If you are looking for interactive, educational games for your library's children’s room computers, but don’t have a budget, here are some quality websites you can link to instead! All of these sites help families build early literacy skills in their children in different ways: by sharing songs and rhymes, playing games with shapes, letters, and numbers, and encouraging the vital conversations that foster language development.
Revisit old favorites and learn new songs and rhymes by watching Storyblocks videos! “Storyblocks is a project of Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy, working in partnership with Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Services. It is a collection of 30-60 second videos designed to model to parents, caregivers, and library staff some songs, rhymes, and fingerplays appropriate for early childhood. Each video clip includes helpful early literacy tips to increase caregivers’ understanding of child development and pre-literacy needs.”
A project of National Center for Family Literacy, Wonderopolis is a website that features one “Wonder of the Day,” a bite-sized learning opportunity for families to explore together. From their website: “Learning is happening everywhere, all the time! We have bottled a little bit of that learning in each Wonder of the Day. Experience a daily dose of time with your child to make the most of each and every moment together — learn something new, try out an idea, create a masterpiece, imagine possibilities. It’s easy. It’s fun. But the learning is big!”
No ads, no branding, just professionally designed early learning games that reinforce letter, number, shape, and other preschool and pre-literacy concepts. From their website: “Our system offers alphabets, numbers, and words in clear and concise formats. We limit the learning environment so children can clearly see what it is that they are expected to learn. Our lessons allow children to have fun, concentrate, and remember.”
A fun, engaging site with lots of games and activities that prompt open-ended exploration and learning. Their mission? From their website: “To enable parents and teachers to help young children strengthen learning skills in unique and playful ways. Rather than provide level after level of a particular type of activity, we simply encourage parents to use our site to explore the fun in learning. Discuss this. Play with that. Answer a riddle. Learn about letters of the alphabet. Count, color and create. Write a story.”
Stories, rhymes, lullabies, fingerplays, and games that parents can learn and share with their youngest children. Launched as part of a Reading is Fundamental (RIF) initiative to provide educational resources to families with children under five, this colorful site has content for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and their caregivers.
What are your favorite early learning websites?
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Early Words parent information for early literacy
Early Words is an Australian based project working with libraries in Sydney.
Parents receive free DVDs , tipsheets and information from birth - 5 years.
information in 10 comunity languages can be downloaded at
www.earlywords.info
Early literacy videos can be viewed on Youtube on the WatchEarlyWords channel.