Spotty Blue Banana

If you want to exercise your memory then this Memory Squid Game will give it a bit of a workout.

You’re given a sequence of words and have to click on them in the televisions. Get one wrong and a bunny gets zapped. Get all of the words to move on to the next level.

With this game, Flags, you have to identify the country represented by the displayed flag from a list of five countries.

The little grey cells certainly have to work to figure out the logic needed to solve the problems that this rather interesting little game, Electric Box, throws up at you. It demonstrates to children the need with some problems to resolve one solution before working on the next element of the string of problems to develop the entire solution. Fun graphics make the appearance of the game engaging and appealing.

When all the levels have been completed, there is a further dimension to the game, you can turn your talents to creating levels yourself for others to solve. This engages a different thought process, which is good.

There are a couple of other ‘level packs’ of user-generated levels to try your hand at as well.

The Education Service of the UK Parliament, which has the tagline “Working with schools to support young people’s understanding of Parliament and democracy”, has just launched an online game to help school children understand the role of an MP. It’s called “MP for a Week”.

Here’s the YouTube hosted 1.5min promotional video to explain it a little bit more:

Here’s a link to the game guide.

And here’s the game.

Additional information:

• BBC News article
• Diigo Bookmarks

Cariboo is one of the board games from the Cranium stable. It is interesting and engaging for younger kids. It helps to develop colour, shape and number recognition with the basic set of cards, and numbers and letters with the advanced cards.

This video explains the game:

Tutor-USA is split into four sections (three of them currently active). It focuses on Maths. The Worksheets section has a collection of worksheets for access, provided you login. With the Math Tutoring section you can get access to maths tutors online. However, the section that particularly interested me was the Video Lessons, has embedded videos split down into separate sections, including Basic Math, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, Trig, Prob & Stats, and Calculus.

There are also some good online maths games available:

Then there are lesson plans available. A set of maths tools and calculators, including quadratic equation solver, fraction calculator, and the like.

This is a fantastic site from the Discovery Channel people. If your kids have questions about all sorts of “stuff”, there’s a chance that a well informed written answer is here, possibly supplemented by a video or some very nice photos.

This really is nice, with a clean appearance to the site, and a category ribbon across the top that splits down into sub-categories without being obtrusive.

Site Link: http://www.howstuffworks.com/