NewDeal Hot Tip 1502

[Hot Tips for...] General Use

NewDeal and Children

Here are a collection of tips that may be useful for getting your kids involved with various aspects of NewDeal.

The first thing you may want to do before introducing your kids to NewDeal is go to NewManager, click on Confirm Delete and Confirm Replace, then click on Save options. This will give you a slight safety net against the accidental disappearance of important files. Now that I have your confidence built up (grin), a few ideas...

One question... how young is too young? That's up to you. I've been an elementary school computer teacher for many years now and introduce kids to computers in Kindergarten. There are some great opportunities for exploration within the NewDeal software environment. All it takes is some creativity and a good computer insurance policy (just a joke!).

NewDraw

NewDraw is an excellent way to introduce your kids to windowing and using the mouse. Things as simple as pointing, clicking, and moving objects don't necessarily come naturally. First, open NewDraw. Click on the maximize button (square in the upper right corner) so that it's full screen. Make sure some tools are showing. Now click on Attributes. Click on Line Attributes, Area Attributes, and then Text, Text Color. In each case leave the dialog open and drag it down to the bottom of the screen. This will give your kids plenty to play with. You may want to give a demo of what to do or let them take the completely exploratory approach. Kids in the early elementary grades are most likely to experiment with colors, shapes, and patterns.

NewWrite

For the young ones...
Ever wonder how young is too young to teach your kid to type? Of course it depends on your child's readiness, but even 9 or 10 year olds can learn. There are great typing tutor programs geared to kids available commercially and even some shareware available on the Internet or online services. Another option is to get out the old typing manual and setup your own lessons in NewWrite.

You could easily type a row of letters (start with the home row and lots of repetition) then skip a line. Have your child type in the line you skipped copying the line above. Whether practicing typing or writing a simple story, be sure to adjust the font size to at least 18 pts, possibly 24. This will match the font size in the primary grades' readers and will give your child the feeling that he/she is accomplishing something (fills up the page fast).

For older kids...
Do you remember your teacher telling you to write a first draft then refine it to a final copy? If you're like me, your first draft was also your final copy. If you can get your kids to write reports in NewWrite, the ease of editing will make it much more likely that they'll improve on their work. Be sure to show them how to use the spell checker!

Want to get sneaky? Show your kids how to use an online encyclopedia or one on CD ROM. Once your child has mastered the art of searching and locating the information that is needed, and has learned to use Copy and Paste or Quick Copy (drag and drop) to paste it into NewWrite, report writing will be easy and you may never get your computer back.

Teaching your kid to play solitaire

Just a few fun tips. Set up Solitaire at the beginner's level and see how long it takes your kid to figure out you just have to click on the card in the draw file (or any other) and an appropriate destination will be highlighted. For starters, you may want to set number of cards drawn to one instead of three and possibly even turn scoring off.

Hope you enjoy these tips and will get your kids involved with NewDeal software.


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Last Modified 2 Mar 1999