I've been pretty good with answering Aaron's questions so far. The last one that I remember getting stuck on was "What is heaven?" I guess it was time for another tricky one to pop up.
Like many other parents today, I spend a lot of time on the internet, and, Aaron is often by my side when I am there (or should I say "here"?). He thinks YouTube is the place for all Thomas clips. He also knows that I have to check my "EMU" each day. Its funny how he substituted the word EMU for EMAIL just because "email" wasn't familiar to him. The computer is also where he goes to talk to his dad.
On the weekend, he picked up on the word "internet". I must have mentioned it one to many times that I have to go "download some Thomas" from the internet.
So, the next time we sat in from of the computer. He asks Where is the internet?.
I was stumped. It really is a question that I should have had a prepared answer to but I didn't see it coming. I was speechless for longer than I would have liked, hmmm-ing and er-ing and I did try to fudge the answer but he persisted. He expected it to be a physical place and it was so hard to explain something virtual to him.
In the end, the best I could do was "The internet is an invisible place where people go to share information. Things like Thomas videos and music. When you learn to read and spell, you can find out anything you want to know there."
Today, I've been searching the internet for something I want to know. How do you accurately describe the internet to a 2 year old?
I'm still looking :). Feel free to leave me some comments on how you'd explain the internet to a 2 year old.
4 comments:
Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet . Print out the picture on the right hand side. The lines are telephone company and cable company lines. Tell him your computer is sitting at one of the points around the edge. When your computer talks to another computer it follows the lines that take it to another person's computer's home at a different point along the edge. At each point where the lines come together there are other computer's (routers) in cities all over the world that tell your computer which line to follow to get to the other end.
I'll have to leave it at this. I keep adding little bits here and there. Pretty soon I won't be able to understand what I'm talking about.
It is the place between 2 nets that contain information, "Inter-Net". Sounds right?
Much as I hate to admit it, Mike's approach is really good. Just explain it in terms of something he understands, like a telephone - you can tell him that the internet is like a telephone that connects people and lets them share things.
The answer is the internet is everywhere all the time..........
well except in Jakarta if it is raining, the suns up, its night time, you desperately need to find somethings and so on LOL
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