Educational+Games+and+Activities

**  WEEK 1**
For this activity, we're going to take a look a few online games and activities for young children, and evaluate them for their pedagogical soundness, interactivity, and other important characteristics. As early child educators, it's important to not only be aware of some of the activities available to children, but also understand what distinguishes online resources from being good (effective for instruction or learning) or bad (a waste of time).

__**Directions**__
 * 1) Using the [|Evaluation Worksheet] as a guide explore some of the websites below.
 * 2) On this Wiki page, write a brief description of the site and your comments about it's overall effectiveness as a teaching/learning tool (note, not all sites are effective). Even if someone has already added comments or a description, you may modify or add to what's been written, even if you disagree with the evaluation. Also, since most of the sites below link to a general site with a variety of activities, **be sure to create links to specific games and activities that you have reviewed**. See the example below.
 * 3) After you've completed an evaluation of a few sites and added some comments, continue to grow the list throughout the remainder of the course, by adding new sites that are age-appropriate and that you would recommend to other teachers. Note, do not add sites that are teacher-or-parent only sites. We'll use the Educator Resources page to create that list.

//Note: please include your initials after each comment//

I thought that this game was boring too, but I also know that what adults think is boring is not always boring to kids. I let my seven year old granddaughter try it out and she seemed to like it. She doesn't generally like math but doing it on the computer spark a bit of an interest in it. We also viewed [|Math Cats]. I wouldn't expect a child to spend a lot of time on this site but in small chunks of time a couple a days a week might help to build some skills. (DD) I also thought this game was boring, there was not enough interaction. I let the children in our prek class try it but we couldn't figure out what to do with the letters. This is not a site I'd save. (BH) ||
 * = ===**Web Address**=== ||= ===**Content Focus**=== ||= ===**Description and comments about the effectiveness of the resource; include some brief comments about what you like or don't like about the site, and why.**=== ||=  ||=   ||
 * [|Play and Learn Literacy Center] || Literacy and Math || This site offers games and activities in four different languages. Activities help to reinforce shape, letter and number recognition. Emergent readers will enjoy trying to spell simple words such as colors by using the [|Words-Colors tool] Thought that this site was very basic and perhaps a little boring for children. I did however like that the activities are offered in other languages. I agree with the previous statement; I think the site is rather boring. I viewed the Number Game [|Literacy Center]. This game shows a number 1 then says "1". There is an arrow that you click to move to the next page. The process is repeated. At the top of the page, you can choose another game giving you a numeral, then the # of objects. There are no verbal or pictorial directions given, so a preschooler would need supervison; a kindergartener or young primary student would be bored. In my opinion, this is a good site for eye hand coordination, mouse control, and developing an understanding of sequence, but would not hold a young child's attention regarding content. The bright primary colors may be appealing to a young audience (mv). I tried several different games on this site, letters, numbers and shapes, and I agree they were very boring. There is not much interaction with the shapes and letters, and I could not even figure out what to do on page 5 of the letters game. Also, there is not much encouragement provided for children to try to get the right answer and when they do get the answer correct all they see is a balloon go across the page. I also did not like the fact that there are no written or oral directions, other than trial and error. These games did not hold my attention for very long. This site was not at all engaging or appealing. I would not recommend this site. AN
 * [|Starfall] || Literacy (limited math)-LS || This site offers children with various reading abilities games and stories that they can interact with independently. In the [|Learn to Read] section of the site, children select a story and have the choice of reading it on their own or can click on words that they are unsure of to have the computer read it to them. I found each story to be repetitive and excellent at reinforcing the skill being taught. For example, a story which focused on the short a sound made that short a sound each time a page was turned.I this this sight can be used with children who are preschool aged through the primary years. This sight does offer some calendar work and activities for the 100th day celebration, but math on this sit was very limited(LS)

I found the phonics section to be not as interesting as It could have been but helpful for young children none the less. I am thinking about phonics when I was growing up. My parents were not the most educated and as much as they tried to help sound out the letters, I could not get it. I could not hear the sounds. This sight gave clarity to the short sound and long sound of letters. I to liked the Learn to read section. Repetitiveness sort of drills it in for children to understand without them getting frustated and learning at the same time. (AM) I thought that the phonics section would get boring. The story section had the neat conponent where the student could have the word repeated if they weren't familiar w/ that word.(JS)

In the Fun to Read section, [|All About Me] offers an interactive way for children to first create a character about themselves, and then make up silly stories about their pets. Hey, I liked this one also. Cool for them to make a story book for their make-believe storyPrint it out and bind it.I bet these books would be a popular item in the library.(JS) I like the fact that the activities are interactive and children can do them with minimal adult assistance or none, depending on the age level. Having the story being repeated is a great for children who don’t get it the first time. It is especially beneficial for those who need a lot of reinforcing. I am sure a child would choose the Learn to Read activity over the All About Me activity as it is more interactive and fun filled. (JSC) As I shared in class, my son really enjoyed this site when he was in pre-school. He has a receptive and expressive language delay, so the pace was just right for him. He became very comfortable with letter sounds, and enjoyed reading Zac the rat the most. We know children learn through repetition, however it was the level of confidence he gained when using this site that impressed me the most. S.S. The children in our prek loved this site, I think we spent atleast two hours exploring all facets. It was challenging, but not frustrating. BH ||
 * [|Sesame Street Games] ||  || What a wonderful site for children and parents to enjoy together! There are several video segments with lovable Sesame Street characters like Zoe, Elmo, and Grover. There are coloring activities that children can complete online or print out and color the old fashioned way. All of the games and activities are broken down by subjects such as numbers, thinking games, science, etc. But what I really liked is that they also broken down by theme http://www.sesamestreet.org/browsegamesbytheme

My nephew and I really lost track of time playing on this website. We really like the Around the World Day. This site offers an array of development skills, which are address in the PA Early Learning Standards. I was excited to see the various content areas such as cultural appreciation, disabilities, early reading/math, feeling/self-confidence, and spanish language. I particularly like how the site was easy to navigate and how it give the children directions to move along and play, the feedback when children responsed correctly was great. My nephew was excited when Elmo told him he got it right! I thought it was great that the video segments had "live" people as well as animations. The content was definitely age-appropriate for children 2-5 yrs. I would recommend this site to others. It could also be used in the classroom environment for extensions of learning. Teachers could use this as family connections, rather than an boring ditto sheet homework assignment. They could have the parent and child play one of the games or watch a video segment. This site also allows for the parent and child to design a family web space, which is think brings technology into the home. (Sisterteach1) This is a site that I used a lot when I did family childcare. Toddlers love it (2-4yrs.) unfortunely by the time most kids reach 4yrs. they loose interest in Sesame Street. I agree with the comments above from Sisterteach1. This is a website for home and school. There is lots of variety and it is very interactive. Two and three year olds probably won't have the motor skills to click and drag the mouse, which you need to do with a lot of the games but it is a good use of adult/child interaction time. What I guess I liked most is that it even provided kids with gross motor activities which is missing in most computer games. This was the only site that I explored that was catered to toddlers both[|Play and Learn Literacy] and [|Math Cats] cater to older children (DD).

We also use this site alot with our 3 and 4 year olds and they love it, it definitely crosses the board on interactivity and motor skills. I agree with Sisterteach 1 but many of my families don't have access to computers at home, mostly at work. Some who have computers at home don't allow their childrn to use them. (BH)

My son really liked this website when he was younger. I liked it then as well. It was interesting to see what has changed in the six or seven years since we enjoyed it together! One of the big changes is the parent "hints" that pop up on the side of the screen. There were some really great suggestions on how families could extend the learning that was happening in the game. I think that this reinforces what we were learning in class about effective use of technology in conjunction with other types of learning. I also really liked that the focus wasn't just on building cognitive skills, but social/ emotional skills as well. For example, children could choose to listen to one of the characters sing a song about love. The only negative aspect of this site was that some games took a long time to load. I can see this being frustrating for young children. (KM) I really like this site. I used this site regularly when I was a Director. The video segments are interactive and fun for the kids. [|www.sesesamestreet.org/video-player]. The site was able to keep the children entertained and learning at the sametime. Parents could easily access the site from home or a local library. (DBC)



|| Math Science Social Studies || This site offered a wide variety of activities for children in many content areas. I looked mainly at the math options available. This biggest problem I found with the site was the amount of pop-up advertisements that interrupted or delayed the games. The second problem was that all of the directions must be read by the player (there was not option available to have the computer read it to you). After playing a few games I realized that I was doing a lot clicking but not really processing any information. For example, in the game [|Number Balls] children are asked to select numbers in ascending order. Ascending is a huge word (children must be able to read this word, and have the background knowledge to understand it). During the game you click on the balls, if you are correct the ball disappears and if you make an incorrect selection a buzzer sounds. The game never shows you the correct answer, so there is no reinforcement of the skill. (LS) I agree that the site offers a wide variety of activities. In fact, it is almost overwhelming. I checked out the Puzzle section. The site seems geared toward school age (it does say Primary Games). Once I got over the overwhelming amount of choices, I did enjoy the word jumble, memory games, and hidden pictures. These types of activities are good for building literacy and discrimination skills, and focus. In the memory game, players can choose from several options. One presents increasingly large sequences of numbers that must be repeated by the player. Another game briefly shows an increasing number of cards. The play must turn the cards over, trying to make pairs and avoiding the bomb cards. I don't think I would use it in the classroom, but it may be a good site to steer parents to. I fear that the site may be too appealing to kids and promote "computer game addiction". lmh I liked this site w/ the clifford section. It gives the child the opportunity to make word families and it says the word for them. Also it rewrites it in a column so the child sees how many they made when finished js Clifford site ,I found to be fun. Lots of activity. The part w/ adding vowel sound to words was nice. I liked that they repeated all the words that were made. I also liked the make and do activity. The matching of words was also cute. Giving this sight to my 3's teacher. (JS)
 * [|Fun Place to Learn] / Primary Games || Literacy

Little animals site, The Dance game I found hard. Gave it to my granddaughter and she said that it was easy and boring(she's 5&1/2). The math part was good and I **really** liked the story section. The stories have you participate by clicking on different items. They were all interesting.(JS) The print zone stationary section I found would be an excellant addition to a writing center. It has many different writing samples to download for students to use in communicating w/ others. The themes were varried,ex. holidays(Kwanza, thanksgiving etc.),planet earth,seasens etc. The science section was geared more to older children, so was the social studies. The one game in social studies had the students placing icons on a world map. No matter how far off you were they did give you a nice feedbak for trying.At the end it told you your real knowledge of your awareness of the different countries.(JS) The Virtual games was designed for family involvement. It was ok.(JS)

I found the puzzle game to be really satisfying. I think that it could reinforce spatial skills (completing the puzzle) without requiring the fine motor skills to do so like is required in compleing an actual puzzle. We want to build fine motor skills, but I can also see this being beneficial for a child to feel successful and to build on spatial abilities even when their fine motor skills need development. (KM) Change 0 of 0 [|<< First] [|< Previous] [|Next >] [|Last >>] ||
 * [|KinderWeb] ||  || This game covered many different games, letters, numbers, aminals, addition, money and time. No sure which level the games were geared to, I am assuming prek-1st grade. The games were rather boring and not very interactive. The sound only works on some pages and reads the questions for the children. However, on many of the pages the sound would not work and the questions would have to be read to a young child. The site was rather easy to navigate and with pictures cues for the various games, but I think the younger children would be a little bored with it and easily frustrated. The games were not visually appealing at all, and I would not use it in my teaching or recommend it to others. When you got the answer correct, there was a small open door with an exclamation mark in it, and very little sound. I feel that children would be easily bored or simply dislike this site entirely. AN

This site is designed to teach colors, shapes, animals, letters, colors, shapes, time and addition to very young children, most likely ages 3-4 years old. The site has an annoying musical accompaniment which reminds me of circus music. Each of the games ( Letter Learning, Number Learning, Color Learning, Animal Learning, Shape Learning and Time Telling) was set up in similar design. If the correct response was given, an open door with an arrow apppears as well as the word RIGHT in bold red letters with an exclamation point. In the animal matching game, a picture of an animal's head appears and the child has to match the head with the correct body. (3 choices). If the child matches the head to the correct body, a voice says "well done" and a picture of the the complete animal appears. If the incorrect body is chosen, the voice says,"that doesn't look right:. The second part of the website consisted of 4 coloring activities (animal, number, letter and people coloring). This part was not interactive at all. A child would have to click on the animal and then print out the sheet of paper (like a ditto sheet) in order to colr it. The number and letter sections had lines to practice writing. The people coloring section had choices of several famous people which included a short biography underneath ther picture. This was inappropriate for 3-4year olds. I would not recommend this site to teachers. The games were not very interactive or appealing. The coloring section consisted of printout ditto sheets. The games on this website have limited appeal for home use but I think young children would get very bored with it in a short time. It serves a limited purpose in that it gives a child practice using a mouse and computer. There would have to be printer access to use the coloring section. I think that part of the site is definitely not geared to the needs of a young child. There is not a high degree of interaction and Idon't feel it would engage young children for very long. The games section may help children learn their numbers, colors,letters etc but I think the site needs much updating to keep it current with other educational sites.(MMM ) I agree that it wasn't very engaging. The one thing I did like was that it spoke the question out loud so that preschool children and early readers could participate. (KM)

While this site does offer a child choices, it is very limited in the overall level of visual quality and interactivity. Although, it may be appealing to an auditory learner, and it does allow the child to self correct, a child would more than likely loose interest rather easily. S.S.

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 * [|Scholastic (Clifford) Interactive Storybooks] || Reading is fun || Clifford site supports phonics and early reading skills for children Pre-K - 1st grade. It was designed using games and interactive stories. Each story address a language skills and increases vocabulary. The games were concentration, make a word, letter match, and sound match. I particluar like how te children could hear clear directions, print out the word list, and the results. I also like the idea that there was something to do while the stories were loading; children could play tic-tae-toe. This site obvious incorporated the Early Learning Standards, concepts of print and comprehension skills. I thinks it a great site for extensions of learning at home and individualization in the classroom in the computer area. Lastly, I really like how they offer the teacher general objectives and research for the practice. (Sisterteach1)

<span style="color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">I think this site is appropritate for very early readers pre-K-1st grade. I viewed the Read and Write section of this website. The site offers 4 interactive stroybooks in English and Spanish. There are also 4 choices of game activites focusing on concentration, making a word, letter matching and sound matching. The focus of this section of the site is on phonemic awareness and phonic skills. I think the strategy and design of the site is mateched to children ages pre-k to 1st grade. There is an opportunity to play tic tac toe while the storybooks are loading, although the books load quickly. The tic tac toe game is a nice "filler" activity. The stories can be read aloud by the child by clicking on the sound icon by each sentence. The child has the opportuinity to fill in the blanks of the last sentence on each page. A choice of 3 words are offered, each with a different meaning. A game for concentration requires finding the same middle sound using a card game. The game for making a word matched up vowel sounds with 4 words. The letter match game required separating words into columns starting with f and t. The sound match game had children recognizing words with the smae begonning sounds. Other areas that could be explored on the site are Play and Learn, Make and Do, See and Hear and Meet and Greet. The site waas not especially visually appealing but had sufficient appeal for young children. It definitely did not overstimulate the senses as I have seen on other sites. It was rather simple in design and easy to navigate. Children ages prek -1st grade can easily use this site independently. The site gives children choices of which words to include in the stories and also gives children the opportunity to increase their vocabularies. I would recommend this site to teachers. (MMM) I also liked this site for pre-school to young school age children. I liked the "waiting games" as well, so that younger children won't get frustrated waiting for the "real" game to begin! I played "Concentration". The object was to match pictures of objects with the same middle sound. This could be a good building activity for a child who has mastered memory games since it requires that skill as well. I also looked at the story activities. I liked how there was some choice in how the story would go as well. This allows children to be creative as well as building literacy skills. (KM)

|| <span style="color: rgb(0,128,128);">This site leaves alot to be desired. I found it to not to be engaging for children for long periods of time. It was not very interactive and not appealing to adults let alone children. It has good curriculum ideas exhibited many choices but in my opinion poorly implemented. I would not incorporate into any active program.I was expecting to see stronger math content. In Math Cats, Math Cats Chalkboardthere was a section where children answered questions of the day(boarding). I was expecting Math. Second, there was a session that included an age calculator. Here children found out their age down to the second that they were born. Math CatsSeconds tricked away as children viewed the site. Again not interesting and rather boarding. One other area that I was not impressed with was the selection for the Place Value Party, here children placed candels and layers on cakes for next bithday celebration. Naviagting on this was poor and took awhile to get the hang of it. (AM) ||
 * [|Little Animals Activity Center] ||  ||   ||
 * [|PBS Kids Games] ||  || I viewed the Measurement and the Map & Direction Gamesof this site. Before getting started, I (the adult) had to create a password and user ID. For future use, the child is assigned a picture (mine was a bumble bee) to click as the sign-in. I think this is a great idea; after the initial set-up, a child can navigate the site independently. There is a voice medium available that walks a child through the process of the tasks; it even asks if you need help. As a teacher, I would use this site in my classroom. The only downside of this site is that it takes awhile for each new game to download. However, they made a good effort to maintain a child's attention by having an animated human sporadically appear on the screen. The activities I viewed are not content based, but can develop a child's creativity, imagination, eye-hand coordination, and ability to follow directions. (mv) ||
 * [|Math Cats] || Not enough math content || <span style="color: rgb(0,128,128); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"><span style="color: rgb(255,0,255); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">This site offered a lot of variety. It had craft ideas, math games, science, art, reading, there was even a place to write your on feedback. It was definetly a site for older kids. The skill level was high and most of the activities were a little confusing. There were lots of directions to read to figure out how to perform the tasks. I think it might be good for kids past third grade. [|Play and Learn Literacy] would be a better site for the K-3 audience (DD).
 * [|eekOworld] || ecology || This site focuses on teaching young children about ecology. While the content information is unique and informative, the site is not very interactive. Participants can create a creature and there is an opportunity to go through a house and learn about best choices for the environment in the home. Points are accumulated in these activities. Other than that, most options provide information with no activity on the participant's part. The site is visually appealing and opens with the host character telling a "knock knock" joke that I'm sure kids would be telling all day. The options pointer is sometimes a little finicky. The site might be ok to support other activities about ecology, but other than that, it doesn't seem to be too engaging. (LMH)

<span style="color: rgb(255,0,0); font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">This site was worth a second look. I was not impressed in my first viewing. It may have something to do with the voice of the Eckocreature! Once I got beyond that, I saw value in the ecology focused website appropriate fro children ages 8-11. Creating an Eckocreature was a little basic for children this age. Unfortunately, that is the first activity and may not be appealing for children to continue on this site. The next activity, the Eckohouse, was more informative, although not very interactive. Points were accumulated for correct answers. I viewed the activity "The environment" and chose to learn about the grasslands. I thought it was a very informative section with ideas on native plants, animals and climate in the grasslands. I liked that it stressed how to work with the environment to preserve it. This section also had vocabulary words used in the story appearing in a little box at the top of the screen. Other sections on this website included garbage and recycling, air and water, plants and animals and the future. I enjoyed the Eckoexchange where children got to post thier answers to questions. Some of the questions were "How can you save water?", "How can you reuse and recycle?" and "How can you create less trash?" I like that the website really stresses to children that they can make a difference in taking care of their environment. I would recommned this site to teachers. I think it is a good additional resource to classroom learning about ecology/environment. It is easy to navigate but not very interactive.(but it is very informative!). I think children 8-11 will be engaged and learn from this website especially if they have an interest in ecology. I know I learned from this site. Did you know that an average American throw out 61 pounds of tin cans a day?(MMM ) || While the site is failry interactive and easy to navigate, I would not recommend this site due to the level of prior knowledge and experience a child must have to even remotely enjoy this site. S.S. || I only did the preschool section and did not find it to be difficult. I liked the way it gave the words as they were read. It also engaged the children by adding a song to the story and had the children singing along. When the story was ended they had follow up activies to go w/ the story and the last section had additional stories following the same theme,for ex. the first story I did was about firemaen so they gave an additional four or five more storybooks on fire.(JS) I agree the children using this site must be proficient readers. Story place site was not a great virtual place for children in my opinion, the intent and idea was good but it needs alot of work. However, the site offered an online story and activity, a home activity, and suggested books for further reading. I thought that the components for the site was the only great thing, I even thought the section for parent activities was a good idea. It included a finger play, art project, list stories at the library, and fun places to visit. As note by LS, there was very little computer audio assistance, which was very much need throughout. The online story was not in a book format,nor did it read like a book,; left to right. I would too like to have seen the words highlighted, as previous suggested; this could have address some concepts of print skills. There was very little interaction going on and the elementary stories were rather long and the print was small. I really don't think the designer did a good job with the purpose or delivery of the goals for the program. The online activities,should have name the objects than allow the child to choose, this was very confusing. The home activity was a ditto sheet, that left no room for creativity. This site needs alot of work. I forward some constructive suggestions.( Sisterteach1) ||
 * [|Kindergarten Science] ||  ||   ||
 * [|Kids Page Learning Games] ||  || This site is definitely intended for older school age children. It offers a variety of games such as, Word Wiz, Image Swapper, Sudoku, and Math puzzle. I thought it would be interesting to try the online musc game, Music Match. The game consist of matching music notes to the keys on a piano. A child would need prior experience to play this game. It allows the player to make five attempts before the game starts all over agian. It continues without giving the player the correct match, which in my opinion defeats the whole purpose. I can see how a child could become totally frustrated playing this game.
 * [|StoryPlace] || Literacy || <span style="color: rgb(255,0,255);"><span style="color: rgb(0,0,0);">I<span style="color: rgb(0,0,0);">n order to benefit from the use of this site, children must be proficient readers. Story Place offers children stories in both English and Spanish and allows children to name characters. While it can be motivating to name a character after themselves, the children must be able to read rather long paragraphs (on their own without computer audio assistance) between short character dialogue. The character dialogue is scripted but words were not highlighted as they were read. The story [|Dinos Rock] offered children the chance to choose and name characters and select a style of music for the "concert" the characters would attend. After reading the story the computer displayed one questions (not read) for students to answer that asked to compare this story to other popular childrens books. I enjoyed the fact that dialogue betweem characters could be read in English or Spanish but thought the site relied too heavily on students independent reading. This site would not be beneficial for beginning readers. (LS)
 * [|Up to Ten] || math || Although this site indicates that it is for children 2 years and older, it is geared more towards older preschooler and kindergarten aged children. It offers a selection of pages that can be printed then colored. You can also find a variety of instructions that can be followed for making crafts. There was one section that is designed to be creative games (Mixed Bag). It has a circular wheel with a variety of colors that spins and changes patterns when you click the button. There are no directions and the results are not very exciting. The only interesting interactive game that I viewed was one that had several small boxes with bright colored objects at the bottom of the screen (Keyboard). You click on them and make a picture, patterns, or a scene on the blank board. An eraser is available for making changes. I think this game may appeal to older preschoolers or young kindergarten children.(mv) ||
 * [|Wumpas World] || preliteracy, math, and computer literacy || This site is more appropriate for younger preschoolers. It has a wide variety of activities and targeted skill areas including literacy, art, music, sorting and matching, social studies (based on Innuit culture), and a lot of practice with the mouse and keyboard. All instructions were given using symbols or verbally (in 4 languages). While it was visually appealing and fairly easy to navigate, some of the activities were not very interactive, and some it took some time to figure out what you were supposed to do. There was one activity that you had to go find some lost items. I never did find any of them (maybe you have to be a preschooler to find them?) Some of the art activities only gave pictures that could be printed out. The music activities were also not very engaging. I liked the introduction to the Innuit culture that this site provides, and some of the activities were ok. I'm not sure if it would hold children's attention for long, particularly if they chose one of the less engaging activities. I also could not get the "Parent/Teacher" link to open. (LMH) ||
 * [|Ticket to Read] -(LS) || Literacy || This is a site that the children in my classroom began using this year. (Unfortunately it is not a free site but it does offer a free 2 week trial). Each child has their own clubhouse that they can decorate and purchase things for with tickets that they earn from completing readings, answering questions, and playing games. Children are given a nice selection (approx. 8) of readings to choose from and the selections change as they go up in levels. Directions are in print and read to the children. During their reading, if they are uncertain of a word they can click on it and the computer will show them how to sound it out. The children are very motivated to use this program to earn tickets and I have seen their decoding skills improve. The questions at the end of each reading help to develop higher order thinking skills. For students who are beginning readers, they can enter into the sites "[|Toy Shop]" to practice phonics skills. I found that this site does have something to offer children at different skill levels but it is extremely important to have a fast and reliable internet connection to work in the "Toy Shop." (LS) ||
 * [|Internet4Classrooms] || Variety || This site offers a comprehensive list of links based on content/ skills to a variety of sites for preschool aged children. For instance, to practice mouse skills, students can [|build a house]. In the [|What Shall I Wear game], students can learn about various seasons and the kind of clothes to wear, by making simple choices. In the [|Patterning] game, children use an online palette to color the picture shown. The site has far too many links for students to go thru, but as educators, a few of the better ones could be identified and bookmarked to use with children.

The section for [|Be a Detective] was age appropriate. It had a section for KOLJr. that was set up for learning words in print by lighting up the words that were being read in red. You could also select from a variety of topics and within the topics select a variety of stories. I liked the rhyming selections. The children would probably select from the animals, sports, families and others. The site also had a section for the parents. It was broken down into different catorgories ex. Internet Safety, Health links, Food Links and others. These had some great information for the parents. The food link, food.aol.com/kids-cooking talked about why you cook w/ kids and gave different items you could make together.(js) || This site is a wonderful tool for school aged children. However, it is not too interactive. Children would become bored easily. Users of this site need to be very tech-savvy. (JSC) ||  ||   || This site is ideal for children in primary grades and older. True to its name, the fact hound offers a consice list of books and websites covering 18 subjects. Would be helpful for school projects and reports for grade school children. Eye catching and easy to use for young children. (KWP) ||  ||
 * [|Fact Hound] || Children's Search Engine || <span style="color: rgb(14,32,200);">This site is a great resource for older school age children. It is basically a search engine for students who are looking for additional information on specific subjects or topics. Had many choices to chose from amd i chose science experiments for one site and fact hound gave me three sites to go onto for additional information. As a search engine for older school age children, i think it works well. It also allows you to pick your grade level, k-5 or 5th grade and up. I felt that this site is not suitable for children who do not have a high degree of experience with computers and linking to sites. The games on fact hound were also better suited for children the school age groups, they were a little boring and there was not much variety. There were matching games, word searches and neither one was very engaging. Also, there was a READ link, which i assumed would have stories, and was quite disappointed when it asked me for a password and username and if you did not have one to see the librarian. Overall, I would recommend this site for children who have to do research for school projects. AN


 * More Resources** - continue to add resources and grow this list of interactive activities. For instance, there are an abundance of virtual field trips online. Can you find any that are appropriate for preschool aged children?