When it comes to teaching children, many people can assume that having fun and being educational are always opposites. With many of the things I tried both digitally and using hands-on materials, that assumption isn’t simply true! This summer, I thought of many ways to play with my son while incorporating learning. Although the yard and sensory play were great, sometimes you need a break from all the mess and heat of the sun. This is one of the reasons why I started to look for educational games for kids that I can play digitally with my son.
Educational games for kids: My experience
I admit, it took a while for me to find web-based or app games that were free of charge and educational. Sometimes, it just frustrates me that many of these educational games for kids online are always with a membership fee, or you need a one-time purchase to access all features. For example, Homer only has a free trial, while my son’s app called Kidloland has a yearly fee of around $60.
As parents, we would like things to be free of charge because we spend a lot already! This is where I came across Plays.org, and I wanted to show you guys some of the best games I played over there with my son. Plays.org is completely free, web-based, and one of the great ways to have a fun learning experience with your child. It also has several categories of games not just for children, but also for adults to enjoy. In this post, I would be focusing on the different games that I played with my son.
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Educational games for kids: Our top favorites
Kid Maestro Game
Music is one of the best things you can teach children at an early age. It is a creative prerequisite to learning math, problem-solving, paying attention, and coordination. My son really loves playing piano, and he would ask to play our actual keyboards to play from time to time.
Kid Maestro in one fun twist in playing the piano because it features some familiar songs that children can follow. They can follow through where the “star guide” is to get a point in order to play the tune. My son loves it and he feels rewarded every time he hits the right piano key.
The great thing about Kid Maestro is that these skills are easily translatable to actual piano keys. Since the keys are labeled as “do”, “re”, “mi” and so forth, one can remember the piano notes in a catchy way.
Number Writing Game
Another great game that my son and I played is the Number Writing Game. My son enjoys learning about symbols, and he loves numbers in particular (am I going to have an engineer? Lol!). So, to teach him fine motor skills and also number recognition, I play this game with him.
For younger children, you may need a little assistance on this game, but it becomes easier through practice. To help generalize the skill of writing numbers, you can try it on different things such as crayons, writing on the sand, or through games like these where they can also use their hand.
Play Number Writing Game here.
Spell School Game
Now that we’ve done a little math and music, another activity that my son loves is reading! When he doesn’t read his Dr. Seuss favorites, he enjoys looking at pictures and reading words. That’s why I knew he would enjoy the Spell School Game as it shows pictures along with the scrambled words for kids to spell.
I love these types of educational games for kids at home that Plays.org offers because they aren’t just limited to providing “fun”. There are many goals that one can target when teaching such games such as word recognition, word to picture association, and of course, spelling.
To make this game more meaningful, I asked my son to say a sentence about the word he spelled. With this dog, he said, “The dog is barking!” Great job, AJ!
Grocery Cashier Game
Last but not the least, how about some virtual pretend play? I love this Grocery Cashier Game because it teaches a lot of things–matching prices, imagination, addition, and subtraction!
So you will pretend to be a cashier who is calculating the amount of the items, plus the gift vouchers that each customer has. This is great for older kids who are already calculating and computing. To make this more appropriate for my son, we named the different items that the person was buying. Things like bread, jam, eggs, etc. and I told him what would happen next.
Through this game I taught him how to sequence events, to imagine his role as a cashier, and to say polite words such as “Thank you” and “Have a great day”.
Play Grocery Cashier Game here.
I hope this post gives you some great ideas on educational games for kids! Plays.org is our go-to website for web-based educational games for kids free download and browser versions. Happy learning and playing!
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Thank you for your thorough review of educational video games. My daughter loves music so I have to check that one out!
These are great suggestions for my toddler who is starting to learn his letters and numbers. I love the numbers app the most.
I agree with you! We spend enough already can’t we just have a few games that are free? That grocery cashier one looks fun.
That number writing game is my absolute favorite!!
These are all such great games!
Thank you for the recommendation!