Educational virtual worlds

Educational virtual worlds combine kids' learning activities, imagination, and a whole lot of fun, not just for your child, but for you, too!

Many virtual worlds have educational elements of course.

Maybe your child will take responsibility for a virtual pet - and plenty of these sites use virtual money.

The following websites focus on specific learning goals and skills, and often have parent or teacher sections providing more ideas and activities.

There are more educational virtual worlds on the horizon, but let's take a look and see what's on offer at the mo - links open a new browser window:

Educational virtual world websites

SecretBuilders
The SecretBuilders virtual world is aimed at kids from 5 to 14 years of age, and offers a wide variety of activities, including action, puzzle, and multiplayer games, fun quests, contests, clubs, fascinating facts - and plenty of learning opportunities as your kids play their way around!

The site lives up to its claim as a "fun virtual world where kids live, learn and play" - there really is a lot for children to do here. Younger ones will enjoy creating their character, exploring the Enchanted Woods, Haunted Valley, Magic Bazaar or Treasure Island, and playing the great quality games. Older children can also read clues and attempt the Quests, interact with famous people from history, or get involved with the charity and fundraising element within the world, called One For All, by answering questions about math, geography or English, for example.

Kids can earn virtual money, called Shills, by completing various activities, and can then buy items for their home or pets - or purchase spells! They'll also enjoy reading the Crooked Pencil magazine - and contributing their own writing - a really great feature.

Start off by registering your child's account. Then register your parent's account, and link it to your child's account details. Once you're logged into the parent's control panel, you can control how your child plays and set chat safety levels. Choose between standard safe chat or ultimate safe chat. The ultimate option lets your child use and see only predetermined phrases, emoticons and actions - so for little kids, this is the option I'd recommend.

With the accent on a healthy lifestyle as well as fun, CampPete's world includes destinations such as

• Fuel Up Island
• Arcade Alley
• Pro Palace
• Quarterback Club

- and your child can play games such as Running Back Attack, Soccer Kick, and Grocery Relay.

There are also instructional videos about gameplay - very useful for newbies to the game like me! After all, just what is the Quarterback's job in "The Huddle?" Answer questions from the videos, play games, and collect tokens.

"My Locker" is a nifty feature, where you can keep track of your teammates, and scores, edit your player, and get encouragement from Coach Pete!

Safety-wise, you can choose from a filtered Safe Chat, or go for Safe Chat MAX, which offers only predefined words and phrases. Check out the parent's section to find out more.

Play for free or upgrade to MVP membership. A wonderfully produced site, offering lots for your child to do, CampPete is certainly worth a visit.

MinyanLand
"Have fun, make friends, learn about money" - so starts the homepage of MinyanLand, a free educational virtual world website aimed at kids grades three to five. Meet Hoofy the Bull and Boo the Bear, and learn all about earning money, as well as saving and spending it. There's a focus on charitable giving, as well as a Virtual Allowance feature available.

Kids start out with a healthy bank balance, and then it's up to them whether to spend at the Mall or earn more money by playing games. Looks an interesting concept.

Eekoworld
This site's for kids from 6 to 9 years of age, and as the name tells you, it's all about teaching kids how to take care of the world we live in. There's a teacher's guide as well as a family guide to the site, where your kids can learn about what's really in a bag of trash, or how to have an eco-friendly birthday bash!

Eeko stands for Environmental Education for Kids Online! And kids will enjoy creating and helping their own EekoCreature, as well as spending time in their EekoHouse.

Your kids can find out about ecosystems, the effects of pollution, and what they can do to help improve our environment. Plants, animals, land, sea, sky - all in all, a super site for curious kids.

Handipoints
For kids four to fourteen, Handipoints' Handiland is a really cool idea. It's free, too!

What's it about? Well - with the help of the Handiland educational virtual world, your child is encouraged to lend a hand - in the real world, that is! If your child completes a set of planned chores, they get points and rewards. And it's all done with a sense of fun and achievement.

The site aims to help parents raise their kids to be happy, healthy, and smart. Plan your daily or weekly chore chart, for just one child or all of your kids. You're guided on how to set up a weekly allowance program, check your kids' progress, teach your children how to take responsibility. And there's a parents' forum too! Nice.

And the virtual world bit? Parents go to the parents' portal. Kids log into Handitown - and get to interact with their chore chart, go on cool Missions with their customized CoolCat - and hopefully succeed in their quest to become happier, healthier, and smarter!

To get started, create your own parent's Handipoints account. Create your child's/children's cats. Then move onto the tutorial and create your child's chore list from a list of tasks.

We've chosen some very simple personal chores:

• Clean your room
• Fold your clothes
• Pick up your toys

That's more than enough to get started with for my son!

Oh, there are fun chores on offer too! Play Duck, Duck, Goose, or play hide and seek or peekaboo! And there are healthy tasks or smart tasks to choose from - dance around the room, or sing your ABCs. What could be more sensible?

The "demerits" section features minus points for arguing with your sister or coloring on the walls :)