🛠️ Three things my 8-year-old built with AI this week. None of them were homework.
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Happy Sunday folks!
Busy week at the kitchen table. Mateo built three things with Claude in one afternoon, I published a couple of posts I've been meaning to write for a while, and we added a few new pages to the site.
In this week's email:
🛠️ Three things Mateo built with Claude in one afternoon (a quiz, a game, and a revision tool)
👧 What AI actually looks like for a 7-year-old — and the one tool I keep recommending for this age
🔧 A few small website updates, including an About page if you've ever wondered who's behind all this
🛠️ Three things my 8-year-old built with Claude Artifacts
Most AI tools give kids answers. Claude has a feature that makes them build things instead.
It's called Artifacts. When you ask Claude to make something interactive (a quiz, a game, a revision tool), it appears as a working panel beside the chat. No download, no separate app, no account for the kid.
Mateo sat down last week and asked Claude to make a European flags quiz. It built one in under a minute. Then he looked at the background colour and decided he didn't like it. I told him to ask Claude himself. He typed the request, it changed. Then he decided he wanted South American flags added too. He typed that too and it updated right away. His mind 🤯
Three prompts. Three different versions of his quiz. All his ideas. I didn't suggest any of them.
Then I wanted to introduce him to a game from my childhood that he'd never heard of - it was Tetris. Within a minute he had it built and he loved it! He worked out the controls himself and played it solidly for about 30 mins.
The full project is on the site with the three exact prompts we used, so you can try it tonight.
[I'm also filming a video for YouTube on this which I'll be uploading shortly.]
👧 What does AI actually look like for a 7-year-old?
This is the question I get a lot. Usually from a parent whose child is mid-primary school, starting to bring home real homework, and they're not sure whether AI is something they should be introducing yet or how to frame it if they do.
This week I published a proper answer to it on the blog.
The short version: age 7 is actually a really good time to start, but only with the right tools and the right framing. The goal at this age isn't productivity, it's curiosity. You want tools that spark questions, not ones that just answer them.
One tool I specifically recommend in the post for this age is Askie, a voice AI designed for children aged 3-15. It answers questions in kid-friendly language and safely sidesteps anything it shouldn't engage with. We've been using it for a while now and it's become one of the first things I suggest to parents of younger kids.
If you'd like to try Askie free for two weeks use code NIALLAITOOLSFORKIDS at signup - this offer is exclusive to our communnity)
🔧 A few small site updates
I added About and Contact pages to the site this week. If you've been reading for a while and wondered who's behind all this testing, the new About page shares a bit more about me and the kids.
Please do reach out if you'd like to discuss anything related to kids and AI - it is my speciality subject!
That's it for this week. The Claude Artifacts video will be uploaded shortly so please subscribe to the YouTube channel and hit the notification bell to be notified when I upload future video - thanks!
