Everything from your cell phone, to your car, to even your refrigerator has a computer in it. And they do everything from automatically track and adjust finances to reminding us to get milk and monitor expiration dates on the food we buy.

Refrigerators can interface with your phone in such a way to remind you to stop at the supermarket within a certain geo-locational range when traveling – to save you the dreaded “second trip.”

From an early age our kids show a serious interest in technology. At just under a year old my children were able to operate my smart phone to a certain extent. And now that my son is a bit older he’s expressed an interest in how these things work – which got me thinking how I can keep him interested in the “how” without him loosing interest.

Lets face it, programming is boring to most. But there quite a few computer skills that kids need as early as elementary school. Skills like typing (finding letters on the keyboard) and mouse skills have become a prerequisite to Grade School.

“Kid Programming” can be fun, especially if your children like puzzles and games. There are several programming based learning systems that only use the prerequisites listed above that can lead your child to accomplishing complicated programming tasks that would otherwise seem impossible. As a father, I find enabling that sense of accomplishment in my children is important.

Whether your child is interested in rocket science or dirt, there is a relational game or program out there to teach them the proper computer skills needed to advance academically.

In this series we are going to be looking at ways we can meld the games and seemingly mindless activities that our kids enjoy and transform them into serious problem solving tools that stimulate and nurture their mental growth.

We will look at some books and products that we can get right off the shelf and also dive into a few video tutorials using MineCraft to teach STEM based problem solving and learn programming basics!