EDUCEDGE,

Since I’ve been volunteering in my son’s class (1st grade), I’ve been looking for web-based educational games for that particular audience. I realize how my professional training and experience has absolutely NOT prepared me for this (Obviously. I never thought that I would be interested in K-12 education). However, this has become quite fun, but at time frustrating because I really REALLY have no clue where to look. So I started by the RezEd-based SIG K-8 Virtual Worlds. For those of you who have not checked out the RezEd.org site, you are really missing an absolutely awesome resource. Do yourself a favor and join (it’s free. and no, i have not personal interests in promoting it besides the fact that the more educators join, the more brains I can pick

http://www.kidscom.com/ is pretty cool. Thanks to Sally Schmidt, Executive Producer at KidsCom.com, for pointing me toward this site. It is well organized. It offers a virtual community (with a purpose) as well as online games.

Sally Schmidt (01/15/09, RezEd communication): “On KidsCom.com kids play educational games to earn Virtual Points they can use the take care of a virtual pet or buy stuff for their house, character, etc. in our virtual world. Many of the games would be appropriate for 1st graders–we have a math game called Math Monster Crunch, Tangrams game, Maze game, Appetite Attack nutrition game (although it is probably a little advanced for 1st graders). You can find these games easily by going to KidsCom.com and clicking on the Games tab in the top nav.”