A Big Fat NO To
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I'm going to be blunt
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Online coloring does nothing for your child.
They aren't real coloring. Drawing is developmentally beneficial for your child. But online coloring isn't drawing.
Sure, your child can obsess over online coloring, and that might buy you a few minutes of peace. Just like the TV.
But there are other ways to use the computer to buy yourself some quiet, and these ways can actually benefit your child. Let me tell you about them.
Dance Mat Typing
Thanks go to my daughter's computer lab teacher for this one. When she was in kindergarten, he searched out a learning-to-type site for the kids that wouldn't overwhelm them with advertising and pop-ups.
What he found was Dance Mat Typing. I've seen the kids in action with it, and wow. They love it. It's playful. It talks to them. It guides them.
If your child's a pre-reader, learning to type certainly helps with learning letters. And if your child is already reading, well, in this day and age there's no such thing as too young for typing.
Dance Mat Typing can give your kid a neat head start. That's a lot more than some online coloring page is going to do.
Come to think of it, thanks go to my daughter's computer lab teacher for this one too!
It's art. It's on the computer. But it's a far cry from coloring pages.
You see, KidPix© isn't about point, click and fill. It's about creativity. I would watch 23 kids working in computer lab together and not one kid's picture would look like another's.
This thing puts some amazing art-making tools in your child's hands, but it's entirely up to your child to decide how to use them. Think of this as your computer's "Paint" program on steroids. In hyperspace.
It's an ego-boost for children, because they can create images that are years beyond their ability freehand. But there's a skill benefit as well.
I saw kindergarten children creating, finding and saving files with complete dexterity...before they could even read. And boy, did they get good with the mouse.
(I even bought a version for home and let my daughter practice using her left hand as well. Bonus benefit: ambidexterity!)
KidPix© provides a heck of an experience. It's not free, but it might as well be. This software, which probably would have cost a hundred thousand dollars fifteen years ago, goes for less than twenty today.
And I know a way you can get it for a fraction of that. You see, I learned from unfortunate experience that the most recent version of the software, well... let's just say it's not very user-friendly. (I'm writing this in July, 2006.)
However, the previous version is still available, and it's as user-friendly as you could hope for.
Of course...
...it's still not free. And I still don't want you to send your kid to an online coloring page, so here's one more option.
As I said previously, actual coloring and drawing has some benefits that online coloring doesn't. So...
Try this. Look online for printable coloring. Say your child likes seashells. Find a good search engine.
Type printable coloring pages in quotation marks. Then type seashells.
Voila! Along with the usual internet gobbledygook, you probably have a few blank coloring pages of seashells that you can print out.
Or you can go to National Geographic's Coloring Pages and print out what they have.
Either way, I just hope you have some crayons!
More Best Children's Books coloring.
Best Children's Books - Find, Read or Write home page.
