Educational Computer Games, web sites & programs?

BostonB

Do your kids use any Educational Computer Games & programs. If so what are they?

Ludo

Would be interested in hearing some suggestions about this myself also....but let's not turn this into the usual debate about the pros and cons of children using computers. This has been done to death already and it nit what the OP was asking about.

BostonB

Ye, I no interest in getting games. Currently has a LeapPad which he loves. Got a Leapster too for the car. He likes that but not as much as the LeapPad. Sees us on the laptop and wants to use it. I've let him draw things and I was surprised how well he can use the mouse etc. Some counting and spelling games would be good. Or puzzles etc.

littlebug

I've never bought any games. Both of mine started out just learning how to do the letters and numbers in word and then how to change the colour etc. Now they occasionally go on the nickjr or cbeebies websites where there are loads of games though the youngest (3) generally just wants to print pictures for colouring "which button do I pwess to pwint?" . Some of the games have been great just for gaining contwol... sorry control:p of the mouse, some are more educational than others but the great thing is that they're all free and there's so many they don't get bored. We try to restrict to an hour or so each once or twice a week.

tk123

we had Sammy's Science house - it came free with the pc but my nephew loved it from about 2-8? There was another one as well that he liked better Thinking Things - this one has a sand pit and you lay down roads, hills etc and cars drive around them

BostonB

Some ideas there to try. Thanks.

TequilaMockingBird

My daughter loves www.starfall.com

babyboom

My middle child is dyslexic and is currently using a programme called "Touch, Type, Read and Learn" (I think). It teaches children to recognise words and letters by showing them on the screen, speaking them in earphones and typing them also. I'm hoping it will benefit him as we are having massive difficulties teaching him to read (he's 7½). The youngest (3½) uses the CBeebies website, Club Penguin sometimes and the eldest (10) used the Bratz website occasionally.

parsi

The "Reader Rabbit" series is good but check compatibility with your Pc..

TequilaMockingBird

babyboom wrote: »

My middle child is dyslexic and is currently using a programme called "Touch, Type, Read and Learn" (I think).

If you get a chance could you post a link or more information on this program? I googles it, but no luck. Its sounds great. Thanks.

giddyup

What ages? My daughter (3) likes http://www.poissonrouge.com (nicely put together) and www.sproutonline.com (Kids site from PBS of Sesame St fame) which has some good educational games.

If your child can use a mouse there is lots of great content online (content and time spent online supervised by adult goes without saying....ooops I said it!)

babyboom

"If you get a chance could you post a link or more information on this program? I googles it, but no luck. Its sounds great. Thanks. "

I don't have a website link, he's actually attending a course on a Monday evening in Skerries. It was his Resource Teacher that put me in contact with them. It is possible to PM you? I'm not overly familiar with this website so don't know how to do that.

TequilaMockingBird

babyboom wrote: »

"If you get a chance could you post a link or more information on this program? I googles it, but no luck. Its sounds great. Thanks. "

I don't have a website link, he's actually attending a course on a Monday evening in Skerries. It was his Resource Teacher that put me in contact with them. It is possible to PM you? I'm not overly familiar with this website so don't know how to do that.

Thanks Babyboom, click on my name on the left there and the option to send a PM is there. Welcome to Boards!

TequilaMockingBird

sueme wrote: »

If you get a chance could you post a link or more information on this program? I googles it, but no luck. Its sounds great. Thanks.

lol

Maybe I should use some of these educational programs!

silvine

I used to work in this area. If you are looking for educational software check out:

www.do2learn.com
www.edtech.ie
www.chooseandtellseries.com
www.diskovery.ie

di11on

My daughter loves www.uptoten.com

Lab_Mouse

Can anyone recommend some good websites that give educational games(spelling or numbers etc)for a 6 yr old.Just want to balance out his computer time,

Thanks in advance

TequilaMockingBird

Try this thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055277486&highlight=starfall

Lab_Mouse

Thanks for the link

snellers

in the past for my little neice I have found the BBC - (CBBC) website to be fun but educational for kids

often many of the characters in the games are already known from seeing them on the tv/dvd so creates extra excitement and enthusiasm!

best of luck

yummymummy97

The Bayard range of monthly magazines are good for ages 3-12.

Check them out:

http://www.storyboxbooks.com/

http://www.adventureboxbooks.com/

http://www.discoveryboxbooks.com/

snellers

yummymummy97 wrote: »

The Bayard range of monthly magazines are good for ages 3-12.

Check them out:

http://www.storyboxbooks.com/

http://www.adventureboxbooks.com/

http://www.discoveryboxbooks.com/

mmmmm.....the OP has asked for WEBSITES, not books/magazines.....me thinks a possible alternative reason you mention those particular books - do you work for them / sell them by chance? Not really on advertising in posts that don't even request the info

di11on

My 5 year old has had lots of fun on

www.uptoten.com

Demonique

Mavis Beacon is good for older children, I used it to learn to touch type when I was about 15.
It might be a good idea to turn off the sound as it beeps whenever a mistake is made and I made a lot of mistakes at first and there were several of us learning to use it at one time, so the constant beeping was very annoying

Catari Jaguar

di11on wrote: »

My daughter loves www.uptoten.com

Oh that is a fab site!! I use Boowa and Kwala for music intergration in Computers class with my senior infants. There are lovely songs with a little animation about making sandcastles or cleaning up, and then activities based on it. 67 songs I think and over 300 games!! Just sheer cuteness!


Boowa and Kwala

Another software program we use is Mouse Island, it has 3 levels of maths problems and they children love it!

Mouse Island



Tizzy's Toybox is great for literacy and all the children that don't have English as a first language pick up a lot on it.

Tizzy's Toybox

pljudge321

Don't forget Tux Paint if they like to draw on the computer, its like a much better kid friendly version of paint but with stamps and brushes that can paint brick wall, grass, stars etc.

http://www.tuxpaint.org/

xxmarymoxx

My daughter also use www.starfall.com and i have to say its very good

Stroke Politics

www.topmarks.co.uk is a good one too. I use it for English and maths games.....

Orion

If you have an old PC or laptop QIMO is top notch for kids. It's Linux but don't be afraid - the kids don't care. It's nice and friendly with big friendly buttons for the excellent educational games. The kids love it. Most of the games on it are the gCompris suite.

Note to non-technical people: it's a full operating system that will replace Windows. It will give you the option to set up a dual boot system so you can choose Qimo or Windows. Best option if you're new to Linux is to use an old pc that you may have lying around and install it on that for the kids.

Coriolanus

Get em a typing tutor. There's a few on the market that make of it a game.

chez-moi

We have a young boy with ASD. He's now 7. At about 5 years we heard about a website www.headsprout.com. The site is aimed at kindergarden gen kids. We set him up on the website cost approx USD140. It is absolutely amazing how much he has improved with his reading since he started and now completed the programme. His reading has deveped to the extent that is one of the better readers in his mainstream class. The other great thing is you get the first 3 lessons free so you get guage wether your child will take to the lessons

I can't recommend this website more.

byhookorbycrook

If the school uses Jolly Phonics, there's a good cd-rom of games to go with it.

phillip33

I use Reader Rabbit Personalized second grade for my kid and found it useful. softwareforkids also provides products for different age groups.

barneysplash

I asked this very question in the Computer & Tech forum last week.

I didn't get much response, but there seems to be a better audience here.

Here are the sites and programs I can recommend :


The American Libraby Association has a list of approved sites for kids:

http://www.ala.org/greatsites


The next 4 things are programs that are downloaded and used without
being connected to the internet. They are all free to own, and totally
legal to use and share.



Type Faster is a good freeware typing program that teaches touch typing.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/typefaster/



Pivot Stickfigure Animation : This is a program that lets you
make simple animations using a point and click vertsion of the
flickbooks we used to have years ago.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/stickfigure.html



Tux Paint is a drawing and painting program.

http://www.tuxpaint.org/download/windows/

The link to download the program is in the bottom right of this page.



Wikipedia for Schools

My friend has asked me not to allow internet access on the laptop.

So I thought I'd use an encyclopedia so that her child can learn how
to use internet-surfing skills i.e. using hypertext, navigating between
articles etc.

I found that the online Encyclopedia, Wikipedia has a version that can be
downloaded for use offline. This was developed for use in schools that
have computers but do not have access to the internet, especially in
poorer countries. It is also used in schools in the UK, and is based on the UK
school's curriculum for pupils aged 8 - 17 years.

I've written a quick guide below, and there are instructions on the Wikipedia page
also.

To download the encyclopedia you have to use a program called Bit Torrent.
This is a program that lets people share large files over the internet.
It is a bit technical to do the download, so ask any computer nerds you know
for help

What you have to do is to download a small file called a torrent.
This is like table of contents for the main file.
This main file is a single file containing all the pages and
pictures that are in the encyclopedia.
This is called an archive or zip file. It is called a zip file because all
the files are squeezed down and "zipped" into a single container.

To download the main file, you have to load the torrent file into a program
called a client. This program then uses your internet connection to find and
download all the parts of the archive.

The most popular torrent client is called μtorrent, pronounced micro-torrent
as the μ is the Greek letter for micro.

You can download the torrent file and the utorrent program on the below page.

http://www.soschildrensvillages.org....ia-for-schools

Here is the Wikipedia page giving an overview of the encyclopedia for offline use:

http://schools-wikipedia.org/

Once you have downloaded the file you can unzip it using a program called an
archive manager. WinZip is a popular archive manager. I use a manager called 7-zip.

Using bit torrent and working with archives are great skills to have in this day and age.