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Remember this excited face when Jacob got his Chromebook?

Back in May, I shared with you my son’s excitement over getting his very own Acer C720P Chromebook, and how it is perfect for your connected kid. Jacob has been using it for about three months now, so I wanted to take some time to update you on how much he still loves it. It’s practically become another limb for him this summer! I typically find him lounging in the one air-conditioned room in the house like this:

Notice he finally got a haircut? I totally cropped out the unhealthy snack he had next to him on the bed! Little monkey ate all my chocolate covered pretzels! Grrr. Anyway, this is pretty much a standard scene during the hot days when I’m busy working. Just what is he doing on the Chromebook that helps prevent summer slide? Let’s see.

Preventing Summer Slide with the Chromebook: Thinking Outside the Textbook

• Watching videos to learn how to do different things in Minecraft. How does that prevent summer slide, you ask? Honestly, if you’ve ever REALLY watched kids play this game, you know that it teaches them skills like math, logical thinking and cooperation (when they’re playing together nicely). Jacob, his cousin and his friends spent hours building a complex world that demonstrated a better understanding of physics than I’ll ever grasp.
• Listening to music. While I personally will explope if I hear “I’m a Banana” one more time, spending time listening to music is beneficial to children’s brains. Searching for his favorite songs (proud mommy moment, I caught him listening to Dropkick Murphys “Boys on the Docks”) helps him evolve his spelling and typing skills.
• Researching new locations. Jake’s cousin is currently on vacation in England. Jake wanted to learn more about it, so he searched on his Chromebook. He watched videos using the dedicated YouTube button, checked out Google maps and more. Now he will be able to keep up when Ben gets back!
• Playing educational online games. Jake’s teacher gave them some websites to play on during summer vacation to help prevent summer slide. While it’s not his number one use of the Chromebook, he does spend time on them.
• Attempting to teach himself web design. This one actually came as a surprise to me. He uses the “inspect element” feature of Chrome to look at how web pages are created. Mostly, he changes random things on the page into totally silly things, but in doing so, he’s learning the basics of web design and coding. Someday maybe he can help me create a “popular posts” widget that I actually like!

Most of all, he’s just having fun exploring the world on the internet. Our kids are part of the digital age. I put him in front of a computer when he was two years old. He’s been a connected kid since then. I think it’s so important that our kids learn to navigate the digital world. After all, it is the future, as are they.

Jacob’s Chromebook, like my HP Envy Rove AIO, is powered by Intel. Love Intel like I do? Click on the image above to learn how you can become an Intel Advocate.

How do your kids use technology to help prevent summer slide?