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Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

149 points by rrr83 ↗ HN
As my daughter is on her school vacation would like to get some good reference of books, creative games I can introduce to her. I am more keen to get her know about art/programming/drawing/music/science

Any links where I can buy/download will be much appreciated, thanks in advance!

101 comments

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ZeroGravitas
How to Make Monstrous, Huge, Unbelievably Big Bubbles Book by David Stein

> How to blow soap bubbles 20-feet long and more, by architect David Stein, inventor of the Bubble Thing (which comes attached to the book)

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/558727

groffee
Well I'm not 7, but I'm definitely interested in that!
theshrike79
The Hello Ruby books are _amazing_. They won actual design awards: http://www.helloruby.com

The girl in the books is just named Ruby, the books really don't have a connection to Ruby the Programming Language.

rodrigodlu
I can definitely relate to this. I bought this for my daughter 2 years ago, she was 5.

It's more a introduction to what can be seen in any kids related programming apps, like Scratch, and it's a paper book, so it's less abstract than a screen on her tablet.

mingusrude
If you intend to play something with her, I can recommend the board game Carcassone. Even if it's not children's game, it's perfectly playable for a 7-year old with some adjustments to the scoring (skip field-scoring). No reading or calculation apart from simple addition is needed.
bombcar
Carcassone is great and there are a ton of games that are fun in that vein; check out boardgamegeek.

Whatever you do do NOT buy all the expansions at once! Only one at a time over time.

There are games like Agricola that even when you lose you feel you built something, which can be nice for overcompetitive types.

eimrine
How about just talking as much time as possible?

Books are always boring, especially ebooks. Games can not be creative, except of maybe sport activities. Just go somewhere outdoors and who knows maybe you will manage to buy some good books or maybe you will manage to find some street games to explore. Walking and talking about the right things is the very source of our culture, Pythagoreans used to educate themselves in this way.

If you are just going to throw at her the device which is got to be charged with all the best links you will find here - it won't work, those devices are made in such a way to make the user to be used nowadays.

schwartzworld
Your comment is so weird and tone-deaf. Someone asks for game recommendations and you tut tut at them for it. If you don't have anything constructive to contribute to the conversation, why comment at all?

> How about just talking as much time as possible?

If OPs seven year old is anything like mine, this is the default. Getting them to stop talking to you is the trick. Sounds selfish and shitty right? But nobody can talk to a seven year old all day every day while on vacation. "Why don't you just talk for 12 hours a day for an entire week straight?" Ridiculous.

And it's worth noting that the cat is out of the bag by 7: they know video games exist and want to use them. Because so many of them are low quality, parents may have to seek recommendations like this thread.

eimrine
Consider this as a game advice but not a technological game.

> they know video games exist and want to use them. Because so many of them are low quality, parents may have to seek recommendations like this thread.

But also they know that a not-advised-by-parents games do exists as well and they are pretty easy to reach on the same device which can run every link or ebook from this topic. Tiktok/insta/whatever will magnetize them and this addictive bond has to be considered.

prawn
OP didn't necessarily specify digital games. There are physical creative/STEM games that they can buy online from a link.
eimrine
That's unleash a discussion on whether electrical engineering toys (usually they are like Arduino but more childish) fits to a girl or girls are better to be kind of social-oriented persons. Personally my take is that it is perfectly OK to learn electronics for 7 y.o. girl but no game can unleash child's interest in any topic.

Science spreading must be similar to religion spreading. There are neither Christian/Muslim/whatever games nor books but new believers are keep appearing. Please observe/research their attitude, religious adepts of every religion are very interesting subject of learning.

It's interesting to observe how controvert is my root comment based on rate change, now it has a low rate but when the topic was new it used to be appreciated.

schwartzworld
> That's unleash a discussion on whether electrical engineering toys fits to a girl

I think the jury is back on that one and has been for some time. I can't even imagine what might be wrong with teaching a girl electronics. How do you feel about teaching them reading and math?

> Science spreading must be similar to religion spreading

Where does this mandate come from? People believing in what is verifiable mandates also teaching them lies as well? For every fact you learn, you should learn an unverifiable myth as well?

> There are neither Christian/Muslim/whatever games nor books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_video_games https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/211920/bible-themed-board... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Children's-Christian-Boo... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Christian-Self-Help/zgbs...

A quick google search shows that this assertion is wrong.

> but new believers are keep appearing.

Sure, in baby bassinets. More people are leaving religion than convert to it

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/chapter-2-re...

eimrine
> More people are leaving religion than convert to it

This statement has nothing to do with my statements. All you need to see is that religion involvement starts very early, usually 40 days in Christianity. I want science people to learn something from this fact.

> A quick google search shows that this assertion is wrong.

Why are you ignoring thousands of years of history? No religious adept became a religious adept because of books or games. Even more: trend of declining religion as you have mentioned started when all those books and games starts to be produced (reminds me Jevons paradox in the sence of the more religious books/games for kids are there in the market the less religious penetration is observed among the kids). Talks is what matters, I do not understand why do I need to repeat this triviality for so many times.

> Where does this mandate come from? People believing in what is verifiable mandates also teaching them lies as well? For every fact you learn, you should learn an unverifiable myth as well?

I am not telling about teaching lies, I am telling about teaching early. Am I really seem like so unintelligent person to accuse me in encouraging of telling lies?

> I think the jury is back on that one and has been for some time. I can't even imagine what might be wrong with teaching a girl electronics. How do you feel about teaching them reading and math?

In my country one is supposed for girls is to be a social persons rather than engineers. Girls in our country use to do shopping, to cook meals etc etc. Reading is OK for girls in our country but math is slightly over. I do not agree with this statement but I have a personal story when I refused to be a godfather of my close friend's daughter just because she is a girl. I told my friend that if I became a godfather of his kid, I see my role as science teacher (I have not my own kids if it is important and my atheistic mind does not restrict to become a spare father for my friend's kid which anyway is going to be baptised). When the kid has born and we realized that the kid is a girl, me and my friend decided that my attitude is incompatible with our culture's view of what is good/bad for girl.

This is my personal pain story, that explains why am I so active in this topic and why I consider every downvote for me is wrong and seems that I have enough verbosely explained my idea (which I tried to describe in the top comment) to consider myself as boring to read.

schwartzworld
> Am I really seem like so unintelligent person to accuse me in encouraging of telling lies?

Probably you are intelligent, but your responses make you seem kind of ignorant and tone deaf. If a friend of mine implied my girls weren't suitable to any field of of study based on gender, I would lose a lot of respect for them. It's not 1850 anymore.

defrost
Countries and cultures differ.

When I think about things suitable for girls between the ages of five and ten I think about the things that girls of my generation did at that age, things my children did at that age and things my grand children do at that age.

Glass blowing, lost wax metal casting, plaiting ropes, pulleys, levers, looking after chickens for eggs and meat, feeding and tending animals, basic mechanics, mathematics, map reading, rock climbing, camping ...

Girls I attended school with are now running GIS companies after careers as electricians, running universities (after STEM careers building robots and developing medical imaging equipment), teaching as professors, retired after building up, managing, and selling companies, etc.

It seems a shame that girls in your country seem to have limited oppotunities and I hope that changes for the better in years to come.

CTDOCodebases
Not really a book for kids but there is a book called "Drawing on the right side of the Brain" by Penny Edwards. It teaches life drawing and has a series of exercises that help the reader to draw what they actually see.
blowski
My son is 9 so I’ve looked around for similar activities in the computer space. I also run a code club for 9-11 year olds.

Turing Tumble teaches you to build a binary calculator using marbles and bits of plastic. At her age, it will require you to be pretty hands on, but it’s away from the computer.

Board games with lots of rules can be good for understanding complex systems. Catan and Spacebase, for example.

Playgrounds on Apple devices is great. Full on coding but in an interesting way. Raspberry Pi foundation has a number of projects for Scratch and Python. There’s a book about coding for kids where you hack away at a Python computer game.

Steam has some games for teaching coding. Human Resource Machine is great.

ChatGPT and Dall-E also get lots of smiles. Interact with the API to build a chatbot.

prawn
We've found that watercolour pencils are great in helping them with detailed art that might be beyond some children straight painting at that age.

Not books or games, and not sure where your child is at with her drawing, but my kids (similar age) have enjoyed following along with this channel: https://www.youtube.com/@artforkidshub

Creative games that we have and like:

  https://www.thinkfun.com/products/gravity-maze/
  https://www.thinkfun.com/products/sweet-logic/
  https://www.thinkfun.com/products/rush-hour/
Clip Circuit: https://www.amazon.com.au/Advanced-Lab-Electronic-Clip-Circu...

We have a lot of GraviTrax also: https://www.ravensburger.us/discover/gravitrax/gravitrax-sta...

thetoon
For what it's worth, we had much better response from our kids with Gravitrax the Game (https://www.ravensburger.co.uk/en-GB/products/gravitrax/expe...) than the regular one. The material is basically the same (and thus could also work at extending a starter set), but there are cards with puzzle included, difficulty ramps up nicely, and the kids got more involved than with the "freeform" approach.

Turing Tumble has also been a big hit at our place, but it's clearly more for older kids (https://upperstory.com/turingtumble/)

UpperStory also has a new game (Spintronics) which looks awesome, but I haven't had the opportunity to test it.

prawn
Wasn't aware of the game. I'll investigate - thanks!

We've had months where Gravitrax has dominated the house and been very popular. Dedicated table for it in the living room. At one point, my 10yo son and I would make a very elaborate set of tracks every night. We'd start with a three way splitter at the high point and take one run each, and leave the third for one of his sisters. But after a while, unless I have time to play it with him, his interest fades and he does crosswords or reads instead.

Many years ago, I set up something like the tumble game for them. Not computing anything, but more like a maze. Tilted the coffee table slightly and let them stick Lego pieces to the surface and attach rubber bands, then roll marbles down. That was popular for a bit.

everythingabili
I teach creative coding and maintain a site that has a list of creative tools (graphics, music, coding, writing, game-making) that are mainly free, and web-based. You can filter them by "easiness".

https://digitalcreativitytools.everythingability.com/

I made the site for university students, but I have tested/vetted all of the tools myself, often with my child who is now just 11. There are some activities you could do with her too. The Inspiration section might throw up some useful stuff for you both.

With regards to game-making, Scratch is a great starting point, but recently we have been really enjoying working with gDevelop - a free, no-code game engine. The videos on YouTube are great to get you both started. Twine (Chapbook) has been a fun tool for creating interactive adventure games, and this Zine-maker is ace https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker

spiffytech
There's an old game from the 90s I loved : The Incredible Machine.

It's all about devising elaborate Rube Goldberg machines to solve puzzles. The cat knocks a ball into the goldfish bowl, which tips over and fills a bucket that operates a pulley that flips a switch that opens a door. That kind of thing.

I remember it being very freeform and exploratory, teaching cause and effect and physics and thinking through complex interaction chains.

I was probably around 7 when I played it. Very age appropriate.

It's available on a web-based DOS emulator!

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-incredible-machine-1m...

Probably downloadable somewhere too.

schwartzworld
The Incredible Machine was amazing, as was the spiritual sequel "The Incredible Toon Machine"
s5300
Hmm… speaking of the 90’s, though it’s on the tail end of it:

Mia Mouse/Mia’s Big Adventure Collection was something I recall playing as a kid.

I definitely think I was much younger than 7 though, I’d been playing RuneScape for close to 3 years by the time I was 7. Mia’s is probably still appropriate & engaging enough for that age though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mia%27s_Big_Adventure_Collec...

I think I’m specifically remembering Mia Math, but it looks like there’s Math/Science/Reading/Language, seems to be marketed for education.

vallanceroad
> The Incredible Machine.

Oh wow. I forgot about this game for a long time, until just now.

Our elementary school didn't have enough buses to take everyone home at once. The bus departures were staggered so a few buses would take some kids home and return for the next groups.

You definitely wanted to be in that last group of kids to leave, which meant you got to sit in your classroom and play one of the three games we had on our two Macintosh SE machines: Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and The Incredible Machine. Hours and hours spent waiting on the bus playing this wonderful game, usually with your friends sitting next to you quietly yelling suggestions at you. Thanks for the reminder!

necmttn
Sir i have been looking for this game for over a decade now, Thank you!
ajonit
I can relate to you, always looking for activities that are both fun and productive to keep her busy. Every evening I spend time and let speak her mind, her thoughts about school or whatever goes in her mind. She has never ending "Why?" :)

Few things she had liked so far -

  World/Asia/Country specific maps arranged as puzzles.
  Legos/Block games.
  Coloring books.
  Cycling.
Starting scratch this weekend - https://scratch.mit.edu/
mysterydip
The Mega Wow series on PBS kids are short (7 mins), entertaining, thought-provoking, and has a science activity you can try at home (though some take longer to set up like one on plants bending towards light sources).
throw_away1525
I can highly recommend Amazing Tales, it is a pen and paper RPG for kids her age. I play with my daughter and she LOVES it. You only need a couple of six sided dice, although you can optionally spice things up with 8, 10, and 12 sided die if you have them (or you can make it special and buy some from your local games shop).

It's basically collaborative storytelling, and the possibility of failing dice rolls makes it exciting (you always 'fail forward', failures never really hurt the player but just open up new opportunities). The book also has tons of tips that you would probably never think of on your own - for instance, don't let your child name their character after themselves. Having a separate name allows them to keep some emotional distance between themselves and their character, which makes scary situations less scary for them!

https://amazing-tales.net/introducing-amazing-tales/

The PDF is 6 bucks, I felt like I had gotten my moneys worth after our very first session.

ca_tech
Hero Kids is another well regarded kid friendly rpg. Also only relies on 6 sided die and each session is an hour tops. Has been a fun way to spend a rainy day for our kids and they get pretty creative, so much so that the "story" sometimes continues throughout the day as they talk about their heros. Also cheap, especially if you purchase the bundle. https://www.heroforgegames.com/hero-kids/
throw_away1525
It's going to be rainy all day tomorrow, and guess how we're going to spend our Saturday afternoon? Thanks for the recommendation. :)
stigi
This sound so cool!

Does anybody know of similar games for non English speaking folks? My kid only speaks German and I have the feeling playing our first RPG will benefit from us all being on the same page in the same language.

Thanks!

throw_away1525
If you can read English well enough to read the rulebook yourself, then you can play with your kids in German... this is not like D&D or something, you never really need to reference the rulebook while playing the game. There is no player's handbook. The rules are really, really light. The focus is really on storytelling.
leandot
Thanks for this, had an amazing evening killing dragons and flying on magic carpets with my daughters.
rebelshrug
Snap Circuits are great: https://www.elenco.com/snapcircuits/

Also a big fan of Legos (and so are my kids).

Highlights magazine is great for that age and can fill up some time.

Step-by-step drawing books can also be fun, and can usually be found at libraries: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/reviews/drawing-book-for-k...

Can also take her stargazing and teach her about constellations. There are mobile apps to help you find them, but books and searching for them yourselves is also fun.

open-source-ux
Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is excellent for kids (and adults). There are tutorials for any topic (https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en). A lot of people are not aware that the Raspberry Pi magazines (MagPi) and books are free as PDFs. Or you can purchase printed books or magazines.

- Magazines: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues

- Books: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/books

Micro:bit

The micro:bit is an even smaller pocket computer for kids. The BBC was a foundation partner, but now a Educational Foundation:

https://microbit.org/

lnsru
Raspberry Pi is out of stock everywhere. Triple regular price on eBay.

Take Arduino. It’s probably more adopted than microbit.

idocoder
I can recommend www.gocoderz.com

This is a web based educational program that teaches kids how to code robots and problem solve.

Some of the activities are real life scenarios - such as the Amazon cyber robotics challenge. In this activity kids code the Amazon robot in a simulated warehouse.

Enjoy!

csmeyer
I made Pickcode, where kids can make chatbots and graphic designs using a hybrid visual/text programming language. https://app.pickcode.io/courses has 5 lessons (todo: make many more), I would say the ones listed as beginner could be fun to pair on with a 7 year old!
rrr83
Thanks for the comments everyone, got to know so many new stuff to explore.
Waterluvian
Minecraft. My kids, a bit younger than 7, are ridiculously creative with it. They’re always making redstone music machines and piston machines.

The best thing about Minecraft is that it naturally scales to their skill. They began just learning the controls and exploring. Then made simple houses. Etc…

The older one is so hooked he builds his own mechanical pressure plates and pistons with Lego.

bombcar
Do try to use Java Minecraft if you can, because modded technical Minecraft will last forever. Once you’ve “beat” the base game move on to things like GregTech and it’ll never end.
nvy
I don't Minecraft but I do have kids. Can you unpack some of those terms?

What is Java Minecraft vs "regular" Minecraft? What is "modded technical Minecraft"?

bombcar
There are two versions of Minecraft. Java version is the original Minecraft, but Microsoft rewrote it and called it "Bedrock" for Xbox; this version is ported to a number of platforms including the PC. It supports "data packs" which can change the game but not as extensively as "mods" for Java Minecraft.

"Technical Minecraft" involves building various machines in Minecraft; either in vanilla (unmodded) using red stone, water, and other properties of the game itself to do things - some are quite complex, but they can include things like intelligent mine cart routing, strip mining, and resource sorting.

"Technical modded Minecraft" involves one or more of the "tech mods" which MASSIVELY increase the complexity; one of the most famous is GregTech, which adds machines and electricity to power them.

Arguably the most complicated tech modpack is Gregtech: New Horizons which has you start out digging dirt with a stick and ends up with you on various planets searching for materials. It approaches and scratches the same itch as Factorio or modded Factorio (and arguably is somewhat like Satisfactory). End-game often involves optimizing the setup to reduce load on the host computer itself.

There are also modpacks with similar depth focused on magic; but the two become mixed.

rahimnathwani
So if I want to get my kid started with only the Java version, should I buy the 39.99 bundle on this page, or the 29.99 non-bundle?

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/store/minecraft-java-bedrock...

And do I need to run the server, or is that only for multiplayer?

bombcar
The cheaper bundle includes both versions, which is nice. You need one per simultaneous player (so if you have two PCs and want to play with your kid you'll need two copies).

You can make the Java client "host a server" (open to network) which is fine for basic play and starting out multiplayer; but you can play single player with no server at all.

The server is nice (and free for Java if you have a machine to spare or even some CPU) because you can make a "persistent world" that's always there whenever someone logs in. But that can all wait for later.

nvy
Thank you. I have a spare debian box that will make a great server, I hope.
mapmap
It's possible to play local multiplayer without a server. One player can host the game and "open to lan." You will each need your own Minecraft license.
lnsru
Beware, that automatic LAN discovery doesn’t always work for me. Address and port must be entered manually.
bombcar
And beware that mods are basically never tested with "open to LAN" - they'll work until they don't for obscure and unknown reasons.

But if you're using complex mods that break on that; you'll know enough to setup a server.

throwaway71271
Not sure if 7 is old enough, I made this card "game" with my daughter when she was 10: https://punkx.org/4917/ which is not really a game but more like a puzzle, you have 54 small programs for a 4 bit made up computer (Richard Buckland's computer) and you have to interpret them in your head or with pen and paper. It's quite interesting to play with her when I change few instructions on a card. (you can also print it yourself on a4 paper)

Other interesting game are of course robot turtles (http://www.robotturtles.com/), but she might be too old for it.

And you might like Mark Rober's https://www.crunchlabs.com/

There is human resource machine that my daughter played when she was 8 or so (https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine) which is a brilliant game.

Also all kinds of "crypto" books, from caesar's cipher to morse code books were very interesting

paradite
I'm building mobile games where you can use AI and machine learning to solve different puzzles.

It has some fans among teenagers: https://ai-simulator.com/

ankaAr
Meccano sets.

For MEV! I love them even 30 years after I got my set, was one of the best "toys" I got as a child.

All old Lego mindstorm are amazing also.

Primo is a toy for even younger people that is cute and teach them about sequences of actions and how to set that.