This past week was spring break. That’s what my kids’ school called it, anyway. I’m not sure I would call it that.
Since my kids had the week off, I made a deal with them: if they spent at least 4 hours playing outside every day Monday through Thursday, on Friday I would buy The World of Goo, a very entertaining computer puzzle game. They have been playing the demo for a while, so they were motivated!
On Monday, they played outside for 3 hours and went to the library for an hour. We decided going to the library counts. So far so good.
On Tuesday, it rained and rained. We decided that working inside also counts. They did an amazing job on the house. With hardly a fuss, they cleaned the entire family room, their bedrooms, the living room, and some of the kitchen. Good work, kids!
On Wednesday, a temporal anomaly threw our city into December. About 6 inches of snow piled up. They played in their snow boots for a while, but it was quite cold, so they did a little more work inside.
By this time, it was apparent that the weather had no respect for our plans. We expected the weather to clear up on Friday, so we bought WoG for Thursday, intending to get them to play outside again Friday. So my kids had a Gooathon day. I had other work to do, but I heard them laugh and get frustrated a lot. They had a good time.
On Friday, as you might expect, the weather was still uncooperative, so my kids solved some more Gooey puzzles. My wife and I don’t want them to play computer games all the time, but we think occasional gaming is very good for learning to read and think logically. There is a mind-bogglingly large assortment of puzzle games available for Linux these days!
Thus ended winter break this year.