl electronics. How do you feel about teaching them reading and math?

In my country one is supposed for girls is to be a social persons rather than engineers. Girls in our country use to do shopping, to cook meals etc etc. Reading is OK for girls in our country but math is slightly over. I do not agree with this statement but I have a personal story when I refused to be a godfather of my close friend's daughter just because she is a girl. I told my friend that if I became a godfather of his kid, I see my role as science teacher (I have not my own kids if it is important and my atheistic mind does not restrict to become a spare father for my friend's kid which anyway is going to be baptised). When the kid has born and we realized that the kid is a girl, me and my friend decided that my attitude is incompatible with our culture's view of what is good/bad for girl.

This is my personal pain story, that explains why am I so active in this topic and why I consider every downvote for me is wrong and seems that I have enough verbosely explained my idea (which I tried to describe in the top comment) to consider myself as boring to read.

When I think about things suitable for girls between the ages of five and ten I think about the things that girls of my generation did at that age, things my children did at that age and things my grand children do at that age.

Glass blowing, lost wax metal casting, plaiting ropes, pulleys, levers, looking after chickens for eggs and meat, feeding and tending animals, basic mechanics, mathematics, map reading, rock climbing, camping ...

Girls I attended school with are now running GIS companies after careers as electricians, running universities (after STEM careers building robots and developing medical imaging equipment), teaching as professors, retired after building up, managing, and selling companies, etc.

It seems a shame that girls in your country seem to have limited oppotunities and I hope that changes for the better in years to come.

Probably you are intelligent, but your responses make you seem kind of ignorant and tone deaf. If a friend of mine implied my girls weren't suitable to any field of of study based on gender, I would lose a lot of respect for them. It's not 1850 anymore.