If and when you are going to allow your child on the internet, this is my favorite website to start with. There are many great websites - and some not so great ones - but I want to feature StarFall because it has a combination of fun + education in a safe environment. By safe I mean that it’s free of the many commercial icons that underwrite so many sites.

The main activity our family uses is the ABC section - basically it opens up an alphabet and your child can click a letter, go through a serious of phonics & little songs that correspond to the specific letter. The approach to phonics is similar to Leapfrong’s videos & educational activities. (Be sure to have your volume turned on!)

After letters there are different levels of reading, depending on where your child is at, where they can go through a story right on the website and start learning sight words. There’s also a section of holiday activities, always updated for the next batch of holidays (did you know there’s a grandparents day? And that it’s coming up soon?!?) My son loves the holiday section because, like me, he’s a sucker for celebrating the seasons and these activities prompt him to learn about different reasons to celebrate.

All in all, I give StarFall a thumbs up for kids 3-6 (or so). Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm and is filed under child education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.