Hi, I’m Nat. Welcome to Naticulate.
Here you’ll find some tools, toys and tips I’ve come across for helping kids under your care build focus and stay engaged over a sustained period of time.
You don’t have to be a parent to be here – you could be an aunt, uncle, teacher, tutor, nursery practitioner, neighbour, babysitter… or just a big kid yourself.
Current craze: Linking Cubes.
*Beep*... *Buzz*...
We’re living in an increasingly distracted and overstimulated world.
Our brains are being rewired to crave and expect new stimulation every five seconds, whether we’re aged 3 or 93. At every waking (and sleeping) moment, the next dopamine-inducing notification is only a few breaths away.
…sorry one sec, someone just messaged me…
The irony that you’re reading these words on a screen is not lost on me. I wish I could break the glass in front of you that so intrusively divides our worlds.
In fact, why don’t you come round to mine for tea. Then we can have a proper chat.
I can show you how to build Iron Man out of cubes…
we grow old because we stop playing.
For those who like the fine print...
… here’s a bit more about me.
I grew up as the eldest of five kids, so we had lots of toys and games around the house for a long time. These were the days of the Nokia 3310, so smartphones weren’t a thing yet.
My three sisters constantly bring up how I used to drag them to the comic store every Sunday afternoon to buy comics and trading cards. I thought they enjoyed it as much as I did as they’d usually pick and choose something for themselves. However they now tell me they just bought random junk because I was buying stuff and didn’t really know what the fuss was all about.
Don’t think their Fred Flintstone Special Foil Insert cards ever became a thing…
Anyway, just when my parents thought the kiddie phase was over and sent their last child off to university, I got married and had two kids of my own.
So here we go again. Now I get to play with all their toys spend quality time playing and learning with them.
Home experiments
Now that I’ve got kids of my own, I get to test new games and learning hacks on them to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s like having my own lab at home with two guinea pigs to experiment with.
Except real guinea pigs aren’t as cheeky and opinionated.