Soooo much #homework bought a #mac mini - it was time for a new computer #kids

Our beloved G4 desktop with cinema screen had it's hard drive crash about eight years ago, which is when David purchased us a Macbook Pro laptop - my first Mother's Day after Emily was born in 2007. 

That laptop is still running (barely) but has eaten through three batteries and can no longer upgrade to the newest operating system. Oh! And somethings pilled on the keyboard so I had to use the keyboard from our old G4. You should have seen me trying to use the laptop with an additional keyboard sitting onto of it! Horrendous.

Anyhow, it was time for something new.

Because we had the beautiful cinema screen monitor already, we didn't want to invest in an iMac so, we went with a tricked-out Mac mini. We purchased a wireless keyboard and mouse as well as a superdrive (CD ROM) and surprised Emily with it. We are calling it "her" computer because she's the one who uses it 90% of the time.

You would not believe the amount of computer time that is required of her each week: typing practice (I didn't learn to type until High School and it was on a typewriter!), SpellingCity spelling practice, Raz-Kids online reading (2-4 books each week), and typing up a weekly book report. Not to mention fun stuff like Pokemon and a Frozen version of Candy Crush. ;)

She absolutely LOVES her new computer and constantly bargains anything, everything in order to earn screen time! Even her homework has become much more interesting and exciting when done on a computer. And who doesn't love to FaceTime with Gram?!?!?

As you can see (can you see?) in the photo above, we set it up on our kitchen table that is between the kitchen and playroom, because it's where we spend most of our time as a family. This allows me to help her when needed and keeps us all together even when we are doing separate things. We are just now venturing into online safety so we have a password on the computer itself that she doesn't know and we have recently downloaded WOT via Google to further protect her from purposely or accidentally venturing onto the WWW unsafely.

Do you have a computer at home that your kids use? If so, do you have parental controls? What are they? Please share!