Asks your child which pedestrian light tells people to stop, go or hurry up.
The teddy bear pedestrians on the screen stop, go or hurry up depending on which light your child clicks on.
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 a question, click on the light that is the correct answer.
Whatever light is clicked on will become bigger, will flash in the case of the light for hurrying up, will make the teddy bears on the screen react, and the child on the screen will tell you what that light means.
Hitting any key on the keyboard brings us to the answer.
The Spanish words are displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen, as is the English translation.
You can hide the Spanish and English by clicking on the text “click to hide words” above it. Then you can guess what the words are in Spanish without seeing the answer.
To see the Spanish and English text again, click on the text “click to show words” in the bottom right corner.
Ages :
from 9 months - 5 years
Download time :
Game size is 850 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 :
You can explain to an older preschooler that we hurry up on the flashing light only if we are already crossing. If we haven’t started crossing yet, then we don’t even start if the light is flashing.
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 :
Playing this game familiarizes a child with road rules concepts. Thus, your child is practicing how to be a little bit safer in our complex motorized world.
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.
quoted from CBC Television's "Get Set For Life" campaign for the first 5 years of life
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.
