Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign has extended its web presence and initiated a new digital challenge, “Apps for Healthy Kids.” “White House Office of Science & Technology Policy analyst Kumar Garg announced the Apps for Healthy Kids game development challenge promoting healthy lifestyle changes in young adults,” Gamasutra.com informed us last week.
Tags: award, celebrities for kids
What free educational websites do your kids visit? Thanks to the mass media and the Internet, kids may now receive new knowledge more simply and quickly than previous generations could ever imagine. Judging by the results of one survey, however, online educational content doesn’t seem to be very popular among children.
As the BBC reports, “some 60% of nine- and 10-year-olds thought Sir Isaac Newton discovered fire.”
Tags: researches
Childhood’ Walk-through
A curious approach to the parents-oriented books
Stevanne Auerbach, Smart Play Smart Toys: How to Raise a Child with a High PQ
Book’ Title:
Smart Play Smart Toys
How to raise a child with a high PQ – play quotient
Book’ Author:
Stevanne Auerbach (aka Dr. Toy), Ph.D
DrToy.com
Book’ Key Point:
“To assist your child in succeeding with skill-building, we will look at different ways your child uses toys, and you’ll become informed about finding the right toys, and skilled at helping child expand his or her PQ”
Have you ever tried to talk about upbringing as about an amazing game? As far as we are children games’ developers, we’ll try to do that way, defining “genres” of literature about upbringing and children development in own original and a little bit “digital” way…
Childhood: user-guide, FAQ, walkthrough
There’re some books for parents which similar to hardware or software manual or user’s guide: highly informative, precise, strict, comprehensive, and with a note of thank to the Dear Reader (Customer, Parent) at the first page. There’re also books which look like FAQ: more user-friendly, may be read from any page, useful in certain cases (but seem to be useless when readers ask more complicated questions than “How to pay for my account” or “How to calm the youngster down in the supermarket”).
And, there’re books which resemble role-played games’ walkthrough. It specifies frames, notices the characters and items you shouldn’t pass by, shows the secret doors – shortly, focuses on significant things you may disregard. You think you can do without a walkthrough… until you once have it.
Walkthrough’s main distinction from another “genres” is that it gives you a presence effect. It features everything without eliminating the magic, the atmosphere, the quintessence of the world described. That’s why we put Stevanne Auerbach’ “Smart Play Smart Toys” on our “walkthrough” bookshelf – among our own magic wand, mysterious box with everything-kids-need, and the sincerest and wisest books focused on children’ development.
Tags: books, discussion, kids' leisure, news, parent help, reviews
We’re no longer alone in our passion for online games for kids! “Innovative educational games can be a powerful tool for helping children learn”: this opinion, which we absolutely share, was voiced in Naomi Alderman’ article “In praise of educational games” published in The Guardian.
Which stereotypes would you prefer to overcome first in society? Speaking for ourselves, we might choose stereotypes which perpetuate gender unequality. Boys and girls are different, but there is no “best gender”! That’s why we are happy to keep you informed of studies which help to overcome gender stereotypes.
Thanks to new data obtained by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), such stereotypes as “Boys are less oriented towards education than girls” can be easily dispelled.
Tags: researches
3d2f.com software directory published review about Driving Kids MMO game:
Driving Kids is a colorful, fun-packed and easy to learn massively multiplayer game for pre-school and early-school kids. The game is based on a number of universally popular edutainment activities aimed at improving such skills and qualities as problem solving, memory flexibility, attention to detail, creative thinking and logic, math and a whole lot more.
Why do our children often look happier than we do? Sure, they don’t have as much responsibility or as many routines as their parents. But can this be the only reason? We suppose children are happier not because of experiencing few negative emotions, but because they have so many positive ones! They just do the things which bring them more joy and contentment, no matter any sad feelings.
“Happy people have healthier hearts, study finds,” The Belfast Telegraph reports, analyzing a study published in The European Heart Journal.
Tags: researches
Do you remember the “Think B4 U post!” campaign launched this year to help children use the Internet safely? (Read about it here if you don’t.) We think that it will soon be necessary to launch another one, not in virtual but in offline reality: “Think B4 U buy!”
According to a study conducted by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity (Yale University), from 2006 to 2008 “the number of products with youth-oriented cross-promotions increased by 78%,” and “only 18% of products met accepted nutrition standards for foods sold to youth,” as Public Health Nutrition informs us in its March 2010 issue.
Tags: researches
Kids’ online safety definitely worries responsible parents and teachers. At the end of February, this topic was brought up by various media from different angles…
Tags: discussion, safety
“Many fathers are unaware of their paternity rights, according to the government as it starts a new awareness campaign for dads,” the BBC reports. “Maybe some fathers just don’t know enough ways to exercise their rights,” Driving Kids adds.
Tags: kids' leisure
