School House Rock! Earth is a musical education on many eco friendly topics
including water conservation, alternative power, and preserving special
habitats. The content is rich and the music is creative.
My 3.5 year old was entertained but unfortunately the information flew over
her head. The songs often rely on kids reading messages on the video and
being able to interpret spelling in lyrics to understand the topic. For a
reading elementary schooler, School House Rock! Earth is a great
accompaniment to environmental education.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is really good, but it’s really sad. It’s good to learn about the holocaust, but I just want to warn you that it’s soooooo sad. You should still watch it and even if it’s PG-13, it’s just because of the ending and what it’s about so maybe it’s ok for under 13, too, because it’s history.
ETA: We saw it! And it was good! There was a super creepy weird part with this one guy who thought his liver was going crazy and he was jumping all around. And a girl he knew did an operation for him and she cut his stomach open! It looked real and then it looked like she was grabbing in his body for his liver, but she was just grabbing in his coat and she pulled his liver out! But it was just pretend.
But the water pipe that broke during the show wasn’t pretend! There was smoke alarms going off. That was scary, too. And the actors played along like it was part of the show, but it wasn’t.
We already saw the first performance in the series, The Frog Bride. We saw it live and we gave aways some dvds of it. Remember? It was so good, so we’re excited to see this one because it’s probably good too. I’ll let you know how it was when we get back, but I wanted to tell you about it early so you could get tickets if you want to. You can listen to Shelly Casto, the Wexner Center’s Director of Education, talk about it in a podcast here.
In a hut in the middle of a forest sit three lonely Finns. They have seen wolf tracks in the snow outside, and they start telling each other stories about wolves. Some are funny, others are exciting, but as the night wears on, they get scarier and weirder and more and more outrageous!
Wolf Under the Bed will be at the Wexner Center on Januray 16 at 7pm and on January 17 at 1 and 3. Get tickets! If you’re a member, you can buy one ticket and get one free!
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is a fun DS game where you create your own Neopet and when you’re playing, you get codes that you can use for NeoPoints at Neopets.com. And it’s educational! Neopets is where I learned to read and do some kinds of math when I was little.
Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge is a fun educational DS game where you can choose which level you want to play. There are 3 levels and they start off really easy and get a little bit harder. Parents can check how their child is learning on this game and they can adjust the learning level and reward the player with special items. It’s good because it can start out really easy for little kids by teaching big and small and tracing numbers and things like that.
Tropix is another fun and educational DS game. There are 11 games on it like sudoku, solitaire, bowling, mahjong, and some of them are just for fun, not educational. But all of them are fun.
The Speaking Spelling Bee is a really fun handheld game that helps you spell and kids who like spelling bee games should get it. I mostly like it when I do the hard words I’ve never spelled before. And you can hook it up to the TV and play it! It’s pretty cool. You can have a tournament against other people, or you can play by yourself.
Flip Words 2 is another word game and it’s kind of like hangman. Lots of fun! Oh, and here’s a code for 40% off at Brighter Minds! It’s KIDS40.
We also have some computer software that’s fun to use. Corel Painter Essentials 4 is digital art. It lets you turn photos into paintings or sketches. It’s pretty cool for bigger kids and adults.
If you like to do art and learn about art, you should try Creativity Express. It has games and it teaches you art basics and about artists and famous paintings.
Don’t forget about our cookbook and headphones giveaway!
If you ever considered becoming a teacher in elementary & secondary education, know that you can earn your degree online. No need to take time away from your kid time while you earn your desired degree.
