Well, I was going to hold off on video game viewing for much longer, but obviously things have changed. My son is a Lego Club member and has explored their video games. Over the summer I have relented and let him play most of them when I'm exhausted or attending school (when he plays at a relative's house).
I would like to find some good (free) online games that are more creative and educational (and still fun for a 7 year old boy). I'm not too thrilled with the constant "shooting" games that he seems stuck on and know there must be more creative and still fun stuff out there. The gun/shooting fascination seems to be carrying over into all his other play choices and his dad and I want to re-direct this with new games.
He particularly gets a sense of accomplishment from video games that show him improving a "level" ability and that involve adventure and rescue. Also, he is learning to read at this age (english and spanish).
Any suggestions from those who have found any great sites/games they'd want to share?
Thanks in advance.
My daughter loves the lego star wars games. She has one on her Nintendo DS handheld but I think they have something for the web for free.
http://starwars.lego.com/en-us/Games/Default.aspx
She also likes https://www.heroup.com/ which is free and online. Neither are very educational but according to her, both are very fun.
My daughter likes PBSkids.org and Nick Jr.'s site. They have some educational games on them. Not sure if that would be something your son would like tho.
We also like starfall.com They even used that in her Kindergarten classroom.
Not sure if you're just looking for computer games, but for video game systems my 7 yr old son loves Buzz Jr (great variety of activities in which chimps compete, and car racing games (Mario Kart is his current favorite)
for educational games he does Fun4Brain on computer.
I have 2 boys 9 & 11 who love coolmathforkids.com - they were allowed to play this at school as a reward. There are some shooting games but all games involve math based skills - not obvious - but still there. They have to add up points to get stuff, there is no sign up, you can just go online and start to play. Both my husband and I like to play some of the puzzle type games, others like civiballs we all get together to play.
And check with your library system to see if they have anything. Ours has games for Nintendo DS and Xbox2 and Wii and some other console gaming systems. It lets the kids try some different games, and then you can buy the ones that you and your son really like.
Our son at age 6-9 really enjoyed Poptropica (www.poptropica.com), which has some fight competitions in it, however mostly involves solving puzzles to collect objects. Now (age 10), he's very into Roblox (www.roblox.com), which has lots of games designed by participants. It's Lego based, actually, so he might like that particularly. Some are obstacle courses, some are just situation/interaction, some are fighting/battle games. Both are free online sites with the option for 'membership' that gives perqs, but isn't necessary for kids to participate and have fun. Good luck... we restrict screen time to 2 hours a day on weekends, nothing on school days/nights.
