It’s a DOVER!

Monkey is going through a very intense YouTube phase. Obviously, YouTube itself isn’t the phase. The child has been obsessed with YouTube for ages, it is what motivated him to learn to use a computer in the first place. The clips he watches on YouTube change as his interests change.

Right now we are in an intense elevator period. I’ve asked before how to use these interests to teach him but it suddenly dawned on me yesterday that I don’t need to do anything to make these educational. He’s learning without any added input from me. Why make flashcards and pester the boy when he’s learning so much, including how to read, just by watching fun videos on YouTube?

What finally made the lesson stick is that Monkey called me over to the computer yesterday, “Money, look! Look!” As I stood next to him he maintained an excited monologue, “It’s a Dover! 23!” (and the elevator was a Dover…the clip title said so…and it did go to floor 23.) “Otis! Parking garage! To 4!” (and it was an Otis elevator in a parking garage…the clip title said so…and it went to the 4th floor). It was this way for clip after clip after clip.

I’ve been listening to him perfect vocabulary words over the last couple of weeks and a lot of them are words he’s heard on these clips and is now motivated to learn. He’s still learning from us, we repeat the words to him over and over and over again in conversation helping in the process, but the motivation to learn is coming from YouTube. I feel so fortunate to live in a time when we have so much technology to help our kids. Even the seemingly pointless technology like YouTube has been such a gift for our boy.