Driving Kids – Free Online Educational Games for Kids

Video games for kids are regarded in a special way in Australia. A few months ago we wrote that some virtual sports activities there are regarded as a substitute for real ones. Recently we found out about Australian parents’ attitude towards the video games kids can play. “More than 90 per cent of Victorian parents believe video games can improve their children’s motor skills and problem-solving abilities,” we read in the Herald Sun (Australia).

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If you had to choose between free games for kids and free educational games, what would you prefer? With summer at its height, and kids far, far away from their classrooms, children’s games with an educative bent are especially timely!

“Keeping kids learning over summer break is essential,” states Nancy Cecil, a professor of education at Sacramento State (California, U.S.), as we read in The Sacramento Bee’s encouraging article “Hundreds of apps can help kids learn this summer.”

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Summer’s the best time for new kids games! There’s a lot of time to play kids games outside, trade ideas for cool games for kids with the neighbor boys and girls… But it looks like this summer, the playgrounds in our parks won’t see as many children’s games as they could.

According to a new U.S. survey of parents with kids ages 18 and under, released by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and conducted by Zogby International, “nearly 30 percent of parents report their kids will spend more time online this summer than they did during the school year,” we read on StaySafeOnline.org.

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Parents, what are your kids’ plans for summer 2010? Play online free kids games, or surf the Internet for new kids games? That’s not bad… but not enough either! Help your children to spend their summertime smartly. For example, show them the way to the nearest public library. Maybe there are some challenging programs to promote kids’ interest in reading! At least in the public libraries in Fond du Lac and Loudoun, activities including a summer reading program are being launched this June.

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Playing kids’ online games may teach how to care for the environment. For example, in our educational game kids learn how to make the water clear, reap the harvest, and recycle waste… even though not every child in the urban environment knows what a real squid or real harvest looks like!

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As a player of free online kids’ games, have you ever tried playing kids’ games with aircraft? May 15 was the best day to combine online playing with online flying! Why May 15? Because it’s the “first-ever International Learn to Fly Day,” as The Union (U.S.) writes.

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This statement looks weird only at first blush. Of course, good devices bring their owners pleasure, but this pleasure shouldn’t be the only one in a youngster’s life. Online games and websites for kids shouldn’t replace parents! But as the BBC has reported, “Middle class parents ‘buy off’ their children.”

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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.

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“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.

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Does your child know how to dance? Now it’s easy to make your first steps: a new free online service is available for children and parents.

While families in the U.S. are engaged in the Let’s Move! campaign (we wrote about this a few days ago, you may find the article here), British families aren’t standing still either. The nationwide U.K. movement Change4Life announced Let’s Dance, a project allowing U.K. families to attend free dance classes this weekend.

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