The July issue features one of my favorite educational sites: ABCYa. (http://abcya.com)

There are too many apps here to describe, so you should really look over the site yourself. There are dozens of really great games from a number of disciplines (math, science, reading, typing, and much more.) You can also pick games by age or grade level.

Many educational games are more "education" than "game," but many of these games are quite fun as well as having some sort of educational value. They can be a nice resource to add to your bag of tools.

ABCYa - A great library of Educational Games

Computer games are here. There’s no denying it. There is something extremely compelling about video games, especially for today’s kids. Some games are not appropriate for kids, and it is right to be nervous about them. However, there are some games that can be very useful reinforcement tools for your lessons. If you can find a fun way to reinforce skills in math, reading, typing, or science, maybe you should reinforce them.

ABCya (http://abcya.com) is a web site containing dozens of games written by frustrated school teachers who could not find quality educational games easily, and couldn’t afford the few quality games they found. The games are all available for free on the web site, and are grouped by age level and topic. The site does feature Google ad-word advertising, but this is small and unobtrusive, and was mainly visible on the main page. The game pages each have an ad, but I didn’t see anything objectionable.

Although the quality of the games varies, they are all well-made, and most are quite entertaining. They were created with the public school audience in mind, so there are a few themes (there’s a Halloween game in the K-1 section) you’ll want to know about. All the games use Flash technology, so they’ll work fine on any reasonably modern computer. They should play on Android devices (although many games rely on the keyboard) but sadly will not work on iPhones or iPads. A few of the more popular games have been converted to apps, and are available for 99 cents each

Kindergarten - First Grade Games

There are many great games suitable for younger learners. Often these games are best played together with a parent or older sibling.

Here’s a few of the highlights in the K1 section:

Refrigerator magnets - This game that allows you to create words by dragging letters on picture of a refrigerator. Yes, I love real refrigerator magnets, but we always seem to lose the ‘M.’ You can’t lose letters with this version, and you can print or save your results.
Letter bingo - Play bingo as the computer gives you the letter name or sound.
Keyboard zoo - cute early tool for learning where keys are on a keyboard
Word search junior - simplified ‘make your own word search’ puzzle. Use your own vocabulary words or names of people in your family
Connect the dots - numerous connect-the-dots games to reinforce counting skills
Marble math - simple math problems with digital manipulatives (marbles) to help students work out the problems. - and pirates!
Make a (car, house, face, pizza, etc) - A number of related games begin with a background image and allow you to put your own parts together to make your own custom object. All can be printed or saved. Not super-educational, but a lot of fun.

2nd - 3rd Grade Games

The second and third grade games add more typing and math to the mix. Here a few highlights:

* Typing games - Three different games introduce typing in different fun arenas: munchies, cup-stacking, and keyboard challange

* Decimal tiles - nice online manipulatives for math

* Time and money games - A couple of games to practice time-telling and money addition skills

* Math-man Jr. - A variation of ‘Pac-Man’ that reinforces addition and subtraction skills

* Geography games - A series of games on states and capitals, and interactive maps

* Jet Ski addition - Online multiplayer game. The speed at which you answer questions determines how fast your jet ski goes.

* Word cloud - Not really a game, but one of our favorites. Enter in a number of words and they are turned into colorful graphic art you can save or print. Really fun way to make cards, placemats, and other fun printouts.

4th and 5th Grade Games

The games for 4th and 5th grade students are (appropriately) a little more detailed. They cover more sophisticated topics:

* Synonyms and Antonyms - A couple of games help kids review these ideas.

* Spelling Bees - A game that reinforces spelling with vowels.

* Dirt Bike Proportions - an online multiplayer game for practicing ratios (I got schooled by a 4th-grader, I think)

* Multiplication Grand Prix - Similar to the dirt bike game, but with multiplication problems.

* Percent Panic - Very similar to an old arcade game, but it teaches percentages.

* Label the Skeleton - Simple anatomy game

* Tower of Hanoi - Fun puzzle game that’s actually used in advanced computer science courses to teach a process called ‘recursion.’

Just for Fun

Some of the games on the site are just plain fun. They may have some educational value, but mainly they’re just fun. These can be fun to play together, or to save as reinforcement after your kids have done some of their school work. They’re pretty fun for adults, too:

* Bouncing balls - This is a variation of a popular arcade game. Shoot colorful balls to make matches and clear the board.

* Civiballs - A logic game something like ‘cut the rope.’ Several variations are available

* Mini Train - My personal favorite. Drag and drop bridge pieces so the train can cross over a gorge. Or make the train jump over the cliff and crash into hundreds of pieces. I know. A piece of me is just wrong.

* Fruit collection - Bounce the fruit into the basket. It gets hectic in a hurry.
* Rotate and roll - Rotate the entire game board to deliver balls to their home. It’s actually quite addictive.

There’s more. I haven’t shown you all the games, and new ones are being added all the time. Be sure to check out the site and see how you can integrate it into your school.

As always, stop by my web site if you have questions or want to chat about this topic or anything else about computing and home school.

Blessings!