Friday, March 6, 2009

Using a base ten system seems to make so much more sense than a base sixty system. So how did it ever come to be?

Here is a fabulous explanation in six short minutes:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEPJ7a4Fm0&eurl=http://www.experiencefestival.com/forum/show-5103-39898-43909.html&feature=player_embedded

Monday, December 1, 2008

Pixton - Learning Through Comic Creation

Pixton Comic Creation Site

PlayLadyPlay Comics: my profile

Santa Game

This is a fabulous site that starts being fun right away.

I haven't found anywhere on the web that is as fun to create your own profile. If you go to my profile, you can see that I've added my two dogs, my own hair colour... and I pretty much look like me. I was even able to post a note to people who come to see me! I was also able to allocate where I live on this planet. And eventually, as I build friends, I will be able to see all the different countries my friends live in too! Cool!

At first glance though, I thought I'd have to create all my own comic strips and characters. Honestly, I don't have time to do that but I wanted to be able to show my kids something that I had made up quickly.

Well, it turned out that there are preset comic strips available too! All I had to do was insert my words and voila!

Not only can you have fun creating comic strips, but there's a geographic element also. When setting your profile, part of it is placing yourself on the world map.

The Santa game also supports learning about geography. Every few presents that are dropped brings the player to a map of the earth where a question is posted about a chosen country. The player then clicks on the map where the country is located. As the player answers the geographic questions accurately, they gain points.

On top of geography, range identification is also established as the visual difference between a country that is 52,000km2 and a country that is 520,000km2.

I found this educational gold mine when searching the internet for a Santa game for the kids.

Fabulous!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Dupligon: Pay Attention, Sit Up Straight and Watch the Corners

Dupligon

Fabulous angles and memory work!

Grow: Incredible!

Grow: Version 3

Fabulous brain exercise. How is your method of deduction working?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Instant Flowers

These flowers are not so instant as you design each and every one of them yourself.

I would suggest ages 4 and up. I spent at least 1/2 an hour playing with it myself this morning.

Instant Flowers

Not only gives lessons in colour and design but in physics as well. For example, try growing the centre of the flower to it's biggest possible size and you will see the petals on your flower spread apart... or come closer together as you shrink the centre of the flower.

Extra discussion about the game could involve scientific names of the parts of a flower, like the pistil, etc.

Maybe even add on a kitchen experiment...

Prairie Frontier - Anatomy of a Flower

How To Grow A Flower

Growing Plants Unit

Blogs of Games

I'll make it pretty later. Right now I'm busy reading... :D

Independent Games Festival

Technically it's not a blog. However, it's hugely inspiring just to go in and look around at the people who have been nominated for different categories and what kind of product they're turning out.

Kloonigames

What a fabulous site! One of the things that really caught my eye was the whole 'personal challenge' of what kind of a game can be created in seven days... SEVEN DAYS!!! If that's not inspiring and empowering to the kids who aren't sure if creating games is doable, then I don't know what is.

I'm busy checking out M3 right now... amongst other things.

2D Boy

Another 7 day game creator up for an award. Goo.

He doesn't seem to let the general public play his games but some of his articles about transitioning from an idea to something concrete and how to refine it are worth reading:

Ron's Rules for Play Testing Great article that applies to far more in life than just game testing. :)

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Meddybemps - Preschool and Up

Meddybemps

Links are all for games that can be played on screen.

Age range: preschool and up

At the very beginning I was just looking around for some preschool games that didn't require mouse clicking for my two year old so that he could play by himself without my help for a while. We came across this great train game that he enjoyed quite a bit:

Train in the Train Yard

Here are some links to games that he enjoyed with my help but could also be enjoyed solo by ages three and up. Less than three and the clicking and mouse control are too advanced:

Easter Egg Colouring - This one only required help to click up a new egg onto the screen. Then the baby enjoyed moving the cursor around the screen on top of the egg. Whereever the cursor touched, a bit of the egg's design would appear. Spoiler: Save the yellow egg for last.

Magic Paint

Writing Sheets - It's actually quite fun to try and stay on the lines using your mouse to write with. My two year old enjoyed guessing the numbers and letters I was writing.

The Sensitive Pumpkin - We enjoyed changing the pumpkin from a happy mouth to a sad mouth.

Easter Egg Hunt - We enjoyed counting to twelve. Just click your 'reload' button at the top of your screen to scatter the eggs and start over. First, we did it in English, then French, then Japanese. Finally, we finished in English. I expect he'll be able to hold and click the mouse to drag the eggs to the basket before he's three. This'll be a nice thing for him to do when I'm making dinner.