Software for young kids

I’m not sure if I posted this before, or maybe it was somewhere else..

As the UK is in “lockdown” I am trying to work at home and time share looking after two small children. Does anyone know of any RISC OS software that’s suitable for the ‘early years’. They kids are 3 and 5, if that helps.

Some sort of easy painting thing (although we have had some creations done with !Paint), early KS1 stuff. Okay KS1 now is going to be different to KS1 was then but hopefully not TOO different.

Given the educational history of RISC OS, you’d imagine there’d be stuff out there but I’ve not found much, other than forking out a fortune for some 30 year old floppy discs on eBay. Maybe I could trade them for toilet paper…

Cheers

Chris

Don’t forget the machine can run BBC BASIC, so you might be able to find some educational software from the Beeb era. Ages ago I had some for physics and chemistry. Intended for the Beeb, stored on Econet, loaded and ran just fine on RISC OS. [these days it might need some tweaks because “old modes”, but that’s a minor thing for a coder]

BTW, what’s “KS1”? Infant school? Junior school (8-12ish)? Senior junior (1st/2nd form)/intermediate (3rd/4th form)/senior (5th/(maybe)6th form)?

A quick Google found this: http://www.flaxcottage.com/

Some interesting looking stuff under physics.

I’m on my phone so no idea how it is packaged or what sort of executable it is. It’s always possible to use an emulator. ;-)

I was going to suggest FlaxCottage too!

I’m sure that John had converted a lot of the BASIC programs into a form that would run directly on RISC OS (particularly the Raspberry Pi), but unless I’m missing it I can’t see them on the website. It all seems to be BBC disc images for use with emulators.

FYI, RISC OS BBC emulator is here – https://mjfoot.netlify.com/bbc.htm

BTW, what’s “KS1”? Infant school? Junior school (8-12ish)? Senior junior (1st/2nd form)/intermediate (3rd/4th form)/senior (5th/(maybe)6th form)?

There are 4 Key Stages. KS1 and 2 are primary school, ks3 and 4 secondary.

From memory, KS1 is reception to year 3 (infants), and KS2 year 4-6 (junior). I may have the boundary wrong by a year, and reception may be excluded. (edited)

I’m not so sure about KS3 and KS4, not having worked in secondary schools. I think (but may be totally wrong) KS4 may end at GCSE, i.e. year 11. On the other hand it may encompass sixth form too, or only.

Alan, you’ve tried to explain one set of made up numbers by using another set of made up numbers!

How about putting some age ranges in there instead? At a guess:
KS1 = 5-7
KS2 = 8-10
KS3 = 11-13
KS4 = 14-16
Is that right?

Ah, I see…

Key Stage 1 – learning that other children exist and that you’re not the centre of the universe.

Key Stage 2 – learning that bigger kids may thump you when they are having a bad day.

Key Stage 3 – learning about sex in the playground, and then asking your parents questions that make them completely freak out, to be answered with some variation of “I’ll explain this when you’re older”.

Key Stage 4 – realising that as you reach the cusp of adulthood that your childhood is coming to an end and you’re supposed to be responsible and such, something that is exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

That about the size of it?

Is this the same like this?
I search something for my children (9, 16).

How about putting some age ranges in there instead? At a guess:

I used years for a reason. It depends when in the calendar year you define the age.
Current Year 1 is sixth birthday between 1st Sept 2019 and 31st August 2020 in England. In Scotland I believe the dates are one month earlier, so August to July. In each case it’s the age on the last day of the school year.

So reception is school age 5, year 1 school age 6, through to year 13 school age 18.

I search something for my children (9, 16).

I would say KS2 for the 9year-old, and KS4 for the 16 year old. But you might want also to look at the adjacent ranges depending on their ability.

Is this the same like this? http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/taught.html

Wow, how did you find that??? That’s part of the ROUGOL website that even I didn’t know existed! It doesn’t seem to even be linked into the main site.

One of the things I should do during this lockdown is go through all the old stuff on there and see which bits are worth keeping. Possibly leave it up, but under an “Old Stuff” tab so it’s clear that it might not be relevant any more.

Hah, look what else I found :-)
http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/faq.html#KS