Reflections on my Grandsons Playing on my iPad and old iPhone ("Grandma, it's loading!")

Post date: Jun 27, 2015 7:17:57 PM

Corbin, age 2, sitting at his little red table, watching a movie.

Blog post -- June 27, 2015

What does it say about our love of technology that my two grandsons both said “it’s loading” as one of their early sentences? Both love to play with Grandma Cherie’s iPad and old iPhone and both demonstrate amazing patience as the app loads – or the YouTube video loads. Of course, the younger boy spent his first two years watching his big brother play on my devices, and he could not wait to get his little sticky hands all over those two small screens. Corbin, the four-year-old, seems sedate by contrast: at two and three, he would sit at a small red round table that I found at Hobby Lobby. It had two little chairs painted in red and blue: Corbin sat there to have a snack, watch his shows on TV, put together a puzzle, color, or watch a Veggie Tale video on the iPad. His little brother, Mason, took a different approach: he crawled up on one of the chairs and then climbed onto the table and jumped off. Grandma got rid of that table and chairs!

Kids love technology and the iPad or iPhone are great toys for them in small doses. Part of the challenge is picking age appropriate games and apps: the other part is trying to limit their use of the small screen and balance it with other kinds of active play. However, I am fascinated by their responses to using these mobile devices, and observing how they navigate. The two-year-old gets more frustrated and says “Help me grandma” because he doesn’t yet remember which apps and games are on each device, the way his big brother does. Corbin has already developed visual literacy skills: he cannot read at age 4, but he has learned the icons and knows how to find the half dozen apps he most enjoys.

I’ve been spending each Tuesday evening with my son’s family this summer: I sleep over so that I can watch the boys on Wednesdays, and since the parents get up very early, it is easiest to just wake up there! Our days are full of activities: we color, we put together puzzles or blocks, we play with hand puppets and makeup stories. We go out in the backyard and play on the slide or jump in the trampoline. We found a worm this week and Corbin picked it up and put it into his mother’s box garden: the three of us then watched it move around the perimeter to explore its new environment.

We watch some TV (well, really, it’s Netflix). We read books, we race cars or trucks, and we have a lot of snacks and meals. We’ve had a lot of fun playing with my old Magnetic Poetry board and magnetic letters, animals, and shapes but only having one board and two boys makes for territorial squabbling. Fortunately, I discovered that Walmart’s 88 cent cookie sheet works great and now that each boy has his own cookie sheet and set of magnets, the problem is solved.

Of course, we play with the iPad and old iPhone—the boys love an app called Hand Turkey. One of them puts his hand on the screen and the app makes a snapping noise as it creates a turkey that he can name, dress and parade around with other turkeys. They watch videos on PBS Kids (Word Girl! Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Elmo, and others) and on the Veggie Tale website or on YouTube. The little one colors pictures while the older one likes math games (Hungry Fish or Sushi Math where a monster serves up food and you have to match the plates to the number on his chest). The little one likes my Koi pond app or the one with water over rocks; he also likes the Serenity app, which plays soothing music while showing a collection of nature pictures. We use a flash card app that helps build vocabulary skills: food, animals, colors, and shapes. Corbin plays a game where he sorts veggies on a series of conveyor belts: when he gets them all correctly sorted, he gets three stars and tells me “Grandma—I did it!”

Corbin can spell and write his name and is enjoying the magic of discovering the connection between the letters and sounds of words. We’re working our way through a little workbook of the alphabet, with one page devoted to each letter, complete with pictures and a chance to trace the letter several times. We used the magnetic letters and cookie sheet to spell out the names of everyone in his family and he got excited with the results. I think both boys will be early readers and bookworms like their father and his sister. They live near a public library and I am always pleased to see a stack of children’s library books on the kitchen counter.

When I remember my children at that age, we spent a lot of time playing outside as well as time watching cartoons on television: I would be nearby cleaning, sorting laundry, cooking, or studying for my college classes. My grandchildren are more likely to spend lots of time outside and not as much watching TV. However, when Grandma Cherie is there, they will expect at least a little time playing their games or watching videos, and that is okay with me as long as we balance it out with time outside and reading some books. As our world becomes increasingly dependent on technology, I think we’ll be alright if we can all learn that lesson of balancing our use of technology with interacting with each other and the world. There’s more to life than staring at a small screen held in our hands!