It's April Now

When one of my son's friends came to visit, he was shocked to see that we did not own a TV. We told him we occasionally watched movies on our computer, but he thought that wasn't good enough.  In reality, movies and TV's just aren't important enough to us to devote an entire wall of our home to a big black screen- because most of time it would just be a black wall decoration.

Very artistic

Well, as time passed as we came to realize our kids had no idea what my husband and I were were talking about when we said things like, "Sorry, squirrel moment." "Just keep swimming" or when something frustrating happened and we replied, "Smash it with a hammer!" 

We decided it was very important for our parent child communication for our kids to understand the era in which we grew up in. So, we sat them all down in front the computer (remember, no TV here) and forced them to watch all the old Disney and Pixar movies from our youth. We even told them they could eat extra-butter microwave popcorn with all it's dangerous additives. And then we let them lick the toxic, butter-flavored, package like we used to as kids. GASP! It was a harsh lesson to learn, I know. But it was important for their personal growth and development.

Well, our downfall came when we had them watch the greatest movie of all time. No, it's not Lord of the Rings extended edition. It's much more quotable than that. The greatest movie of all time is...The Princess Bride! 

 "As you wish!"  "Chocolate coating helps it go down easier". "He's only mostly dead." "You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept." "Perhaps it's some local fisherman out for a pleasure cruise at night, through eel infested waters." Ha! I should just write the entire script down. Every line is perfectly quotable. "It's not my fault I'm the biggest and the strongest. I don't even exercise."

Here, let me keep it simple. https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/46867-THE-PRINCESS-BRIDE.pdf

Now back to the problem.  At the beginning of the movie the boy was playing an old video game. My kids asked if that's what TV's used to look like. And what in the world was that horrid noise and low level graphics on the screen. Don't you know, Minecraft is far superior. Cough, cough.

What kind of electronic games did we play as kids they asked. All the classics! 

Snake 

Minesweeper

Zuma

We played Frogger, Pong,  Age of Empires and Heroes of Might and Magic II.

We played StarCraft, Sim City and the Oregon trail. 

We even had video games showing up in our cereal boxes.

Of course, we had to explain that eventually we moved away from computer games and began to play electronic games on things called Gameboys and Nintendo 64.

The concept was so foreign, we decided we needed to have a party... a Mario Party that is. 

It is important to let others with expertise help educate your children. So, we enlisted the help of my brother to teach our children the ways of the 64. Blow the game before you put it into the consol. If the old TV isn't working properly, give it a good smack. If the connection is bad, jiggle the cord a few time. Somehow, these seemingly random actions, are scientifically proven to improve your gaming experience. 

After all our efforts, we now feel our kids have an increased understanding of the history of movies and video games. I'm so grateful we homeschool to help them develop such critical life skills. After all, you know these fundamentally important concepts are not taught in public schools.

Happy New Year's, ya'll! 

(At least in France before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar 😉)