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It sounds like they give the kids time to pursue a personal interest and do a "project" of some sort. DD asked the teacher if she can program mods for computer games (like minecraft) and the teacher said that last year that didn't go well, because the kids spent too much time messing around with the game. Anyone have suggestions of a personal project for a geek? She is in fourth grade. She would love doing something with computers. I suggested she program with Scratch (she has a book) but she said something about it not working (like the book doesn't match what's online).
If she can do Scratch at school, I would think she could do this. It might be better to do it at home where you can help her, though.
For something completely different, can she teach herself to knit or crochet? Once she can do a basic stockinette stitch, knitting can actually be really good math activity - figuring out designs requires a good intuitive grasp of arithmetic. You can encourage her to learn to alter patterns to fit. And it can be soothing to have something to do with your hands. I knitted through years of classes at MIT.
For something completely different, can she teach herself to knit or crochet? Once she can do a basic stockinette stitch, knitting can actually be really good math activity - figuring out designs requires a good intuitive grasp of arithmetic. You can encourage her to learn to alter patterns to fit. And it can be soothing to have something to do with your hands. I knitted through years of classes at MIT.
She knows how to knit basic things like squares but doesn't know how to form anything into shapes. Her out of town grandmother taught her the basics of knitting (a 5 minute lesson) but nothing beyond that and I don't know anything about it. Is there a book or something that she can follow to make other things?
Programming is a good idea, but the inevitable question is, "program what?" There has to be some purpose that captures the kid's attention, otherwise it's going to be torture. This is why stuff like Minecraft tends to be a common gateway to programming skills.
A multimedia project would be one way to get her geek on, whether that's making a song, a movie, a photo slideshow, graphic art, etc.
Following Dude's idea. A multimedia presentation using Open Office's Impress (equivalent of PowerPoint) might be a nice multiple reward approach. She could research and present possible programming, maker, and technology ideas of interest to kids while in the process of learning the range of tools in a presentation package (which has some programmatic components.) If she is used to connect the dot type of projects, maybe this is the perfect time to figure out how to do things herself?
Vi Hart has a lot of videos which explain concepts that can be created into projects. For my 6 year old, we did quite a few:
Vi Hart's videos are a starting point for a project for a geek. Let her browse through all of Vi Hart's videos on youtube to figure out if any interest her.