Game On, Kiddos!

Since introducing my two pre-elementary school children to college basketball this year, it seems to be all they ever talk about lately. My five-year-old is very interested in who each team is, where they are from, and which team I'd like to win. His first question most mornings is, "Who won the game?" Lately, his newest question is, "Who does Barack Obama like?"

My two-year-old is all about Tigers and Wildcats. She likes to growl a lot.

So now that I've set them up with a desktop computer, and because ESPN makes it so easy and cool, I thought it would be fun for the three of us to sit down and fill out our brackets together online - also, I thought it would be a nice way to introduce them to an online activity other than something on PBS and Nick Jr. There was no expectation that they'd have any idea what they were doing, but once we were finished, I realized that their two brackets had as much of a chance as mine did. Suddenly, bragging rights in the Olivo household were up for grabs. Game on, Kiddos!

Yes, I realize that I'm more than five times their combined ages...

Selecting winners of each game went something like this: After some initial picking (I had to choose some obvious ones for him. Was I really going to let him choose Binghamton over Duke, even though green Bearcats are much more interesting than Blue Devils?), we started going through the team names and locations. I'd ask if they wanted the team from Texas or the team from Minnesota, and they'd choose. Then I'd ask bulldogs or tigers, and they'd choose. Sometimes I provided the choice by school colors and uniforms.

In the end my two-year-old daughter picked North Carolina, my son picked Connecticut, and I ended up with Louisville. Oh it's on like Donkey Kong!

Now aside from the obvious spirit of competition in our household, I found that this turned out to be a great activity for the three of us. First, we were able to talk about the different teams and where they are located - It turns out my son loves geography and we had a map up on a different browser tab so that I could show him the difference between the UConn Huskies and the Washington Huskies (we all chose UConn). We were able to look at the flow of the brackets and see how 64 teams could be narrowed down to one by removing half of them each round.

Most importantly (and especially thanks to Barack Obama) we were able to see how the web can be used to bring people together around one activity where everyone can participate. Looking at other people's brackets has really opened up my son's eyes that the web is much more than a bunch of Curious George games and Wordgirl video clips. It is a way for people to connect to the rest of the world. Now that the games have begun, we can start checking in on other people and see how our selections stack up, and suddenly, this activity becomes much greater than the sum of our own little household.