ABCya!, Yahoo! Kids Games Channel and Jumpstart – 3 great websites for kids
ABCya! is a great site that has games for preschool/kindergarten aged children clear through the fifth grade. The youngest age range has a bunch of games to teach kids how to use the computer, such as the house building game, in addition to letter, pattern and number education. As kids get older they can play games that range from typing games, connect the dot in 2s, counting money and even Sudoku! One of the pitfalls of this site is for our pre-readers: instead of visual pictures of what the games contain, the links to each game are in written word form.
The Yahoo! Kids Games channel has a great selection of games that I would place in the older child category. A well-designed, easy to navigate site, kids can choose from a wide range of games from word, board and tile, arcade and more. The kids version of Literati, a Scrabble type game, is just like the “adult” version found on regular Yahoo! Games except for one key point: it removes the chat function. For parents who are adamant about online safety, this is a great feature for Yahoo! to employ. Another thing I love about the Yahoo! Kids Games channel is that it has no advertising!
JumpStart has a great online game for kids of all ages. My oldest son has played JumpStart for the past year and has grown in both computer usability and educational learning. The site provides a safe online place for kids (or really, the whole family) to learn and play. From creating their own character to making their way through the learning games, kids can pick and choose what they're doing at any given time which, in my experience with children, is a real selling point. Children like to take control every now and then and I'm all for it when it is in a safe environment. The only downfall I see with this site is that it occasionally loads slowly on our Internet connection. However, as an added bonus, JumpStart also has computer (CD-ROM) and Wii games so you can extend the learning beyond the website!
These are just three great online gaming sites for kids of all ages. I know that more exist and I'm enjoying either adding them to our library of bookmarked games or saving them for future use.
If you have any great game sites for kids, educational or just plain fun, please leave a comment! I'd love to check them out and maybe include them in a follow up to this post!
Jenna Hatfield, aka @FireMom on twitter, also writes at Stop, Drop & Blog and The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. When she's not busy playing games for kids, she works as a freelance writer and newspaper photographer.
hi moms of the world :)
just to contribute another site suggestion... if you are looking for additional typing games - which are great for developing/honing typing skills - you might want to check out http://freeonlinetypinggames.com or http://freetypinggame.net both of which have a selection of original typing games, wpm tests and other keyboarding resources
Posted by: alex | June 10, 2010 at 10:31 AM
My five year old tends to play what the older girls play. It would be nice to get her on some more younger sites such as these ones. thanks!
Posted by: Mandy W. | June 15, 2010 at 08:18 AM