How do you make OS9 Kid Friendly

You are probably looking for something like At Ease or Kid Desk. Kid Desk is like At Ease but gives a much more kid friendly environment.

Kid Desk Video

At Ease basically makes the Mac like iOS. Super simple for kids since you give them a screen with large buttons to push.

I was hacking along quite nicely in System 7 at that age. But to get her started At Ease sounds like a good idea, then limited Finder and lastly full Finder as her reading improves. Kids learn these things very fast.

Edit: I remember OS9 having At Ease-like functionality built in, look in the control panels.

Simple Finder? Should be a Preferences option in the Finder itself.

Barnacle, you might be thinking of the Multiple Users control panel.

You will want to use Panels in OS 9. Very similar to At Ease.

I second Panels - its built into OS 9, and you can set it up in Multiple Users. Very easy to set up, and very easy for her to use.

Re: KidDesk - when I was back in Grade 7 they put that on all the Macs at school. It barely allowed you to do really...anything. I graduated that year, and I think they phased out the Macs shortly after that.

My son has navigated my Macs well ever since he was about 5, which was when he was coordinated to use the mouse. I try to expose my son to multimedia apps which aren't too menu-heavy. Stuff like Spongefork, where you can draw squiggles which are rendered as audio. And Pixeltoy, where you can draw shapes and colors which cycle through a generative video display. Simple drawing and painting apps. Anything which gets him to interact and be creative rather than passively consuming books and videos.

how about Kid Pix Deluxe? I still play with that a bit, its still fun to use.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I will start with Panels and I will make sure to have Kid Pix Deluxe and other suggested software on it.

It will take time, but I hope to have it setup in a week or two.