Asks your child to dial emergency. If your child does not, then the child on the screen shows how to dial 000 - the emergency number in Australia - with the emphasis being more on the positions of the numbers to press rather than recognizing the numbers themselves.
Next, the child on the screen asks your child to dial three sequential numbers. If they are dialed correctly, the next three number will be a bit harder - not sequential. Whenever they are not pressed, the child on the screen demonstrates how to dial those numbers.
How to play :
After the game has loaded, click on the big red button in the middle of the screen to start playing, or click anywhere on the game screen with the mouse.
When the child on the screen asks you to dial something, dial it by clicking the buttons on the screen with the mouse, or by pressing those numbers on the keyboard.
Ages :
from 9 months - 5 years
Download time :
Game size is 823 KB.
On a high-speed internet connection the download seems instantaneous. Download takes about 2 minutes on a 56K modem the first time you play this game. Every time after that the game will normally open immediately.
Play ideas :
The primary goal of this game is to have fun. The secondary goal is to learn the positions and sequence of numbers to dial in an emergency, and it is not necessary that your infant demonstrate that he has achieved this secondary goal. Babies will have fun just clicking and banging anywhere on the keyboard to animate random telephone numbers. When that happens, you could say “Very good! You just played the number 2!” This subtly starts to introduce the labelling of numbers, but number recognition is not a skill to expect right now of an infant.
Some 4 or 5 year olds who have already been exposed to numbers, will delight in being able to click on the correct numbers. If they do not click on the correct numbers, we again encourage you to congratulate whatever they do. The game is designed to discretely dial the asked-for numbers when your child did not dial them herself. The main goal of the game is to have fun, while subtly exposing your child to the positions of numbers on the telephone as a side effect.
After the child on the screen speaks in Spanish, you can repeat it in English. Your child will think that she understands what was said in Spanish, and before you know it, she is understanding Spanish.
If she feels like it, let her repeat the words in Spanish in her own way.
We experience children becoming bilingual this way in Montréal, Canada.
Early childhood development benefits :
In July 2004, a 4 year old girl in Canada dialed for emergency to save her mother who had fallen ill with diabetes. In February 2004, a 4 year old Chicago girl dialed 911 after her grandfather suffered a seizure. It seems it’s never too early to teach small children how to dial for help. It was reported that a 3 year old Canadian child who succesfully dialed 911 in an emergency didn’t know the numbers but did remember their positions on the telephone, having been shown them by his 5 year old sister.
The best way for children to learn is through play. That’s why we’ve created this game - so your child can have fun while learning how to call for help on the telephone.
If your child is older (4 or 5 years old) and has already started learning numbers, then being able to practice recognizing and localizing numbers is an added bonus of this game.
These telephone computer games are a fun way for children to be exposed to number symbols. The games have a built-in feedback mechanism which makes the learning all the more fun and effective for small children.
You may also notice that the child on the screen doesn’t ever say anything negative, even when we don’t get the right answer. The book “What’s Going On In There?” by Lise Eliot, page 383, describes the results of research into positive versus negative feedback:
“Youngsters who heard a larger proportion of no, don’t, stop it, and similar prohibitions had poorer language skills than three-year-olds who had received less negative feedback... those [parents] who kept their negative responses to a minimum, emphasizing instead positive responses, such as repeating their children’s vocalizations or following them with questions or affirmations, fostered better language development.”
“Acceptance of the child’s efforts; respect for accomplishments whether small or large, for errors as well as successes: «Look at that! You laced your shoes all by yourself.» (No mention of the eyelet that was missed.)”
Children of all ages will be soaking up words and sentences of a new language - Spanish - as will you too.
Research by Ellen Bialystok has shown that knowing a second language can really help a child comprehend written language faster. It seems that bilingual preschoolers can read sooner than monolingual children.
Further literature by Ellen Bialystok shows how learning another language is a very positive thing for you too.
One of the benefits of exposing your baby to a foreign language is that it will facilitate foreign language learning later on in life. The book “What’s Going On In There?” by Lise Eliot, pages 368-369, explains how this works:
“Babies are thus «citizens of the world» when it comes to phoneme perception. But this remarkable facility doesn’t last long. Infants’ ability to discriminate foreign speech sounds begins to wane as early as six months of age. By this age, English-learning babies have already lost some of their ability, still present at four months, to discriminate certain German or Swedish vowels. Foreign vowels are the first sort of phoneme to go. Then, by ten or twelve months, out goes the ability to discriminate foreign consonants, like /r/’s and /l/’s for Japanese babies or Hindi consonants for English-learning infants... Phoneme perception is thus another example of «use it or lose it» in the developing brain... This very early shaping of phoneme perception has important implicatons for foreign language learning. Obviously, the better you can hear the sounds of a foreign language, the easier time you will have learning it.”
Research carried out at McGill University in the bilingual Canadian city of Montréal has exploded myths about babies learning more than one language, and has come to the following conclusions:
Bilingual children do NOT have delayed language acquisition.
Learning more than one language at a time is NOT difficult for small children.
Bilingual children DO master both languages just as well as one.
Lovely books :
The following lovely books and products have similarities with this game. You may like to check them out.
This game can be played on all Windows, Macintosh and Linux computers with Flash Player 5 or higher.
Most computers come with the standard free Flash player so you probably already have it.
If you’re not sure, then click here. If it brings you to the baby games list, then you have Flash Player 5 or higher. If not, then you can download the Flash Player here.
For those of you who are curious about Linux, the Sams book or the Dummies book get you up and running in no time.
Both books include Linux on a cdrom, tell you how to install it on the same machine as your Windows machine, and are written for people who don't have much experience with computers.
Small children should be supervised by a caregiver when at a computer,
to ensure no accidents occur that could hurt the child and that no equipment gets broken.
