The old Chinese proverb goes I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. Research shows that “doing” along with “listening” makes for better learning. In other words the more active a child’s participation in the learning process and the more sensory faculties are involved, the more effective the learning will be.
So, games that are hands-on; activities that require kids to use their hands, help engage their minds better in math and literacy learning. Interactive games and other activities can be a useful adjunct to conventional teaching.
1. CBeebies Games
This is a child friendly website that is suitable even for very young children. Kids can start to play games here practically as soon as they are old enough to handle a mouse. Kids can play jigsaw puzzles, draw and color games, listen to stories, learn rhymes, sing along and do a lot more. What makes these games instantly interesting for kids is the fact that the games are based on all their favorite TV characters.
2. School Games from the BBC
This website offers a host of activities that assist school learning. Conveniently arranged into age groups from 4 to 7, to 7 to 11, 11 to 16 and 16+, the subjects range from literacy to geography, math to history, IT to music, science to business studies and a lot more. For instance a child who is learning about phonetics can play a word game that will test basic spelling. A child learning advanced math can also get some practice doing sums and also get help in clarifying some concepts.
3. Kids Games from National Geographic
The official National Geographic website also offers some great games that help with kids’ learning. Let young child explore a maze puzzle or your child take a quiz about meteors and comets. The Music Mixer, and a host of other games and puzzles will keep a child gainfully occupied. There is also the Homework Help segment that covers encyclopedia entries, current events and so on.
4. Talking Dictionary
A product such as this Talking Dictionary can help kids improve their vocabulary, their spellings and also helps a child pronounce words correctly. It explains words that are easily confused, helps find rhyming words and so on.
5. Reader Rabbit Phonics
This is an excellent and easily navigable set of interactive activities for preschool kids. Fun activities help a child learn about letters, spellings, counting, comprehension and so forth.
