Poisson Rouge

I just learned about Poisson Rouge (Red Fish) , a site for younger kids that is full of discovery and play in the virtual realm. Geek Dad over at Wired has a review of the site.

The homepage features lots of virtual toys your child can click on to enter various games and learning experiences but it’s very exploratory. You never know exactly what you are going to get. Kids will be exposed to letters, art, telling time, languages, and many other things.

Another thing I like about the site is that it isn’t full of a lot of branded characters like Elmo, Mickey, Handy Manny, etc.

If you’re child can click a mouse (reading isn’t required), send them on over.

A-HA video contest links games, learning

AMD and Learning Games Network have announced the winners to their A-HA moment video contest, a competition for students to demonstrate how video game play can result in serious learning.

The contest has two categories–one to create a video explaining how playing video games reinforced something they had learned elsewhere and the other “dream assignment” to describe a game that could be “required playing” for a class at school.

Winning entries ranged from a middle school student connecting her experience with Activision’s Guitar Hero with her growing ambition to learn how to read music and play the guitar, to a high school student discussing how games have enabled him to develop World of Warcraft game-like strategies to tackle class assignments.

Winning entries can be found here.

The competition is part of AMD Changing the Game, an initiative designed to take gaming beyond entertainment and inspire youth to learn critical education and life skills by equipping them to create digital games with social content.

Readeez–learning disguised as smiling

Readeez is a clever way to teach reading to your kids while they have fun. It uses a combination of written and spoken word to help children learn to read one syllable at a time.

The DVDs feature clever and simple lyrics with simple but beautiful drawings to engage kids and parents alike.

You can preview many of the brief songs on the company’s website.  The DVD is available via Amazon for about $17 and features 30 Readeez