12/12/2011

Online Learning Games for Toddlers and Preschoolers

I love this site for educational preschool learning games that I ran into the other day: Literacy Center.net - The Early Childhood Education Network!

My late-talker interacts most with me when he is having fun.  Play is just a wonderful way for him to learn, retain what he has learned, and practice talking over and over again without getting tired of the activity. It has however been difficult for me to do the things HE enjoys.

It was hard for me to see that he did not like reading and crafting for lengthy periods of time. Twenty minutes tops. Technology is just what he enjoys, and so as long as it is a family activity, we allow him to enjoy a lot of it -- way more than other moms let their kids, but we've got a difficult situation here, and I think every mom can relate to whatever works, do it!

During the week, my son plays with a Apple computer, Nintendo Wii, an Apple iPad, and our iPhones. On the weekend, he can play with his Nintendo DS. I do limit his individual playing time to 30 min to an hour as well as his playing non-educational games. Everything else, he must be playing and talking with a parent. The husband is better at playing, I'm better at talking so we're still working this situation out - but the results are clear - he talks a lot more than he did a year ago when we kinda started this. It has been a nice family experience.

I do have some requirements to all this screen time though. He must eat meals at the table, he has to have a technology-free morning, he must run around and play with his sister for an hour or two running around and doing what she likes to do, practice writing, and he has to read 20 minutes with me before bedtime.  And all that doesn't even guarantee his tech time if we have shopping or errands to do - it all depends and he knows not to demand or expect any game time. He's actually very understanding and tantrum-free, which is why I think we allow him to play as much as we do -- it seems like a lot of time to me, but maybe it's way less than others.

I love the learning games of course. Nick Jr. and Sprout. Scholastic and BBC have a few great ones too. The site we found through readquarium (and Gamequarium), is a wonderful site LiteracyCenter.net - I hope you check it out with your little one because it has a lot of games for teaching or reviewing the basics.

Other sites I've checked out a couple times are Funbrain and  Funschool - although we have yet to fully explore these :)

Love,
Amanda and Cubs

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