I'm sure I'm not alone in finding computers and the internet in particular to be something of a double-edged sword. I'm not always happy about quite how much time K & M spend particularly on some websites which have to my mind rather limited value, but they have undoubtedly learned an awful lot from various websites. There are some websites that seem to stick around, others that we dip in and out of every so often, others that are more flash in the pan and still more that the girls use intensely for a while, forget about and then rediscover. Most of the websites that we use are free ones, although there are a few that we pay for.
Lure of the Labyrinth is a really good maths site that K has recently rediscovered, that covers pre-algebra through games.
Timez Attack is a free downloadable game for learning tables. Both K & M got very frustrated and upset when they first tried it, because to move on you need to be able to type in the correct answer quite quickly. They have at various points returned to it for a while though and it would probably suit some children really well.
DragonBox is one that we paid for (and I think was worth it), that is a game that introduces alegbra but one that you work through and it finishes rather than you keep on playing.
Khan Academy is a fantastic free website for maths, science and computing. My girls have particularly got a lot out of the coding section and K had a long phase of loving the maths doodling videos.
Study Ladder is one that has free content, but you can pay to access more but I haven't so can't comment on whether it's worth it. M likes dipping into this one, particularly the geography flags and capital cities games.
The Happy Scientist is another one that I have paid to access more content and may or may not renew once our subscription has expired. It's one that we go through phases of using quite a bit and then periods when we don't use it at all. It's worth checking out the free content though.
Typing.com is a free touch typing website, which the girls had a go at regularly for a while, but has gone by the wayside for the moment. I'm hoping they'll come back to it, as it's something that I think it a really useful skill.
Duolingo is a free language learning website, which a friend recommended. As an ex-modern language teacher, I am really keen for K & M to learn a foreign language, but they aren't keen on learning from me unless we are in the relevant country. M, however, has really taken to this website. It's rather 'plume de ma tante' but seems to be going okay. I tried to talk to M about adjectival agreement recently (she's learning French), but she cut me short with the comment that she'd already worked that out for herself thank you! K hasn't looked at it yet, but has agreed to give it a go. We will be carrying on with transactional language when in France.
FutureLearn does free online courses, of which K has done a couple. She and I did one together about the staging of Much Ado About Nothing and then she did a beginning creative writing one on her own. I am still awaiting completion of her story and I'm not entirely sure how far she's got, but I am assured she is working on it!
Mathsisfun is another one that the girls like to dip into occasionally, particularly with the puzzle games on there, although there is an awful lot more of it than that.
Thingdom is a Science Museum site, with a game that explores the idea of heredity which the girls come back to every so often.
The Natural History Museum has changed it's website, so that there is no longer the 'kids only' section, but the games and quizzes that used to be there are still available if you have a search. K & M still quite like the dinosaur ones.
Mystery Science is another free website that we've signed up for, but haven't properly explored yet.
I am not allowed to do a blog post about websites without mentioning School of Dragons based on How to Train Your Dragon. This is one that I have mixed feelings about, as both girls, although particularly K, seem to spend an awful lot of time on it. It is free, but you earn points by logging on daily, which is frustrating. There are some parts that redeem it, for example, I heard K explaining to M that you needed to identify the different types of cloud during a particular mission and you had to look for the refracted light another time, but most of it does seem to be repetitive, time consuming rubbish.
So those are the websites that I would suggest checking out (or possibly avoiding in the case of the last one!) based on what my girls have got out of them and continue to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment