Educational Online Games
The great thing about online games is that there are many that work on skills your child is learning at school! It's just like doing homework! There are numerous sites that have created some really amazing high-quality games for kids to play AND learn at the same time!
Many of these sites (such as 2learn, pbskids, starfall or abcya) are well known to parents and educators and may already be in use by your family! However, many of the educational games may be hard to find on the site, are too easy/difficult for your child, give you links to print, may ask you to use your webcam to play along or are right beside silly games that have no benefit to learning other than using basic computer skills. Not to mention the fact that there are hundreds of websites that contain games all claiming to be educational regardless of whether the content is or not!
In the past I have supplied a list of some of the better sites and often direct my students to these games but I have discovered a larger problem... For children who are learning to read, they are very easily lost in the sites! And of course, somehow always manage to find the games that have nothing to do with the skills I (or you) would like them to work on!
I have decided instead to provide links to these sites within my own site. I have also categorized them by Grade level and Subject to make it easier for you and I to direct students to the specific skills I'd like to either challenge them with or work on areas of weakness. I also train my students to keep my Games Page open in the background and to just exit out of the game they have chosen when they are finished instead of navigating further on the actual site the game is hosted on. You will find all these games in the Educational Online Games links.
I hope this proves to be useful to you and your child! If you know of any really great sites or games I have not included, please let me know and I will add them!
Many of these sites (such as 2learn, pbskids, starfall or abcya) are well known to parents and educators and may already be in use by your family! However, many of the educational games may be hard to find on the site, are too easy/difficult for your child, give you links to print, may ask you to use your webcam to play along or are right beside silly games that have no benefit to learning other than using basic computer skills. Not to mention the fact that there are hundreds of websites that contain games all claiming to be educational regardless of whether the content is or not!
In the past I have supplied a list of some of the better sites and often direct my students to these games but I have discovered a larger problem... For children who are learning to read, they are very easily lost in the sites! And of course, somehow always manage to find the games that have nothing to do with the skills I (or you) would like them to work on!
I have decided instead to provide links to these sites within my own site. I have also categorized them by Grade level and Subject to make it easier for you and I to direct students to the specific skills I'd like to either challenge them with or work on areas of weakness. I also train my students to keep my Games Page open in the background and to just exit out of the game they have chosen when they are finished instead of navigating further on the actual site the game is hosted on. You will find all these games in the Educational Online Games links.
I hope this proves to be useful to you and your child! If you know of any really great sites or games I have not included, please let me know and I will add them!