Monday, September 25, 2000		Cyber kids

Test your ‘big’ brother’s vocabulary

WITH autumn break about to begin, you must be wondering how to spend the vacations. Of course, moms want you to study, learn and work while all you want to do is play. How about a combination? Study, play way and learn, the computer way. Moms are happy and so are you. So here are a few sites that can be had:

This is an excellent learning game for all those kids who are new to the cyber world. It’s time to get introduced. Learn keyboarding and mouse skills by playing this wonderful game. You will find characters on the play field, which float down attached to open umbrellas. Before the character disappears off the bottom of the field, you have to press the corresponding character on the keyboard. Keep up your score!

Finding difficult to learn tables? Don’t you worry? Especially for children between the age group of 4 and7, this is a simple yet a fun-filled multiplication program and will make learning tables no more than a child’s play.

Okay, so now you know tables by heart! But are having problems in addition, subtraction and division? Your younger brother can’t even recognise numbers and has difficulty counting? Don’t get frustrated. This site is just for you two. Not only that, you can learn to tell time before your friends learn it in school. Since it is written by a teacher and often used in schools, this would surely help you.

For ages 9-90, a fun-filled multimedia format for unlimited mathematics enjoyment. Exercise your skills and sharpen your brain by tackling these math puzzles. Watch your scores climb up as you advance further. With over 500 million problems to tease your brain, you sure can turn out to be our next Einstein.

So you have a third language too in the school. You not only have problems in learning English but also German or French. Never mind, holidays are a good time to brush up your vocabulary in these foreign languages too. Come to www.ForeignLanguageHome.com This is a game where different categories are made and you have to assign different vocabulary items to respective categories. Not only you but even your "big" brother can test his vocabulary here. Apart from English and German, the site also has lessons for French and Italian.

So your kid has just started to go to school. This is an animated educational children’s program, which would teach him alphabet, numbers games and music. Each letter is displayed in upper case and lower case, then linked with a word and further used in a sentence. As they learn, a lively music and animation runs in order to amuse them. Learn numbers or counting, and develop your computer mouse skills. Not to miss, there is a games room too. Here children can play a balloon game, complete a jigsaw or draw shapes. And in the music room, they can get introduced to the drums, xylophone, brass and string instruments.

Spellings are where you lose most of the grades? You misspell and get a big red circle. To spell out properly is also a skill, which can be acquired by visiting http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/RayLec. Here new words and specialised vocabulary can be learnt and practiced time and again. The scores are kept automatically. See how you progress. So before your next session, master the art of correct spelling.

— IV