[athenot]

> Crayons for instance don’t help kids test their knowledge of letters or numbers or full words, and I’m not sure Lego brings that much over Minecraft for instance.

Anedote but I don't allow any tablet– or phone–play, yet my daughter is more than able to test her knowledge of numbers and full words. She can write out words and get to practice hand-writing at the same time. When it comes to numbers and words, she is at least on par with others her age if not ahead (disclaimer: proud dad).

Crayons and paper bring one advantage over apps: a creative boredom, where, having completed something somewhat structured, she gets to pause and them come up with a playful approach to trying to spell new words, trying to draw new things, all in an unstructured way. We set the framwork but it's a lot looser and she gets to play within it, recombining ideas in different ways.

When she visits relatives that have tablet games, it's amazing to see how her mind just goes blank in front of them and then for the rest of the day the creative vibe seems to be gone.