I made a mistake.
Timothy discovered a Thomas app on the ipad. He is obsessed with Thomas the train. One of the games on the app is a matching game. He quickly figured out how to play the matching game. He was able to navigate the game by touching the cards and would get excited when he found a match. If he found Toby (for instance) and he had already seen Toby somewhere else, he would immediately touch the correct card and say "TWO TOBYS"!!
Here's where the mistake comes in. I thought he had learned how to play a matching game. He had not. He also didn't know what same, different, or match meant.
Timothy pulled out the game Memory yesterday. He wanted to play it. I stopped what I was doing and sat down to play with him. I figured it would be a breeze since he's so good at it on the iPad. I was wrong. He turned over two cards (Nemo and Thumper) and the following exchange occurred:
Me: Are those the same?
Timothy: Yes!
Me: That's Nemo and this is Thumper. Are they the same or different?
Timothy: Same!
Me: No, Nemo and Thumper are different.
Timothy: Different
There was no fight. There was no tantrum (from him at least ... I was kicking myself for being so foolish). We simply turned over the cards and I proceeded to play the game teaching him about same, different, and match.
It just shows you that technology can only bring you so far. One-on-one teaching with your child can't be replaced by a computer, tv, ipad, DS, etc. Now, do I think Timothy would go to college not understanding same, different, and match? No. However, I'm glad to catch it early and to be the one to teach him.