Free Educational Games for Preschoolers You Need to Check out
>> Feb 3, 2017
It’s
not a huge secret: children like to play. Puppies and kittens, too; while these
cuddly carnivores’ games revolve around hunting and appropriate social behavior,
children tend to imitate their parents, older kids or whatever they’ve seen on
TV. In every one of these cases, games are an integral part of learning.
Kids
of four or five years old will probably not enjoy a three-hour algebra lecture
(actually, few adults would, either). This does not mean that they don’t like
learning about their world, as anyone who’s played the “Why?...Why?...Why?”
game knows. The trick is just to make the process fun instead of work.
Good
educational programs provide engaging graphics and quirky storylines, as well
as instant feedback to give a sense of progress and accomplishment. All of the
following have obviously benefited from the involvement of early education
professionals, and are either completely free or have a freeware edition.
Cookie
is one of the biggest online resources for younger kids, with a great suite of
games to build vocabulary and number skills. The games are all attractively
presented and engaging (if you’re four, anyway), but the online platform
suffers from one built-in drawback: it’s just too difficult for a young child
to navigate between different activities on their own.
Sebran is designed on the philosophy that perfecting basic
skills is the key to development of more advanced abilities, but is actually
suitable for children up to the age of eight or nine. Starting with basic
counting and letter recognition skills, it progresses smoothly to basic
arithmetic and games like hangman. Any toddler old enough to sit on a chair and
wrap their tiny fingers around a mouse can select their favorite games, and
additionally it’s available in a ridiculous number of languages.
GS Preschool Games is somewhat
different from the previous two entries, focusing much more on visual reasoning
with games such as jigsaw puzzles and comparing objects. As such, it’s great
for the younger ones, but kids of 5+ will probably be bored quickly.
Starfall
is a great project for teaching children how to read, organized in levels
starting at the alphabet and ramping up to “real” reading in a beautifully
smooth way. On the negative side, constant delays for loading are a little
irritating. Depending on your child’s need for stimulation, the game may seem
boring: it focuses on the learning without too much in the way of animations
and sounds. To put this in perspective, I as an adult felt a little overwhelmed
by all the sights and sounds some games inflict on the player – more
stimulation is not always a good idea.
Obviously,
even the most interactive machine cannot replace the human contact provided by
parents and teachers. Software can at best be only a tool, but a very useful
one nonetheless; and about a hundred times better than plopping them in front
of the TV to watch silly stories about talking animals for hours at a time.
It’s
probably a good idea to spend some time introducing them to these games, but
not force them to spend time playing them. It’s not like you’re paying tuition,
after all. If you have the cash, you might want to invest in a separate PC for them, so that you can actually get some work done while they’re exploring
the mysteries of subtraction!
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