Commercial computer games
My 6-year old daughter loves “Aladdin’s Maths Quest” (Disney). It features visual-spatial puzzles, basic addition, and problem solving such as: if I have 8 crystals, and half of them are green, and two are white, and the rest are red.... A year ago, she refused to do the problem unless I changed the crystals into lollies, because that’s what she could relate to.
My 4-year old son prefers Bob the Builder games of the “fix the leaky pipe” sort: diagnose the fault, find the right tool and the right parts, fiddle with all the bits. You know, boy stuff.
They both love “Learn the Language” games from New Concepts (the games are aimed at adults, but my kids love them, and their Polish vocabulary is impressive as the result).
Free online games
My friends swear by the following for 7+ year olds:
- http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/games.aspx (general science)
- http://www.kidspot.com.au/SpellingGames/wordscrambler-index-kidspot.asp (spelling)
- http://www.coolmath4kids.com/ (maths)
- http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm (geography of the world)
- http://ababasoft.com/kids/index_logic.html (logic games)
What are some of your favourites?
Please leave a comment on this blog to tell us what your children enjoy playing on the computer.
Kids and the Internet
Of course, we could go into the debate of whether it’s better to kick a soccer ball around or to click the mouse, how much screen time is too much, and so on. We won’t. Some basic things to keep in mind, though:
- Teach your kids to be Internet-savvy
- Read articles about Internet safety for kids
- Assess how safe your child is on the Internet
- Consider using the Net Nanny
- Don't wrap them in cotton wool: they have to brave the cyber jungle, sooner or later....
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