Some of the things my wife and I have provided for our kids:
- lots of bookcases with probably >1500 books (including lots of kids/picture books) - what we've collected over the years
- a family laptop (2012 MacBook Pro) with no internet connection, pre-loaded with Pages, Sheets, Affinity Photo/Designer, a few small games, and some coding tools (Python, Ruby, VSCode, Scratch, etc.).
- Lego Spike and Spike Prime robotics learning sets (with software on an iPad, no internet)
- an upright piano (originally for me, but now they're taking lessons; I got it for $700 at a closeout sale at a piano store)
- a MIDI keyboard connected to Pianoteq running on an iPad in single-app mode with a couple of self-powered studio monitors and headphones
- an old-school landline phone connected to a VoIP box, served by UniFi Talk ($10/month).
- Each of them has their own CD player boombox, we have a large collection of CDs
- An iPad with Audible, disconnected from the internet, but with our audio book collection available (over the years, it's gotten into the hundreds of books)
- starting from when they were very young, I've been periodically loading up Cosmic Osmo (CD edition, from an un-stuffed .img file) running on an emulated Quadra 650 in System 7.5.3 on InfiniteMac.org and let them play for an hour or two at a time. This is such a good game for kids - literally black and white (dithered grays), not overstimulating, very thoughtfully built, sparks imagination and curiosity, full of easter eggs.
- some good play equipment and a hammock in the back yard :)
I hope it has been and will be enriching to them.
- lots of bookcases with probably >1500 books (including lots of kids/picture books) - what we've collected over the years
- a family laptop (2012 MacBook Pro) with no internet connection, pre-loaded with Pages, Sheets, Affinity Photo/Designer, a few small games, and some coding tools (Python, Ruby, VSCode, Scratch, etc.).
- Lego Spike and Spike Prime robotics learning sets (with software on an iPad, no internet)
- an upright piano (originally for me, but now they're taking lessons; I got it for $700 at a closeout sale at a piano store)
- a MIDI keyboard connected to Pianoteq running on an iPad in single-app mode with a couple of self-powered studio monitors and headphones
- an old-school landline phone connected to a VoIP box, served by UniFi Talk ($10/month).
- Each of them has their own CD player boombox, we have a large collection of CDs
- An iPad with Audible, disconnected from the internet, but with our audio book collection available (over the years, it's gotten into the hundreds of books)
- starting from when they were very young, I've been periodically loading up Cosmic Osmo (CD edition, from an un-stuffed .img file) running on an emulated Quadra 650 in System 7.5.3 on InfiniteMac.org and let them play for an hour or two at a time. This is such a good game for kids - literally black and white (dithered grays), not overstimulating, very thoughtfully built, sparks imagination and curiosity, full of easter eggs.
- some good play equipment and a hammock in the back yard :)
I hope it has been and will be enriching to them.