My friend mentioned how she taught her kindergartner his phone number, and I thought it was a great idea: She made their phone number the password on her cell phone. To play one of the games he likes, he has to type in their phone number. (Her phone’s password isn’t to keep people out, it’s just to keep her from pocket-dialing.)
I was thinking this could be used for other things, too, like teaching kids their home address, or how to spell their names. Our home computer has a password for each kid to keep them from accidentally or on purpose messing up each other’s stuff. It’s easy to re-set the passwords, so we could change them to be whatever we wanted the particular child to be memorizing: a phone number, a name, an address. (We could make Rob’s “Mom and Dad know best”!)
Haha! Snorted right out loud at the end. Can you imagine the chagrin as he types that? ;)
That is a great idea! Thank you!
This is why I had my Social security number memorized early – it was the password to get into the computers on campus at my HS. Clearly a TERRIBLE idea, but it did help me memorize it! (I’m pretty sure that policy is long since changed now. At least I hope so)
One of our kids’ passwords is “Choose to be good” =). *cough*not that it seems to be helping at all*cough*
Part of our 3 1/2 year old’s bedtime ritual is singing together my cell phone number and our address. He remembers them if we consistently do it but if we stop for a while he forgets. I picked a different (simple) tune for each infochunk.
My father made our garage code the numbers to a Bible verse, so every time I tried to sneak in past curfew I had to type it in and think about how disappointed Jesus would be with my poor behavior.
I have an 8th grade student who needed to put a program on her laptop for school while we were in class, so she emailed her dad to ask for the administrator password. He wrote back shortly with “I love you, Daddy.” Made my day.
Also, when I read the numbers I’m given to prove that I’m not a robot, I feel like I’m helping some company with a bunch of satellite photographs by reading the house numbers on people’s homes. It feels a little creepy. Not your fault. Just sayin.
I love this idea. When my son was small he did not speak clearly, and he could not remember “Massachusetts” – which is admittedly a mouthful – so I changed it to “Monsters Chew Sticks” which sounded like the state when he said it and was much easier for him to remember. LOL!
PS Laughed out loud at the Bible verse code for the garage! Brilliant!
I was setting up my teenagers online banking, and for his password, I put “My mom is the best!”. I’m sure he loves it.
Another GREAT way to teach kids home addresses and phone numbers is to use a familiar nursery rhyme song like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and re write the lyrics to the tune. Both of my kids at the ages of 2-3 years had it memorized. For example: (sing this to Twinkle)
“2922 South Main Ave, that’s where we live and we are glad. 431-0125, that’s daddy number and not a bee hive. 231-0177, that mommy’s number it’s just like heaven.”
Brilliant! I’ve been meaning to get on this anyway.
I use songs too. Or a singy rhythm. I’ve taught her how to spell all three of her names but haven’t started her address or phone numbers.