Eight-year-old launches ‘Bored Kids Club’ to beat boredom blues
Victoria Diaz dreams of buying a private jet to fly her family around, but first the eight-year-old entrepreneur must banish kids’ boredom – can her bright idea blow away the dullest of dull days?
READING LEVEL: GREEN
Top End* primary school student Victoria Diaz, eight, has turned her top idea into action, the young entrepreneur* launching a website to solve a problem she shared with many kids her age: boredom.
Her mother, Genie, had shown her a video about children starting businesses and “getting lots of money,” Victoria said.
Sure enough, her own bright idea stuck.
The American-born Territorian soon came up with a clear concept: the BoredKidsClub, a site that suggests activities for bored children.
“I thought maybe I could help bored kids,” Victoria said.
The site, which uses artificial intelligence* to generate ideas, asks users questions such as their age, if they’re inside or outside, how many children are participating and how participants are feeling before offering suggestions. To protect kids’ privacy, no personal information is collected and there are no ads.
Victoria said one of her favourite activities was a nature scavenger* hunt she tried with her sisters, hiding objects from outside and calling out clues such as “warmer” or “colder” as others searched.
Another favourite was a puppet show idea she plans to try.
She knows her audience may start small.
“I don’t think most people know about it,” she said.
But she hopes more parents and kids will eventually find the site and show it to others.
“Kids don’t really read newspapers,” she said.
Her ambitions extend beyond growing the online club.
Victoria said she hoped to earn enough money one day to buy a private jet and fly her family around the world.
“That’s a good goal to strive toward,” her mother said.
For now, Victoria’s focus was improving her creation.
The website, she said, started out being “pretty boring” itself but she has added backgrounds, as well as more questions and feedback options so users can keep suggesting improvements.
“Then I can fix it up,” she said. “My mum can help me fix it up.”
Feedback can be sent via boredkids.club/feedback
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GLOSSARY
- Top End: informal, colloquial nickname for the Northern Territory
- entrepreneur: who trying to make a profit by starting a company or by operating alone in the business world
- artificial intelligence: AI, using computer software and systems to complete tasks as humans would and that imitate intelligent human behaviour
- scavenger: someone who searches for and collects discarded items
EXTRA READING
Why drawing is a monster cure for boredom
Music in the shower is not so hot
QUICK QUIZ
- Victoria’s mum showed her a video that sparked her big idea – what was it about?
- What was Victoria’s favourite activity so far?
- What does Victoria’s site use to generate ideas to banish boredom?
- What would Victoria ideally have enough money to buy one day?
- What has Victoria added to the site since it launched?
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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Ideas for bored kids
Imagine the following prompts being put into Victoria’s website and generate some ideas that you could come up with to help combat the child’s boredom.
Age: 12
Inside or outside: inside
How many children: 3
How are you feeling: crazy
Ideas you could suggest:
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–
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Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking
2. Extension
How would an idea like this that Victoria has created, make her money?
How could she grow her users and people that visit her site?
Time: allow 5 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking
VCOP ACTIVITY
Exercise the body and the mind
Exercise is not only important for the body, but it’s a lot of fun as well. Let’s bring more exercise into classroom learning by creating a VCOP PE game.
You can add a VCOP challenge to pretty much any game, and it’s a great way to encourage the teacher to let the class play more games.
Here is an example to get you started, then you create one of your own.
VCOP dodgeball
The normal rules of dodgeball apply. Two teams throw soft balls at each other and if you get hit, you have to sit out. The team who knocks out all the players on the other team, wins.
VCOP challenge: when you get eliminated, collect a mini-whiteboard and a basic clause from the sidelines. Up-level the sentence (make it better) by adding VCOP. When you show the teacher your completed sentence, you can return to the game.
Play for a set amount of time and the team with the most players left on the court wins.
Support: use the “Up-Level It” card set – players have to complete one card from the set instead of completing all VCOP challenges.
What can you come up with?