Tipping Practice

I cracked down on typing practice this summer. My kids thought I was really mean. But they are seriously thanking me now (Clayton mostly).  And we are all grateful (me especially) that their homework assignments on the computer don't take hours and hours of single-finger hunting and pecking anymore.

After they finished their online typing course, and while I was procrastinating looking for a second course to fill the summer, they spent the rest of the summer "typing anything" during their designated typing time.  I have finally had time to go through and print some of their saved documents and what a treasure trove I have found!  It was fun (and somewhat of an eye-opener) look into the minds of my children.  And some of them have given me quite a laugh.

Clayton is an atrocious speller.  Even though the auto-spell-check fixes most of his mistakes, it couldn't save him on "Tipping Practice".  I chuckled when I opened up his first document - a nonsense poem entitled, "What More Could There Be?"  His next project was a menu for Gourmet Candies that apparently he planned on selling (always the entrepreneur), and detailed instructions for a computer program called "Scratch".

Next he worked on an origami instruction book and made some cool graphics on Word that I didn't even know were possible.

Isaac started a historical piece entitled, "Isaac's Random Facts from History" where he asks random questions and then answers them.  He's a good writer and, to his credit, knows some pretty interesting random facts.  He had a fun time finding and pasting google images.

Next he started his famous "Isaac's Guide" series. If you want to understand the workings of his brain, read this.  I like how he pulled images from our personal picture file for this.

Brigham took a longer time completing the typing program and didn't have as much time for "free typing".  But these two documents are also very telling of Brigham's personality and interests: "Brigham's Facts About Beluga Whales", and "Brigham's Totally WRONG Facts"

Both Isaac and Brigham have research papers due for school this month and their newly acquired typing skills will come in handy.  Clayton already does most of his work on the computer.  He's even been able to teach me a few things (like how to make Word docs the size of index cards and cool tricks for changing fonts, titles, and backgrounds.)  Here are a few of his recent school projects:

Love all his images on this one.

Rockefeller is one of Clayton's heroes.  He's always been kind of a money-making-schemer.

Hooray for "Tipping Practice"!