ABC Mouse

I feel compelled to post about this awesome website, ABCMouse.  There are many sites for young children, and others that we enjoy, but I believe ABC Mouse is the most comprehensive.  It is for preschool and kindergarten (5+) but it’s not dumbed down, so my 8-year-old loves it too.  The kids go through different biomes on their learning path and they learn about the animals that live in that climate. They learn geography, social studies, science, etc., and this is not found on the others websites that concentrate on reading or math.

The songs are good quality recordings, and there is a bouncing ball above the words.  Hunter (8) is having so much fun with the songs and singing along with ease. In preschool and kindergarten he did not like songs and would not sing them.  I’m glad he’s getting an opportunity to enjoy them now.   I believe it will help him with his memory work and music helps with math.

I also noticed that my 8-year-old is reading some of the words in the lessons before the narrator will say them.  The website has books with pages too, and they are not the simple kindergarten books (3 and 4 letter words) or silly nonsense topics.  The books are about real things.  The books have a highlighter bar moving over the words as the narrator reads it.

This site covers math (numbers 1 to 20), shapes, reading, letters, phonics, word families, sight words, social studies, and science.  The math is too easy for my kids but they still enjoy it.  The literacy activities are good practice and there are plenty of words to read on the site without the pressure of reading the bigger words all by yourself.

The kids earn carnival tickets that they can use to buy pets (and furniture and clothing, etc.).  The kids need to clean the tank and feed the fish.  I like this website better than Webkinz.  For the hamsters it shows the food and water levels of each hamster.

Our kids play for hours, but parent can set time limits.  This week I was sick during our school days. I don’t feel bad because they spent hours learning on ABC Mouse.  My eldest is 25% through Level 5 in less than a week.  At first I set it to independent learning, then I changed it to guided learning.  Hunter didn’t notice or mind the change.

Hunter read 25 different books in 4 days (26 total), and played 17 different songs (29 total).  Chandler loves the site too and is close to having the same amount completed.  We have not looked at levels 1 through 4 for younger children.

It’s reasonably priced at $7.95 a month for up to 3 children, with discounts for yearly memberships — $79.00 for one year and $99.00 for two years.  My kids are older so we will keep the monthly membership until they finish Level 5 and Level 6.  I like that it shows the billing date so I know when it will come out of our bank account.  I don’t know of any coupon codes or specials, and I’m not promoting for them.  We just like it.