July 3rd, 2009

NEW EDUCATIONAL PLAY WEBSITE PUTS PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS BACK ON LINE

 

A new innovative and educational service designed for parents with children aged two to six-years-old, was recently launched in the UK and it has a big thumbs up from us here at ToddleBabes. The service is made up of interactive games of both an entertainment and educational nature in the fields of emotional and social development.  ChooChooGames (www.choochoogames.co.uk) uses the online medium purposely to engage children and their parents in a learning conversation and in turn, a shared learning experience.

 

“I spent some time on the site and am happy to say it is lovely! My three-year-old really enjoyed the toddler activities – the sound effects made her giggle and she enjoyed the ‘surprises’ that are part of some of the games so she was keen to try them all out. The variety of activities kept her interested and engaged and I found them age appropriate. It was also great practice for her to use the mouse and learn about how to select activities.”

 

With young children spending increasing amounts of time online and the fact that there is a huge choice of multi-media games available to them, many parents have concerns about the effects on their children. Among them is Rafal Han, creator of ChooChooGames.

 

Han explains: “The internet is huge part of people’s lives, offering us fantastic opportunities. I wanted my children to embrace this technology and the educational opportunities it can bring, but not at the expense of the time we would usually spend together.”

 

Created in association with experts at leading Polish universities, ChooChooGames is an educational-play website enabling young children to reap the benefits of edutainment, as well as developing good communication and bonding skills that can only come from time spent interacting with other people.

 

“She is so keen to play on the ChooChooGames website that I have now added it to her daily routine. She plays for around 30 minutes with me while her one-year-old brother naps.”

 

Han continues: “ChooChooGames enables parents and children to enjoy the online world with each other in the same way they might enjoy reading a book or doing a jigsaw puzzle together.”

 

Han’s concept has become not only part of his family life but over 50% of families’ lives in Poland and in just two years has become Central Europe’s largest children’s educational-play website.

 

“My favourite game is the painting nails and the painting houses. I also like to brush the teeth on the hippo, getting all the germs out of his teeth to get them nice and shiny. I like the lipstick game too but it’s tricky because I keep dropping the lipstick.”             Tori-Age 3

 

The games have been specially designed by experts in their fields and address the needs, ability and requirements of pre-school children. The role of the games is to assist in the educational process of understanding and assimilating children with their environment.  This is achieved by close interaction between parents and children whilst playing games and enjoying the fun of discovering the world.

Along with aiding parent-child communication, ChooChooGames can help children with literacy and numeracy skills, hand-eye coordination and fine motor-neuron skills. The innovation behind using icons and animation instead of menus ensures that the website is child-centered, allowing even toddlers to play and learn.

 

•   Some 96% of children play computer games
• Four out of five 7-10-year-olds play handhelds, as do just under two thirds of 11-14-year-olds
•        Some 94% of 11-15-year-olds have a mobile phone and 65% of children use the games facility on their phones
• Research by Symantec showed that UK kids are spending twice as much time on the web than their parents think they are – 43.5 hours per month
•  One in three children say that their computer is the single piece of equipment that they could least live without (Kids and Computers)

 

Comments about ChooChoo Games by Carla (creator of ToddleBabes.co.uk) and Tori Age 3 

 

Altered & Published by permission

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Tags: activities, games, online learning

Posted in Child Development, Communication, Problem Solving, Social Interaction | No Comments »

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