Pupils from Corona Secondary School (Agbara, Ogun State, Nigeria) celebrated 2010 International Children’s Day by launching a book of their own work.

“The book, titled The Risen Sun, is a compilation of poems written by over 200 pupils of the school,” we read in Motunrayo Aboderin’s article. By the way, making a book of poems with more than 250 pages isn’t child’s play! Rather, the book is the fruit of intense creative work by the pupils and the school staff. It would be a mistake to say that all the poetry in the book is about flowers, the sun and kids’ games: to the contrary, the kids were daring enough to write on serious topics. A day for celebration, usually not serious, suddenly became a day for contemplation and sharing secret thoughts and one’s dearest hopes. Now it’s the parents’ turn to show how adult they are!

“Parents should give their children the opportunity to pursue their passion. If it is writing your child enjoys, motivate him/her positively, do not kill the passion,” as the chairman of the event urges.

Parents, do you like the idea of creating a book of kids’ poetry for such a festive occasion? What ideas do you have for celebrating Children’s Day next year? Generally speaking, is Children’s Day a special day in your family?

Last week U.S. parents and kids were invited to participate in more exciting real event: Lenore Skenazy, blogger and mother from New York, announced May 22 as the very first “Take Our Children to the Park…And Leave Them There Day.”

The author’s intention is quiet clear: “Most of us want our children to play outside …, but there aren’t any OTHER kids outside for our kids to play with,” she writes in her blog at Free-Range Kids. Parents of the early school kids, e.g. those who’re 7 and elder, are invited to bring kids back “the lost art of playing” and to replace playing computer games with playing kids games outside. It’s “a chance for a whole bunch of kids to connect,” Lenore continued in her blog at ParentDish. The video-interview with Lenore Skenazy is available at the myfoxny.com website.

This brave mother rose, we think, one of the most serious and complicated issue of XXI century’ parenting. Sometimes, frightened with news, we, as parents or care-givers, cover our children with extra-guardianship. But it’s a double-edged weapon: protecting kids from the real risks, we protect them from the real life. To find a happy medium, that’s our parental mission.

When the next time you are angry with your child for playing online games for kids, or for using kids games websites, keep your tongue between your teeth and think: what have you done to propose him or her different kind of fun and exciting activities? So, check the weather forecast for today… And stay with our free educational games for kids if it rains

Virtually speaking, game websites for kids may create educational Flash games to teach children to take care of nature through playing online. That’s exactly the goal of our educational children’s game. The most representative one from this point of view is the educational online game Clear Water (here): here kids learn online to take care of seas and oceans. There are also online kids’ games on water and reservoirs: check such kids’ games as Ice-Breaking (here) – and think about the reasons why glaciers are thawing. Or take a look at the Sea Building online kids’ game (here), where children learn to build cozy houses on the coast. In the Sea Building educational game kids may develop spatial thinking, while parents may tell kids about the rules of a good relationship with the sensitive neighbor called nature.

As for reality, huge corporations understand that taking care of the environment isn’t just child’s play. It’s obvious that the activity of big factories may be not very friendly to the environment. And some companies are ready to invest in kids’ green education. “General Motors Company workers … are helping school children understand what they can do to help keep local groundwater safe and clean,” we read at reliableplant.com.

What do you think: what should other enterprises do to promote healthy, smart and equitable relationships with nature? And how may free online games for kids develop children’s green thinking? Both we and the environment would be happy if you share your opinion withthe readers of Kids’ Internet Digest.

Kids Internet Digest in pictures. Arnie and kids take their hands in the leftscussion

• in XX century, about 10% of the European children were born left-handed

It let us allow that one in 10 kids playing online games do it putting the mouse on his left.

• there’re many famous left-handed personalities: Lewis Carroll and Sir Paul McCartney, Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton, Bill Gates and Barack Obama…

We’re sure that educational games for kids favour the development of children’ skills and abilities. There’re definitely a couple of future big scientists and generous millionaires among Internet kids games’ players!

• many left-handed write with the right hand, doing other duties with the left as leading

To detect children handedness, look how kids play games online and offline and pay attention which hand is usually leads.

• some devices are usually convenient for right-hand people only: scissors, pens, knives, computer mice…

Driving Kids recommends you to check the computer mouse settings: it’s possible to change buttons’ position and to make the mouse more left-handed-friendly, online kids’ games more accessible.

• making left-handed person right-handed by force isn’t a good idea. Our handedness is connected with our psychical activity, reteaching may lead to unexpected consequences

By way of example, if you enjoy playing fun educational games like arcades “Rainbow” or “Taxi Coloring,” will you be happy if only online problem-solving games like “Bus Stations” or “Ice Breaker” were available to play? Simply put, just allow your child be himself and do the deeds as it’s comfortable for her or him.

What interesting facts about left-handed do you know? Can you share with Driving Kids some useful info to make our online kids’ game easy-to-use for left-handed boys and girls?

The author brings up vital issue: “what is the right balance of freedom and guidance?”

While in some families kids are banned from social networking and other types of online communication, other families try to teach youngsters to follow certain type of online behavior which allows to feel comfortable in the Internet.

Dear parents, could you please share with other parents how you manage with your kids’ usage of the Internet? Do you monitor the content of online games which your kids play? Do you talk to your kids about their virtual friends? Would you like Driving Kids to embed some monitoring functions for parent in the educational game? We are looking forward to your opinions.

As The Korean Herald informed the world, in the second part of 2010 “pair of policies … will attempt to block underaged access to online computer games” in South Korea. These two measures are “shutdown” and “slowdown.”

First will establish online games’ curfew for children and underaged players. Kids will be offered to choose the 6-hours night time period when popular online games will be unavailable for them. The second one will slow down the speed of connection for those youngsters who sit in magnetic virtual universe too long. Thus, kids won’t be able to play cool games online — but they’ll meet a nice possibility to have a good sleep offline!

This week, it’s is one of the most discussed news related to online games and kids’ usage of the Internet. During 4 days, about 40 articles in newspapers and news websites  — not to speak of posts in blogs! — were devoted to this South Korea’ online games innovation. Please join this world-wide online discussion answering the simple question: how do you meet this initiative?

Judge on your own: among best kids’ games and movies, musicians and actors, and other popular projects and celebrities who has won Nickelodeon’ Kids Choice Award in 2010, was also the U.S. First Lady.

As The Independent wrote, Michelle Obama won the Big Help Award, “a special blimp for people who inspire kids,” because of her “Let’s move!” initiative (we wrote about it earlier, for example here and here).

Thus, if kids who voted online (total amount of those who did it was about 115 million!) have regarded especially this activity as a “big help”, it means that kids, who now glued to the online games and TV-shows, understand that they do something wrong. All that we have to do is to give kids good motivation to rouse their selves!

Parents, let’s share our tips and tricks of how to help kids in organizing their leisure time with and without PC. What’s the time balance between your kids’ online activities and the offline ones? What websites you visit oftenly, for kids’ education or for kids’ entertainment? What are your youngster favorite online games — and the offline ones? Don’t shy! Just share — and look at other parents’ experience clicking at the title of the article and readnig comments left below the article.

As TODAYonline.com (Singapore) writes, new fathers’ website “can help fathers keep abreast of the latest research on fatherhood, as well as allow them to recommend books for fellow dads to read and discuss father-related issues.”

Dear dads, would you please kindly help us to create our small Driving Dads’ Favourite Websites Database? Just below this article, you may live a link or two to the websites for fathers which you trust.

And then, after such an important mission, take the keybord back to the child, please

Online discussion is devoted to ways “to measure children’s progress” and, in particular, to the situation with SAT’s tests for 11-year-old pupils in England.

As it often happens, the straight question caused deep thoughts and sharp remarks about educational system, approaches to kids’ education and so on. We suppose this online educational debate deserves if not your comments than at least your attention.

By the way, we didn’t find many mentions about the role of online edutainment games and websites and its values for primary school education, while you, who play Driving Kids, definitely know something about it…

If the London mayor’s plans become true, the lack of such websites will be obvious. “Boris Johnson lobbies Tories to add Latin to state-school curriculum,” writes The Guardian.

“Johnson … pointed out that between just 2-4% of state primary schools teach Latin compared to 40% of independent primary schools,” the article cites.

Thus, the mayor’s efforts may lead to increasing demand for Latin teachers, textbooks, and educational websites for supplemental and home learning. “I firmly believe that we must not starve the minds of students eager to embrace the great intellectual disciplines of Latin,” the newspaper quotes Mr. Johnson’s elegant dictum.

What would you say if your kids proposed learning Latin or, for instance, Greek? How would you motivate your kid to replace fun hours of playing new online games with hours of study learning an ancient language? Share your opinion with us: vox populi, vox Dei!