Friday Freebie: Free Kid Friendly Game Sites

Posted on 10/04/2015 by Momma Jo

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There are many free kid friendly game sites online. We restrict the kidlets’ online access for safety reasons. Children need to understand the perils of the internet before you allow them unsupervised access. The kidlets only play online under supervision. Here are a few great online games sites for kids to enjoy.

Friv4School is the game site my kids have as their homepage. This is also the homepage for the computers at the gym nursery. This site has no external advert links. A safe place to play the very best free games! Free online games, puzzle games, girls games, car games, dress up games and more.

Nickelodeon games. Play hundreds of free online games including arcade games, puzzle games, funny games, sports games, action games, racing games and more featuring your favourite Nickelodeon characters.

Fun Brain: Since 1997, kids, teachers, librarians, and parents have enthusiastically turned to Funbrain for its free educational games, online books, and comics. Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

Teachers and librarians can confidently encourage students to use Funbrain during their free time in class, assured that kids will enjoy an educational, safe online learning experience. Funbrain’s games help students build on what they have learned in class and acquire new skills in reading, math, and problem solving.

Parents can trust Funbrain to deliver a fun and safe experience for even the youngest children. The Playground helps parents introduce their preschoolers to the Internet and teaches them how to manipulate the mouse and keyboard. Selected by FamilyFun magazine in its September 2010 issue as one of the top ten websites for kids, Funbrain is committed to providing a safe gaming environment that bridges learning and entertainment.

Funbrain never collects personally identifiable information from kids. For more information please see our Privacy Policy.

Funbrain is published by Family Education Network, a part of Pearson, the education, services and technology company. Pearson’s other primary operations include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.

The Fungooms: Free online educational kids games, stories and activities – gentle fun for babies toddlers and young children. The Fungooms, safe and gentle fun for kids, Preschool Games, Baby games, Toddler Games and activities.

Rainbow Magic has adorable fairie games.

PBS Kids: Educational games and videos from Curious George, Wild Kratts and other PBS KIDS shows!

Mattel: Play the coolest games for boys & girls! Check out Barbie games, Hot Wheels games, racing games, puzzle games, fashion games, makeover games, and lots more.
mattel

Math Playground: Play with math and give your brain a workout! Math Playground is filled with 100s of math games, logic puzzles, math word problems and step by step videos.
$math playground$

CoolMath-Games: Coolmath Games is a brain-training site, for everyone, where logic & thinking & math meets fun & games. These games have no violence and no empty action.
$cool math games$

Technology Tuesday #11 ~ Standard Deviants Accelerate Review for Educents

Posted on 17/02/2015 by Momma Jo

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product review

What is Standard Deviants Accelerate?

The Standard Deviants Accelerate online homeschooling program guides students through complete core curriculum courses. Through the clever way our instructional videos use humor to make difficult topics fun and simple, we are able to keep students attentive and engaged. A well-balanced range of assignments provides students with different outlets to demonstrate their understanding. Make homeschooling more fun with SDAccelerate!

SDA will teach and re-teach, allowing your student to learn, progress, and then master a subject, requiring little time from parents.

Parents: We want to make life and homeschooling easier for you by saving you time and money. As a condensed supplemental course, SDA provides instruction covering all necessary topics in each subject through video content, so you don’t have to. Most of the assignments are automatically graded, and you have access to those scores at any time via your parent account. For assignments that are not automatically graded, parent accounts include customizable rubrics that make grading quick and easy. With one subject costing only $24.95/month or $99/year, SDA is an affordable homeschool curriculum choice.

header

Learn and Review<
Video breaks down content and provides in-depth instruction
Multiple-choice Quizzes following each video re-teach by replaying clips corresponding to questions that have been answered incorrectly
Multiple-choice Tests at the end of each chapter and at the end of the subject continue to check knowledge and are customized according to student’s prior quiz performance
Drag and Drop Diagrams test knowledge using a visual component
Red flag alerts report low scores to the parent every step of the way

Progress
Standard Deviants Accelerate engages students in higher orders of thinking, and has students relate their findings back to the central thematic question.

Student is prompted to examine and re-examine the same subject-wide thematic question after each lesson in the Written Answer assignment.
Critical thinking questions at end of each chapter are customized according to student’s quiz scores, and prompts student to apply and analyze knowledge

Master
Student demonstrates mastery of topics by teaching what they have learned to their parent or peers in a new context in the Group Activity
Writing feature in the Final Word at the end of each subject prompts student to synthesize all that they have learned and apply it toward creating a new solution or product.

What appealed to me?

SDAimage2

The I really love the progress report for each class. It highlights the section of each subject a student struggles with and where they may need assistance.

You can go through their different Homeschool Courses and select which subjects are suitable for your children.

Their homeschool courses start at Grade 3, which is a pity since my homeschooled children are currently in Grades 1 and 2 and I have fallen in love with their science program. I did, however, go through their Grade 7 work and found it rather engaging and practical for my public school child to work through and navigate without any issues.

My only gripe is that the back end, for the teacher/parent, was not as easy to navigate as the student site and did frustrate me quite a bit in the beginning. However, once I had gone through all the Video Tutorials that were sent with my login information, I mastered it fairly quickly.

#1 ~ DIY Windmills: Tutorial
#2 ~ K5Learning Review
#3 ~ Time4Learning Review
#4 ~ How is Technology used in our homeschool?
#5 ~ Toddlers and Technology
#6 ~ James Hall Museum of Transport
#7 ~ Youtube?
#8 ~ Zoodles
#9 ~ Programming for Kids
#10 ~ Web Safety for Kids

Technology Tuesday #10: Web Safety For Kids

Posted on 27/01/2015 by Momma Jo

_{This post may contain affiliate links which help support my family. Thank you for stopping by.}

Web Safety For Kids

safe
The perils faced by the current generation of children are far removed from the negatives that would have been encountered by their predecessors a decade or more ago. Parents no longer just have to worry about a dirty magazine being passed around the schoolyard, or their child hearing swear words in-between lessons; thanks to the internet, content worse than these two traditional examples is available at the fingertips of any computer user. As computing technology becomes more widespread and as many children are granted their own devices, the possibility of them coming across negative content is likely to increase; how can you protect your children from these net nasties?

Setting up a web content filter is the easiest, most rest-assured way parents can guarantee their children’s safety on the internet. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will allow subscribers to set up filters that block access to adult content and other suggestible sites. To access said content, all you need enter is a password. Often these services have to be offered to customers; in the United Kingdom legislation exists that means all ISPs must offer filters to their new customers.

That’s not to say you’ll always require a filter however. Across the internet, the vast majority of websites that feature content that is for an adult audience have taken it upon themselves to install age-verification settings and questions on to their sites. Take Springbokcasino, an online gaming site that features casino games where players can spend and win real cash; when a user tries to access the site, they must provide their date of birth information, and when a customer signs up to the site their details are checked and verified to ensure that they are of the right age. To play any of the site’s games, login info for a valid profile must be inputted in order for the games to be played, thus keeping minors away from the interior of the site.

Often, the most straightforward method to keep your children safe online is to educate them in the dangers and pitfalls of using the internet. Now this approach does indeed require parents to be clued up on the tos and fros of the net, but by simply telling your child that certain negative sites shouldn’t be frequented, that they should stay on well known, secure websites whilst surfing, and that if they do see anything negative online that they should tell their parents immediately. This way, a large amount of the mystery surrounding the more lewd and unscrupulous aspects of the web will be removed in the eyes of the child.

This article was especially written for Monsters Ed by Alex Saunders – Marketing Specialist

Technology Tuesday #9 ~ Programming for Kids

Posted on 09/09/2014 by Momma Jo

_{This post may contain affiliate links which help support my family. Thank you for stopping by.}

Papa Steve is a software developer, ie programmer, and Koko has shown tons of interest in programming. Papa has been slowly teaching Koko to programme a simple program on Kturtle on Linux and he is loving it. I have found a few programming for kids programs online that I’m sharing with you today.

Homeschool Programming Review on Royal Little Lambs

Jennifer and her daughter reviewed KidCoder Web Series from Homeschool Programming. Read all about their experiences with this program.

Code.org

Launched in 2013, Code.org® is a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science by making it available in more schools, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color. Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. We believe computer science and computer programming should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra.

Scratch

With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community.

Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge.

Tynker

Inspiring Tomorrow’s Makers Today

In a world where technology touches every aspect of our lives, it is crucial that our children become active creators of technology, not just passive users. What separates those who simply have an idea from those who make their ideas a reality is the ability to program. Tynker’s mission is to provide every child with solid foundations in STEM, (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programming and critical thinking skills to prepare them to become better architects of their future world.

Tynker’s creative computing platform helps children develop computational thinking and programming skills in a fun, intuitive and imaginative way. Our innovative visual programming language, interactive self-paced courses, and game-based programming activities provide an easy introduction to programming, and empower children to innovate and create. Tynker is available on the Web and on iPad and Android-based tablets, so that kids can make fun and useful applications for their favorite devices.

Over 8 million kids and 10,000 schools use Tynker to learn programming, via:

Online interactive courses that allow kids to learn programming at their own pace at home.
Curriculum and classroom management tools for schools and districts to teach programming in classrooms.
Mobile applications for the iPad and Android-based tablets for kids to learn through puzzles and build their own mobile games.
Instructor-led summer camps and after-school clubs for kids to collaborate and take their programming skills to a new level.

Parents love Tynker because it’s an engaging way for kids to learn how computer programming works and how to build their own games and apps to play. Schools love Tynker because it offers them an easy-to-use system for delivering customized, grade-specific Computer Science courses – complete with a ready-to-use curriculum, classroom management, and automatic assessment tools.

The Tynker Visual Programming Language is based on Open Web standards (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) and works seamlessly across Web browsers and natively on mobile platforms (Android, iOS). Kids start programming with visual blocks and then transition to JavaScript when they are ready. We are constantly innovating and building fun solutions for kids – Tynker’s language extensions, built-in physics engine, animation libraries, and character editors provide an excellent outlet for kids to unleash their creativity.

Alice

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice’s interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

Hackety Hack

Hackety Hack will teach you the absolute basics of programming from the ground up. No previous programming experience is needed!

With Hackety Hack, you’ll learn the Ruby programming language. Ruby is used for all kinds of programs, including desktop applications and websites.

CodeAcademy

Codecademy is an education company. But not one in the way you might think. We’re committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future.

Education is old. The current public school system in the US dates back to the 19th century and wasn’t designed to scale the way it has. Lots of companies are working to “disrupt” education by changing the way things work in the classroom and by bringing the classroom online.

Programming for Kids – How to Make Coding Fun

Programming is becoming an essential skill in nearly every modern industry. In fact, it’s predicted that by 2020 there will be 1,000,000 more computer science jobs than computer science students. Wow!

But more than any of that, when taught correctly, programming can be a whole heap of fun! Learning to code is an amazing, practical and hugely rewarding hobby and skill for kids of all ages.

In this jam-packed 1 hour course, we focus on the tools, techniques and ideas you can use to inspire fun and creativity in programming. With an emphasis on applications, the course steers away from code syntax or the conventions of any specific language and keeps the focus on making coding fun. In fact you won’t need any background or knowledge in programming at all.

Covering games, exercises, apps and more, the course is divided into four distinct sections to help guide you from introducing your kids to code, all the way to advancing them into more complex programming:

Preparation
Before the Code
Where to Start
Next Steps

So if your kids, class or school are excited about using technology to change the world, this course will give you everything you need to provide a practical and fun foundation for your kids to fall in love with coding.

Teaching your kids how to write computer programs

Let’s say that you have children, and you would like to help them learn computer programming at a youngish age. As the father of four kids, I have tried to approach it from several different angles. What I would like to do here is collect some ideas for parents who are looking for different options.

Let’s start with a something important: Every kid is different. Some kids are reading and writing fluently years ahead of other kids. For them, learning to program is probably easier. Some kids have the basic analytical skills a lot earlier than others (Here’s a story about a 9-year-old writing full-blown iPhone apps). And so on. You try to expose your kids to programming and it may or may not “take” the first time, simply because of these differences. So you wait a few months and try again, or you might try a different approach. Understand that, the first time you try to introduce your kids to programming, your kids might not “get it” at all. And that’s OK.

The second thing to realize is that real analytical skills often don’t start appearing until age 11 or 12 or 13 in many kids, so expecting huge breakthroughs prior to that may be unrealistic.

That being said, there are lots of fun things you can try as early as five or six…

Kid-Friendly Programming Languages – Science Buddies

With the right tools, anyone (even beginners who have never programmed anything before) can easily create their own animations, stories, video games, and other interactive programs. The key is finding the right programming language for your task and your level of experience. The table can help you find just the right combination. So take a look at the table, decide what programming language is best for you, and give it a try. You may be surprised at how quickly your creations take on a life of their own!

Stencyl

Game Studio in a Box
Stencyl isn’t your average game creation software; it’s a gorgeous, intuitive toolset that accelerates your workflow and then gets out of the way. We take care of the essentials, so you can focus on what’s important – making your game yours.

Publish Everywhere
With extensive platform support, you can rest assured that all players will have access to your game. Today, Stencyl supports:

iOS (iPhone/iPad)
Android
Flash
Windows
Mac
Linux

Make #1 Games
Stencyl games have reached top slots in the App Store, including Impossible Pixel (#2 in US), BLiP (#1 in 18 countries) and Zuki’s Quest (#10 in US). Our best web games have been sponsored by top-tier sites such as ArmorGames, Kongregate and Newgrounds.

Kahn Academy

Intro to JS: Drawing & Animation
In these tutorials, you’ll learn how to use the JavaScript language and the ProcessingJS library to create fun drawings and animations. If you’ve never programmed before, start here to learn how!

Create Program
Documentation
Help Requests
Project Evaluations
Community Questions

Crunchzilla Code Monster

Code Monster from Crunchzilla is an interactive tutorial for kids that focuses on action. Code changes immediately yield visible results.

Projects start with simple boxes and colors, rapidly progressing into exciting experiments with simple animation and fractals. Important programming concepts like variables, loops, conditionals, expressions, and functions are introduced by example.

Code Monster is a gentle and fun introduction to programming concepts. It is a first step in learning to program. It is not intended to teach all of computer science and programming.

Code Monster is based in Seattle, WA. It is part of the Crunchzilla suite of game and educational projects developed by Geeky Ventures.

Free Courses for Kids

Teaching kids to program
Learn the basics of programming in our first course for kids. This course was designed by Pluralsight authors to teach their own children. Now you can use Visual Studio to teach your own kids to program in C#. In this lesson kids will learn about objects, methods, variables, and for loops in a fun and creative way.

Learning to program with Scratch
Scratch was designed to teach children the basics of programming in a visual way. In a short time, kids can visually grasp the basics of how programming languages work and they can create fun computer games. Scratch teaches the general skills and principles to be successful in just about any programming language, yet it’s fun and intuitive.

Learning to build apps with App Inventor
Now kids can create and publish an Android application without writing a line of code. In this course, you’ll learn how to use MIT’s App Inventor to create four functional apps and learn some basic programming concepts along the way. It’s a gentle introduction to programming in a language like Java, and you’ll have fun creating real applications as you learn.

Learn to Program: Kodu Kingdom Defense
Kodu lets kids create games using a simple visual programming language. In this course, kids will use Kodu Game Lab to learn how to program a tower defense-style action game that is able to run on both PC and Xbox.

Basic HTML for Kids
In this course, kids will learn the basics of HTML, the publishing language of the web. Step-by-step demos will show them how to build a site, including how to utilize the most common tags used in HTML5.

The Programming Language for Kids!

Now there’s something for you to do with your Windows computer or Windows tablet besides just blasting space aliens, checking your email, and surfing the Internet. Now you can have fun creating your own computer software (such as: computer games, tablet apps, computer art, secret coded messages … and much more!)

It’s easy! It’s SiMPLE …

And it’s Free from SiMPLE CodeWorks, Inc.

Programming for kids?

This site was created as a resource for parents and/or educators who are interested in teaching programming to children of different age groups.

12 games that teach kids to code — and are even fun, too

Coding is a big deal right now. Worldwide, 36 million kids have taken part in “Hour of code” activities, helping them become active, rather than passive users of technology and starting learning that might one day help secure a job in our increasingly tech-driven world.

Even if your kids don’t go on to code for living, a basic understanding of programming concepts improves problem-solving and thinking skills which are both transferable and empowering. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says that: “Learning to write programs stretches your mind and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.“

Teaching Kids Programming

Agile Technical Practices
TKP is TDD for 10 year-olds, really. TKP methods include use of pair programming, test-driven development, rapid feedback and sustainable pace.

The Intentional Method
We use Mastery-based learning because programming concepts build on each other. Why we use the Socratic method to keep kids involved.

Fun for Girls and Boys
Our courseware is written and tested by and for both women and men.

Technology Tuesday ~ Zoodles

Posted on 02/09/2014 by Momma Jo

_{This post may contain affiliate links which help support my family. Thank you for stopping by.}

Zoodles is a great tool to keep your youngsters from accessing applications you don’t want them to go into. I have it installed on both hand held devices and my Computer. The kids love it and know that’s where their games are. All 4 kidlets each have their own user with age appropriate games for each user (you can add additional installed applications to each user). It has worked well for us over the years. I highly recommend it.

The following information has been taken from the Zoodles website

The Zoodles Story

The idea for Zoodles was born while Mark watched his 4-year-old daughter, Abbie, struggle while using the computer. He wondered why kids were constantly trying to adapt to computers rather than having the computers adapt to them. After talking with dozens of other parents, it became clear that they were all equally frustrated with the experiences their children were having online.

While parents universally believed that the computer could help their kids learn, they just didn’t have the time or resources to scour the web and find any of this fun, educational content themselves. Additionally, parents wanted more say over what their children were doing online. Without trusted content, they really didn’t want to open up the whole, sometimes scary, web to their young kids.

Mark decided it was time to build a safe, fun, and educational online experience for kids that also gave parents the information and control they wanted. After discussing the idea with his friend, Rich, they decided to form a company to build Zoodles.

Since then, the team has grown to include incredibly talented engineers, educational experts, and creative designers who understand how to build simple interfaces for kids. The team is excited to be working on a product that can change how children learn while giving parents an active role in the experience. We hope that you enjoy Zoodles as much as we do!

Kid Features:
Zoodles Apps (for every device)
Zoodles has an app available for your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android. We help them have fun learning while keeping your device safe.

Personalized Play
Every child has their own personal Playground, which they can access just by clicking on their picture.

Child Friendly Interface
Our simple interface makes it easy for kids to play independently. No more URL bars or crazy navigation bars.

Age Appropriate Content
All our content adapts to your child’s age and skill level, so they are always playing and learning at the highest level.

Games (Fun and Educational)
Zoodles has thousands of fun, educational games that are always changing so your child never gets bored.

Videos (Fun and Educational)
Our educational videos cover a wide variety of fun topics, like dinosaurs, counting, geography, and more.

Storybooks
Foster a love of reading in your child by giving them digital storybooks that have been read to them by loved ones.

Art Studio
Kids can create their own unique drawings, without the mess or hassle!

Video Mail
Video messages from family are sent straight to your child’s Playground, a great way to stay in touch!

Parent Features
Parent Dashboard
Visit the Parent Dashboard to learn about your child and customize Zoodles to meet your family’s needs.

Child-Centric Navigation
Focus on one child at a time as you learn about their interests and customize their Playground.

Helpful Insights
See the sites and subjects your child’s been spending time playing and learning in.

Content Ratings + Reviews
Every game has been played through in its entirety by our team of educational experts, and rated on how engaging and educational it is.

Promote Subjects
Promote games teaching the subjects that matter most to your family.

Parent Play-Along mode
For parents that like to play by their child’s side, Parent Play Along mode gives you full access to sites and more freedom to guide your child’s experience

Record Stories
Choose from classic stories and record a reading for your child. Great for distant family members.

Art Gallery
All your child’s drawings are automatically saved to an art gallery where you can share them with friends and family.

Family Connect
We help family members stay in touch through Family Connect, where kids and family members come together!

Set Time Limits
Control how long your kids can play with the Zoodles Play Timer.

Limit Violence
Our comprehensive rating system gives parents superior control over how much violence their children are exposed to.

Block Sites and Characters
Remove games from your child’s Playground that annoy you because of a particular site or character.

Add Sites
Add in your family’s favorite sites or services, so everything your child needs is inside Zoodles.

Technology Tuesday #6 ~ Youtube?

Posted on 22/07/2014 by Momma Jo

_{This post may contain affiliate links which help support my family. Thank you for stopping by.}

Youtube is an awesome educational resource. We often use it when we are busy with science or technology lessons. A lot of our science lessons start off with a Youtube video before I actually start teaching. This has worked well for us over the years.

Here are the channels we use frequently: