Active Kids, Buying Kids Toys, Kid Friendly Vegas, Kids Online

When your kids want to play games online, you might be annoyed that they are not doing something more constructive with their time. But fear not there are free fun kids educational games that your child will not only find fun but more importantly will learn whilst playing.

Research has shown that learning through play, fun and games has proven to build children’s creativity and imagination, hand eye coordination and problem solving skills. In addition online games can also improve there IT and computer abilities too which is essential with the academic world being so technology reliant in this day and age.

Children’s educational games cover a large cross-section of skills and skill levels. Some of the games are even adaptable to the skill set, and age of your child. Some like “Number” and “Word” games can be adapted to target specific areas like addition, or multiplication, or choose different groups of words for spellings, and build word familiarity.

Some game titles you may recognize like Adders, similar to the classic snake game where not only must the snake not crash but you have the added challenge of hitting the right numbers.

It’s not just numbers and letters though, the “World Capital” game as well as being fun tests Geography knowledge. A top game to help your child out with their History knowledge is the “Famous People” game. As it tells you a little bit about each of the people and what they did in History.

A game that will help your child pick up the skills to be a DJ, although it looks like its just fun the game can potentially help your child realize how music comes together by mixing the different musical elements together and building something that sounds good.

Co-ordination games are essential too, these include “Simon Says”, where you have to repeat the musical and color pattern in this fun game. “Building Blocks” as well as helping your child match numbers also helps them build their strategy, by trying to predict which numbers will come next.

As well as being great games for kids, these games can be fun for adults as well, so when your child next wants to play games online why not point them in the direction of http://www.freefungamesonline.co.uk so you know they are making the most of the their time on the internet.

I’m a big fan of supporting authors by buying their books, but it’s easy to spend a fortune at the bookstore if you’re not careful.  At least with stories for grownups, it takes several days, or at least hours, to read them, but with kids’ stories, you’re paying for a book that may only take a few minutes to read with your children.  (The plus side is that kids don’t mind reading the same books over and over!)

To save some money, you can try reading free kids’ stories online.  It can take a bit of searching to find appropriate stories that are family friendly, but as long as Mom or Dad vet the sites first, there’s no reason not to enjoy some of the offerings out there.  Keep in mind that websites don’t always state the target age group for stories they post, so you may have to browse around a bit to figure out if the reading level seems right for your kids.

To get you started, we’ll look at a few sites that offer stories for children.

Goodnight Stories Kids Site

This is a fun little site with stories, activities, and reading and writing clubs that your children can join.  The stories are fairly short (even the “long stories” aren’t very long), so they’re easy to read on the screen.  If your kids have the writing bug, they can even send in their own stories for consideration.  Hey, who wouldn’t like to be a published author before the age of 10?

http://www.goodnightstories.com/

Popular Children’s Stories

This site isn’t as fun and interactive for kids (in fact, between the ads and busy pages, a young surfer would probably have trouble navigating it), but it does contain a lot of popular “timeless” stories.  You’ll probably find some of the ones you read as a kid on there (shoot, some of the ones your parents and grandparents read too).  Think “Hansel and Grethel” and “Betsy Ross and the Flag.”  There’s quite a selection, though, and if you print them off, they’ll make for some good bedtime reading.

In addition, the stories are categorized, so it’s easy to pick out holiday stories, nursery rhymes, educational tales, etc.

http://www.popularchildrenstories.com/

MagicKeys Storybooks for Kids

For a more interactive site, head over to MagicKeys and let the kids pick out a story and click through the virtual pages.  Pictures and short passages per “page” make the stories read quickly, and some of the adventures are even spoken out loud (click the bell to have the lines read to you).

The site separates the storybooks into categories for young children, older children, and young adults.

http://www.magickeys.com/books/

Magic Isn’t Just For Children

When people think of hiring a magician for a party, what comes to mind are images of balloon animals, guys in goofy hats, and lots of screaming children with cake all over their faces. But magicians aren’t just for children’s parties anymore. In fact, many magicians perform full time and never do children’s parties. These professional entertainers can turn any corporate event into a show you and your attendees, be they from your own company or from without, won’t forget.

For the Company Retreat

The company retreat is something many employees have grown to dread. After all, what’s appealing about spending a weekend with people you see every day learning to be a team by building a tower of furniture? To alleviate some of this grumbling, hire a magician to entertain your fellow employees during the evening break or for a fun afternoon session. It will certainly add something new and different to the weekend retreat and will make it much more appealing to your attendees.

For the Convention

If you’re hosting a large event for many attendees like a professional conference or convention, a magician is also a great addition to your lineup. You might already have several professional speakers or presentations in addition to break-out groups, but all of those speakers are work-related (or at least on the same general subject as the rest of the conference). Your attendees will appreciate at least one session that’s completely off topic and allows them to relax and have a good time. A magician is the perfect form of entertainment for this.

Why? Because a magic show appeals to nearly everyone. If you hired a band, for example, you would have the problem of trying to find a group that plays music that will appeal to a large number of your attendees. Likewise, finding a comedian that’s not going to offend specific attendees can be difficult. A magician, however, can put on a performance that everyone will enjoy.

If you’re convention includes a meet and greet or an area where attendees mingle or go from booth-to-booth looking at displays, you can even hire some magicians to walk around performing smaller tricks. This can be a lot of fun for attendees since, unlike with the stage show, they will get to personally interact with the magician and take part in the magic.

No matter what event you’re planning or what you need a magician for, adding a little magic to your agenda can spice up just about anything. Next time you’re looking for entertainment, look into hiring a magician to create a magical event for your attendees.

Anders Boulanger is a professional corporate entertainer, magician and speaker. He makes his living performing for corporations all across Canada and the U.S. Visit his website at www.andersmagic.com