My masterpiece demonstrates the grass, sparkle and brick tools. Kids can use these tools to create whatever they can imagine. On the “magic” menu, we see two brick tools, a “sparkle” tool as well as a rainbow tool. We also see an icon for “magic,” which gives us the menu we see on the right.
On the left side, we see icons for the various functions such as drawing, text, and shapes. As you can see in Figure 2, I'm only slightly more advanced than your average 5 year old art student. It certainly isn't as powerful as the Gimp, but it has a few features that kids should have fun with. What makes Tux Paint any different than the rest? What makes it qualify as an educational program? Well, Tux Paint is really geared toward young children it's simple enough that they can use it with little or no instructions. Almost every computing environment comes with a free paint program. When I first encountered Tux Paint listed as an educational program, I had some doubts. Either way, it's a nice touch for a children's program who doesn't love penguins? In the typing and Math games, Tux shoots down invaders or eats fish as they fall from the sky.
In the paint program, Tux gives instructions on how to select a color from a pallet. Do you sense a theme developing here?Īll three games feature Tux, the mighty Linux mascot. I use Linux for work almost exclusively so I was a bit curious to see if there were any good children's educational programs for Linux it turns out that there are some very good ones and I'm going to discuss 3 of them today: Tux Paint, Tux Typing, and Tux of Math Command. As a homeschooling family, my wife and I are very involved in our children's education and since we're both a couple of nerds, much of our children's education is done on the computer.