Kid software / website recommendations

msmithivas

Posts: 305
Joined: 2006-11-05
Dad Points: 624

Any kids' software and/or websites you'd care to recommend? I'm interested mainly in stuff for toddlers, but feel free to discuss other age groups.

The only commercial title I'd buy at this point is the Reader Rabbit CD-ROM, as there is so much free stuff on the web.

Two of the best pieces of software are free if you're a Windows user. My daughter loves Paint and Notepad. I've also gotten her to try Minesweeper though she doesn't care for Pinball or Solitaire.

As far as websites, we regularly visit the PBS Kids site, though I just visited the Nick Jr. site and it has a bunch of cool Flash games featuring Dora, Blues Clues, and the Backyardigans.

Yahoo Kids is OK, but features too many distracting movie preview trailers and games that are too involved and/or requires competing against someone else.

She also gets a kick out of some of the arcade games on FunBrain.com

In general anything that is nominally educational, easy to learn, uses simple mouse movements, and involves cartoon characters will occupy my child for endless periods of time.

Disney.com is not recommended. All their good stuff requires paying for a subscription.

We also sometimes use Google/Yahoo image search to find pictures of animals.

Oh, and this one is hilarious, especially if you have a microphone input:
www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail
Here's the one I created:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=19598216

Submitted by msmithivas on Thu, 03/08/2007 - 3:07am.

KevH

Posts: 365
Joined: 2006-11-16
Dad Points: 540

Toddler computer activites

My 3 year old has his own computer that doesn't have internet connection so online stuff is ruled out. He really enjoys anything by Reader Rabbit and a few Fisher-Price computer games. (garage sales are good places to look for this stuff).
He hasn't played them lately since I took his computer away until he starts telling us when he has to poop. lol

He loves to watch music videos on youtube.com (when mom or I pick them out on our computers) but I don't see a need to have him cavorting about on the internet yet, I figure I'll be fighting with him about that when he's older, why start now?

Thu, 03/08/2007 - 8:24am

ticktock

Posts: 789
Joined: 2006-11-06
Dad Points: 1419

doodleweb

http://doodlebops.com/EN-US/index.html

Thu, 03/08/2007 - 8:34am

MileHiDad

Posts: 763
Joined: 2006-11-06
Dad Points: 1559

Sesame Street

When my son was about 2 and a half we would play and I would prompt him for answers in age appropriate games there to get him thinking and learning things like shapes, counting, sequencing etc. http://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/?scrollerId=games
Plus it got him clicking a mouse randomly wherever.

Thu, 03/08/2007 - 1:29pm

Uke_Skywalker

Posts: 247
Joined: 2006-11-12
Dad Points: 611

Imagine my surprise...

Mackenzie, my 5 year old, has been on the Sesame Street site a couple of times but it is still pretty much relegated to a special "atta girl" or when I have just had enough of the squabbling between siblings and need a place to send her, so the other day my wife had just gotten home and I was making dinner and all of a sudden I heard Elmo SCREAMING about finding the right puppy or something. She had gotten there from the favorites link on IE, one of those times I didn't think she was paying attention when I got everything set up for her. Guess its time for Cybernanny or something, does anyone have any suggestions on internet watchdog programs?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Denver_Dad/

Thu, 03/08/2007 - 2:56pm

KevH

Posts: 365
Joined: 2006-11-16
Dad Points: 540

Whitelist

Is it possible to set up a whitelist of sites that are allowed rather than try and block all the other sites?

Thu, 03/08/2007 - 3:10pm

MileHiDad

Posts: 763
Joined: 2006-11-06
Dad Points: 1559

Too Cool!

After responding to this post earlier I realized it had been sometime since my son (now 4) and I (now old) visited SesameStreet.com so off we went. I found this game with Tully Bear and Baby Bear where when they gave hints and you had to click on the related items to find crayons.
I tried to get my son to click with his drawing hand, his right hand and this brought on nothing but frustration and he wanted to quit. After sitting there a couple of minutes he realized he wanted to try again so this time we practiced mousing with the left hand and he had more success but wanted me to do it for him so I stepped aside to force the issue.
After 5 more minutes he is all over it. He has moved with the Next Game function to Zoe and Halloween. This is too cool, watching him create and make decisions without my involvement. Our life changed and just got high tech! Right now he is on the kitchen PC and Iâ€™m right there typing this on my laptop and assisting him when needed. Net Nanny or the like for us also! SWEET!!

Thu, 03/08/2007 - 4:06pm

Seth

Posts: 45
Joined: 2006-11-08
Dad Points: 58

For younger toddlers, I love

For younger toddlers, I love the completely psychedelic

www.boohbah.com

Seth
JustPlainHiDad

Fri, 03/09/2007 - 10:15am

admin

Posts: 489
Joined: 2006-10-31
Dad Points: 2061

How much

So...how much of the computer stuff do you guys do? Is it a once-a-day for 5 minutes thing? Once a week? Hours a day? Something else?

Just curious to get a frame of reference - I have a hard time deciding what amount of this is the right one.

Fri, 03/09/2007 - 11:08am

MileHiDad

Posts: 763
Joined: 2006-11-06
Dad Points: 1559

When It Comes Down To It, I Guess I Have to Wait and See

Well all the pro child raising advocates on Oprah, Dr. Phil and the such are probably going to have a heyday with my answer but I think when it comes down to a toddler being on the PC that there is no right or wrong answer in real life. I am basing this on limited experience on this subject. My kid learned about the mouse, its action and eye hand relationship just yesterday and I wash thrilled. He was on SesameStreet.com yesterday for 4+ hours playing the not so few educational Flash files they got while I was working on part of a grant proposal file for a .org 2 feet away. It could have been working with numbers and the Spanish language on the PC or watching the non-interactive Jimmy Neutron or the such on TV. Which would you pick? Besides he is always seeing mom and dad at the PC so it must be cool and is following our lead, and you really canâ€™t say â€œdo as I say not as I doâ€.
This thread was for recommendations for good kid software/web sites and I guess that will be answered via postings in this thread, I canâ€™t wait for more good ideas. But to answer Mikeâ€™s question on how much time, weâ€™ll see. If the newness wears off or a PC is just that cool and he always wants to be on it, but I think, heâ€™ll think, itâ€™s just that cool. Howâ€™s that for a non answer?

Fri, 03/09/2007 - 4:25pm

KevH

Posts: 365
Joined: 2006-11-16
Dad Points: 540

Computer time

I treated ours like the TV or anything else we do. You can do it for a while but then move onto something different. What I thought was funny is that he got bored with the games and watching movies and just started messing with the computer. He would click open "My Computer", and open random files with the image and video viewer. He also took a screenshot of a sesame street DVD he was watching and made it his desktop. I have no idea how he figured that one out and he's just at ease on his XP computer as my Ubuntu box or one of our macs.
Not too bad for someone who's not quite 3.
I don't know how I'm going to keep up with him in a few years, I guess I just can't tell him all my secrets! :)

Fri, 03/09/2007 - 4:58pm

msmithivas

Posts: 305
Joined: 2006-11-05
Dad Points: 624

perfect software

I'd just be happy with an app that disables every keyboard key except the letters, and also doesn't allow your kid to escape, mouse or window out back to the desktop or start menu.

Sun, 03/11/2007 - 11:27pm

phaze-3