Table of Contents

• Computer games as carrots and sticks of motivation.
• Its time to review your “wishlist”
• Split-screen games, for fun and rivalry. So… double fun
• The Steam Deck will help find time to play computer games
• The games are purchased, now it’s time to print out some tasks for the kids.

Computer games as carrots and sticks of motivation.

We utilize Good Deed tokens, which children can earn by engaging in various activities such as tidying up their rooms, doing dishes, brushing teeth, reading, writing, math, riding bikes, drawing, coloring, and solving puzzles. They can use these tokens to purchase gaming time, get extra treats, or acquire new games from Mom and Dad’s stores. Additionally, video games can serve as a disciplinary tool; in cases where a child misbehaves, they may earn “penalty points” that need to be redeemed before accessing video games.

We purchase them in advance, especially during the Steam sale. We buy a couple of video games to motivate the children to earn Good Deed tokens. The winter sale is one of those times when various types of computer games can be acquired relatively cheaply.

Good Deeds Money Notes

Its time to review your “wishlist”

Surely take a glance at your “wish list” of games, to see if any of them are available at a significant discount. If you don’t have a “wish list” of games yourself, you can look at what we’ve played last year; perhaps some of the games might appeal to you as well.

Mostly, we play relatively old games, so these games can often be purchased for less than 5 euros when there are discounts

Most Played Video Games in 2022

Split-screen games, for fun and rivalry. So… double fun

If you’re planning a party, it might be useful to purchase split-screen games where multiple players can play together – 2 to 4 players on one screen.

These are games that we play quite regularly, especially when someone comes over as a guest.

Best split screen games

The Steam Deck will help find time to play computer games

I used to struggle to find time to play computer games myself, but since getting the Steam Deck, I find myself playing more often.
You know i have a mission and need to be sure that my child can play them ;).
Whether I’m commuting to or from work, flying on airplanes, or waiting for the kids after their extracurricular activities, the Steam Deck comes in handy, it really cuts the waiting time.
Recently, a new version of the Steam Deck was released, and the older version is now available at a discounted price.

A good computer game is same as a good movie – it can engage your mind, provide simple entertainment, or surprise you.

Steam Deck – handheld gaming console, computer

The games are purchased, now it’s time to print out some tasks for the kids.

Search and download printable worksheets, tasks for children. Printable tasks will help improve writing skills, reading skills, mathematics, and counting.

Best of luck!

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Table of Contents

• Video games as a motivation carrot and stick.
• Check your ‘wish list’.
• Split-screen games for a party.
• The Steam Deck will help find time to play video games.
• Games bought, now it’s time to print out a task for the kids.

Video games as a motivation carrot and stick.

We use Good Deed money notes, which children can earn by doing various activities – tidying their room, doing the dishes, brushing their teeth, reading, writing, math, biking, drawing, coloring, and putting together puzzles. They can use these currency units to buy time for video games, purchase extra sweets, or buy new games from Mom and Dad’s stores.

Video games can also serve as a stick in cases when the child misbehaves – they can receive “penalty points” for bad behavior, which must be redeemed before they can play video games.

We buy them in advance during the Steam sale. We purchase a couple of video games to motivate the children to earn Good Deed money.

Labo darbiņu naudas zīmes

Check your ‘wish list’.

Be sure to take a look at your ‘wishlist’ for any games that are not available at a significant discount. If you don’t have a ‘wishlist’ of your own, you can check out what we’ve been playing last year – maybe some of the games will also appeal to you.

Most of the time, we play relatively old games, so we can often buy these games for less than 5 euros when there are discounts.

Steam Summer Sale 2023

Split-screen games for a party.

If you’re planning a party, it might be useful to buy split-screen games where multiple players can play together – 2 to 4 players on one screen.

These are games that we play quite regularly, especially when someone comes to visit.

Steam Summer Sale 2023

The Steam Deck will help find time to play video games.

I personally don’t get to play video games often, but since I’ve purchased the Steam Deck, it happens more frequently – of course, I have to check if the child is allowed to play them ;). While commuting to/from work, flying on a plane, waiting for the kids after extracurricular activities, and gatherings. Now is a pretty good time to get one, as the Steam Deck is being sold with discounts ranging from 10% to 20%.

A good video game is like a good movie – it can make you think, simply entertain, or surprise you.

Steam Deck – pārvietojama spēļu konsole, dators

Games bought, now it’s time to print out a task for the kids.

Search and download printable worksheets for children. The printable tasks will help improve writing skills, reading skills, math, and counting. Good luck!

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Table of Contents

• Photo orientation
• LVM Nature Park in Tērvete (Latvia)
• Who are these photo orientation pages intended for?
• Download the photo orientation task

Photo orientation

“Photo orientation” is done based on photographs, either along a specific route or within a specific area. You can definitely try it at home by yourself.

Take photos of objects and give children the task of finding the photographed objects. Depending on the age of the children, you should also choose the difficulty level of the objects to be found.

Photo orientation can be a fun activity at children’s parties. It can be done individually, in teams, or all together, with or without time limits.

LVM Nature Park in Tērvete (Latvia)

We have been there many times, and we go there practically every year. Last time we took pictures of objects so that this year we can have our children and their friends search for them. With or without photo orientation, it is definitely a great place for a family walk and relaxation.

Who are these photo orientation pages intended for?

In addition to families, photo orientation task sheets can also be useful for kindergarten groups, school excursions, as an additional activity for children. Parents, teachers, educators can prepare small gifts for children for successfully completing the tasks, which can serve as an additional source of motivation to find all the objects.

Download the photo orientation task

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Table of Contents

• ideo games as a motivational carrot and stick.
• Check your ‘wishlist’
• Split-screen games for party and not only that
• The Steam Deck will help find time to play computer games
• Games purchased, now it’s time to print out some tasks for the kids

ideo games as a motivational carrot and stick.

We use Good Deed tokens that children can earn by doing various activities – tidying up their rooms, doing dishes, brushing teeth, reading, writing, math, riding bikes, drawing, coloring, solving puzzles. They can use these tokens to buy time for video games, purchase extra treats, or buy new games from Mom and Dad’s stores.

Video games can also serve as a stick in cases where a child misbehaves – they can be given ‘penalty points’ for bad behavior, which must be redeemed before they can play video games.

We usually buy them when there’s a Steam sale going on. We purchase a couple of video games to motivate the children to earn Good Deed tokens. And the autumn sale is one of those times when we can buy various types of video games relatively cheaply.

Good Deeds Money Notes

Check your ‘wishlist’

Definitely take a look at your ‘wish list’ of games, and see if any of them are available at a significant discount. If you don’t have a ‘wish list’ of games yourself, you can check out what we’ve played last year; perhaps some of the games might appeal to you as well.

Mostly, we play relatively old games, so during sales, these games can often be purchased for less than 5 euros.

Most Played Video Games in 2022

Split-screen games for party and not only that

If you’re planning a party, it might be useful to purchase split-screen games where multiple players can play together – 2 to 4 players on one screen.

These are games that we play quite regularly, especially when we have guests over.

Best split screen games

The Steam Deck will help find time to play computer games

I myself don’t often find time to play computer games, but since I’ve purchased the Steam Deck, it happens more frequently – after all, I need to check if my child can play them ;).
I do that while commuting to/from work, flying on airplanes, waiting for the kids after extracurricular activities or clubs.
Btw there is a new version of the Steam Deck has been released, and that could be good time to buy used or “old” LCD version. As the old version is on sale.
A good computer game is like a good movie – it can make you think, simply entertain, or surprise you.

Steam Deck – handheld gaming console, computer

Games purchased, now it’s time to print out some tasks for the kids

Search and download printable worksheets, tasks for children. Printable tasks will help improve writing skills, reading skills, mathematics, and counting.
Good luck!

The post The Autumn Steam Sale 2023 – prepare for the dark days of the year appeared first on Gudlenieks.

Table of Contents

• You will need
• Video with end result
• Download printable visual illusion – dragon

You will need

• Printer for printing out the worksheet
• Pencils for colouring (optional, but it can be an extra task for children)
• Scissors to cut out dragon
• Glue pencil (not mandatory, but more convenient, the alternative is to fold and hook the special “hooks”)

Video with end result

The video is with T-Rex, not dragons, but the effect is exactly the same, only in real life you have to close one eye for the illusion to work.

Download printable visual illusion – dragon

• Download the visual illusion – dragons
• Print it out
• Color the dragon
• Cut it out, fold it and glue it
• Close one eye
• Turn the dragon and see how it comes to life and watches the watcher

Visual illustration – dragon – if the link is not working anymore, fill the form to get the file.

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Table of Contents

• Lego Batman: Video game
• The Lego movie
• The Lego movie – Game
• Where to buy?

Lego Batman: Video game

Video from the game, sorry for bad quality. But idea is clear. In the game you have to brake and make objects from Lego blocks. Have to fight bad guys on the way solving some small puzzles.
This game is pretty and that is good as its hardware requirements are not demanding, at least for modern day. Game can be played by two sharing the screen. In our case that is perfect.

Don’t know any kid that does not like to play with Lego blocks or some kind of analog to Lego bricks. When i was small was fan of the Batman and looks like i have injected this int my kids.
But kids in general does not care so much about one super hero or other, they happy to play with any, all are good.
And maybe that’s even better as the discount is not only for Batman video game but also other games.
Most of the games, as i know, are playable by two on split screen.
Also parents can get pleasure of playing these games, just don’t forget to give the game to kids to play.

The Lego movie

No, dont say that you have not watched The Lego movie with kids. I know, its a bit dangerous, as kids could like and want Lego constructors even more. At this point any of Lego computer games will be cheaper than any Lego constructors.

The Lego movie – Game

The Lego movie – game, follows the story line of the movie. So kids can relive the animation, and be the main heroes.

Where to buy?

In the Steam platform there is discount for all the Lego games. Could be that for your kids more interesting, relatable is other supper-heroes or characters than Batman.
We suggest, if You loved The Lego movie, could be a better choice, as also in this game at some point you will be able to play as a Batman. So The Lego Movie: Videogame, could be better choice.

Btw, both games, can be played also on Linux if steam play is enabled.

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Table of Contents

• Necessary items
• Preparation
• Result

Necessary items

To realize this idea you will need

• Snow
• Empty PET bottles
• Make small hole into the cork of the bottle
• Gouache or water colors – old, new – the ones you will not regretting to dissolve
• Dissolve the colors into water
• Fill bottles with colorful water
• Go outside with kids to paint

Preparation

Need to collect oar find some empty plastic bottles, not really important what kind of, could be from drinks or empty shampoo bottles.
But take in consideration that transparent bottles looks better, and you will not need to guess what kind of color of water is in it.

For sure you have some empty bottles, if you have you already have half of necessary ingredients.

Second part is old or new gauche colors or water colors. This is good opportunity to get rid of some ld water colors that are already mixed with some other colors or just dry and hard as stone.

Dissolve, mix the color with colors in some bucket. Give this task to kids, they will love this action.
You can allow also to mix dissolved colors together to see how they mix and make new color, but be aware not to make all colors dark brown.

Fill the empty bottles with the colorful water, and pierce hole into the cork. Bigger the hole faster you will run out of ammunition, so try to make them small as possible.
When this done, new artists can go out and outside and use the snow as their canvas.

From experience, the amount of color water is never enough.

Result

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The idea felt pretty simple. Take a small story, split roles between the kids and record it. That should not be really complicated. At least that what i thought.

We had red this story at the bed time several times and also had tried out split the roles for the story. But when we started to actually record the story, things did not go so smoothly.
Anyway, we managed to record, with several takes, singing in between, making farting sounds into mic, because its more fun that way….

We highly recommend to try this out for yourselves. Split the roles between kids and even if you don’t record, its a good way how to involve your kids into story telling.
When kids are involved in story the follow the story, and remembers more details. This trains kids in listening and retelling the stories, trains the memory. And its fun.
Record it, film it or use dolls or teddy bears for the recreation of the story.

Our result

This is result of our hard work

• We recorded sound into computer with use of Audacity and external USB microphone
• We did edition of the sound with the use of Audacity
• Used illustrations for animation of the video, and we did manipulation of images with use of Gimp
• To animate the illustrations we did use Blender
• Some sound effects, background sounds are coming from Freesound.org
• Published on our Youtube channel to share with our friends

Recommendations

We have such recommendations based from our experience:

• Patience – for sure you will need that
• Short story – longer story, will take more time to get it done
• Simple sentences for kids – if some of the sentences, texts are too complicated for your kid, make them simplier, make structure of sentence simpler, so its easier to remember and to retell
• Remember why you do it! – For fun, you don’t need professional studio to do it. The sound can be crappy, there can be background sounds or several takes, or you need to whisper some sentences to help kids to remember the texts.
  If the end result can be sent to relatives, you managed. It will be something to remember when kids will grow up.

Necessary hardware and software

What software, hardware should you use:

• Nowadays, almost everybody has portable, computer in their pockets that can do everything what is needed for recording the story. You can record, film, edit everything on one device. So you have already everything you need to record story time with kids. Don’t worry about background noises, double takes or prompting. If its necessary at all some things you will be able to cut out of audio file.
• If you want to step up the sound quality then good investment would be external microphone that could be connected to your phone or pc. But as a starting point phones microphone should be good enough.
• Sound and video can be edited on phone, but it will be much more easier to do that on computer. There are several applications that can be used to do the editing. We were using Audacity, that is free, open source software for sound recording and editing.
  There are tons of helpful videos on Youtube that can help you understand the basic work with Audacity and the basics of audio editing.
  Don’t lock yourself to particular editing software, use the tools that are accessible, handy to you.
• In our case we were using illustrations of the book for animation. So to manipulate the images we where using another opensource, free tool called Gimp.
  Gimp is Photoshop alternative, maybe its not so powerful as Photoshop, but for our needs it was perfect.
• Animation itself was made with help of Blender. Its a professional grade 3d modeling and animation software, that primary target is to do just that (3d modeling, animation).
  But you can also do 2d animation and video editing in the Blender.
  The learning curve is quite steep, but there are wast amount of learning tutorials online.
• Background noises and sound effects would be nice to record by yourself, and maybe in next project we will do so. But in this project, we were using freesound.org library to add atmosphere to the story.
• If it’s possible, delegate some of the parts of the projects to other members of the family, kids, so they would learn how to do the editing, animation. Or for example, instead of illustration from book, you could ask kids to draw illustrations for the story, and use them instead of book illustration.

Summary

At the start, you don’t need nothing more than your phone to record your stories. With phone you can record the sound, or even video. Kids love to record and playback them selves.

Next level would be to get the recording into computer, and edit it. Add background noises or music, to get the mood of the story. Chirping birds or sounds of the forest animals.

If you are willing to invest in new hobby, then we would suggest to get some external USB microphone for better sound quality. Or external microphone for your phone.

For animations you can make just some slideshow or do whole show with the puppets, dolls or teddy bears.

Next level would be to animate the illustrations, but that’s kind of separate story on it own. Don’t be afraid of failure, just try it out. Maybe there will be something that you can look back and have recorded memmories.

If you have questions, contact us, we will try to help you out with some advice. Remember you don’t need expensive gear to start doing something. If you have smartphone its all you need for start. Good luck, and send us your results.

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Table of Contents

• Second life, extended life for old digital cameras
• What could be hunted?
• Trophies and prizes
• Examples for inspiration

Second life, extended life for old digital cameras

We’ve bought each kid their own digital camera (cost about ~ 15Eur each). So sometimes when we go out, for a walk, or if we go on some trip with family, we combine it with a photo hunt.

What could be hunted?

Before going on a walk or trip, parents should create a list of things they could come across along the way, for a photo hunt. If there are multiple children, each one can be assigned a different task. Parents should choose hunting objects that can be found during the walk and plan the route so that it coincidentally leads to the objects to be ‘hunted down.’

For instance, when going to the park, parents can imagine the path to the park and identify objects that can be found along the way, as well as within the park itself.
One example is photographing an oak tree, which would spark the child’s curiosity about how it differs from other trees.
Another task could be capturing a picture of a Jeep, helping the child recognize various types of vehicles and perhaps even photograph specific car brands.

If some objects cannot be found during the current photo hunt, they can be left for the next time or saved for future hunts.

Trophies and prizes

When you return home from photo hunt, you can have the child transfer the hunted pictures to the computer and print them out. Then, you can either display them on a trophy wall or store them in a trophy album.

You can create a list of targets and go hunting for specific item from the list each time, imagining where the targets might be found and planning a walk accordingly.

Once the game list or album is complete, you can reward the child with a gift. It may be helpful to agree on the gift in advance or even purchase it beforehand, so that the anticipation of the gift motivates the child to complete the list as soon as possible.

Examples for inspiration

If you’re as lazy as I am to you, this list of possible game trophies will help. If not directly, then as an inspiration to come up with your own hunting objects.

• Steps
• Mailboxes
• Machine
• Red traffic light
• Road sign
• Dog
• Tree
• Coffee machine
• Gas station
• Doors
• Wheel
• Bench
• Bush
• Flowers
• Bird
• Bookshop
• Policeman
• River
• Puddle
• Truck

Think for yourselves whether you know where to hunt – photograph a particular item. But it’s also ok if you don’t get to hunt something down.
This can also be a valuable lesson that you don’t always get what you want, sometimes things does not happen the way it was planned.

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