ONE FOR THE KIDS:

Hi gang!
Here are a collection of tips that may be useful for getting your kids involved with various aspects of Ensemble. 

The first thing you may want to do before introducting your kids to Ensemble is go to GeoManager, click on Confirm Delete and Confirm Replace, then click on Save options. This will give you a slight safety net against the accidental disappearance of important files. Now that I have your confidence built up (grin), a few ideas...

One question.. how young is too young? That's up to you. I've been an elementary school computer teacher for many years now and introduce kids to computers in Kindergarten. There are some great opportunities for exploration within the Ensemble environment.. all it takes is some creativity and a good computer insurance policy (just a joke!).

GEODRAW:
GeoDraw is an excellent way to introduce your kids to windowing and using the mouse. Things as simple as pointing, clicking, and moving objects don't necessarily come naturally. First, open GeoDraw. Click on the maximize button (square in the upper right corner) so that it's fullscreen. Make sure the toolbox is showing (I like to move it off to the lower left corner where it's not in the way. Now click on MODIFY. Click on Line properties, area properties, and text properties. In each case leave the window open and drag it down to the bottom of the screen. This will give your kids plenty to play with. You may want to give a demo of what to do or take the completely exploratory approach.  Kids in the early elementary grades are most likely to experiment with colors, shapes, and patterns. 

GEOWRITE:
For the young ones...
Ever wonder how young is too young to teach your kid to type? Of course it depends on your childs readiness but even 9 or 10 yr olds can learn. There are great typing tutor programs geared to kids available commercially and even some shareware available here online (Keyword: Quickfind then type "type" or "Typing"). Another option is to get out the old typing manual and setup your own lessons in GeoWrite.
You could easily type a row of letters (start with the home row and lots of repetition) then skip a line.. have your child type in the line you skipped copying the line above. Whether practicing typing or writing a simple story, be sure to adjust the font size to at least 18 pts, possibly 24. This will match the font size in the primary grades' readers and will give your child the feeling that he/she is accomplishing something (fills up the page fast).

For older kids...
Do you remember your teacher telling you to write a first draft then refine it to a final copy? If you're like me, your first draft WAS your final copy. If you can get your kids to write reports in GeoWrite, the ease of editing will make it much more likely that they'll improve on their work. Be sure to show them how to use the spell checker!

Wanna get sneaky? Show your kids how to use the encyclopedia available here online (Keyword: Encyclopedia). Once your child has mastered the art of searching and locating the information that is needed, and has learned to use copy/paste or quickcopy to patch it into GeoWrite; report writing will be easy and you may never get your computer back.

Teaching your kid to play solitare:
Just a few fun tips.. set up solitare at the beginner's level and see how long it takes your kid to figure out you just have to click on the card in the draw file (or any other) and an appropriate destination will be highlighted. For starters, you may want to set number of cards drawn to one instead of three and possibly even turn scoring off.

How to win at tetris:
Here are a few survival tips for YOU. Your kids probably already know how to play tetris after thousand hours in front of a "Game Boy". So your top score is 1200 and your kids score 10,000 on a bad night? Here are a few "get even" ideas. 
First, turn off Preview peices since that causes you so score less. Secondly, drop a piece (using the spacebar) from as high as you can and still place it correctly.. the higher the piece when you drop it, the higher your score. Finally, keep this in mind:
If you complete 4 lines at once, you get a thousand point bonus. The only way to do this is to complete the 4 lines but leave a vertical column empty until you get a blue 4x1 and then drop it in. Good luck!!

Hope you enjoy these tips and will get your kids involved with Ensemble. (Remember it's ONLY a computer.. giggle).
-GWRepRobyn :-)