Like most kindergarteners, sonny likes to learn by doing and does not appreciate too much meddling from me in his learning process. So when it comes to imparting kindergarten level education to him, I have to be a facilitator rather than his teacher. That being said, this does not come as a surprise considering how much I dislike instructor-led training myself and would rather learn at my own pace than be given directions.
With this in mind, I have shortlisted and “sonny-tested” these Top 5 Kindergarten Websites And Apps For Homeschooling your 4- and 5-year-olds and much more importantly, for their self-learning. All these websites/apps are fun, interactive and make learning through doing super easy. Check these out!
1. PBS Kids
PBS Kids was and still is one of my and sonny’s favorite go to sites for fun learning games. In fact, most of his favorite cartoon shows reside on this site. From Curious George’s Busy Day Maths Games to Super Why’s Word Games, sonny loves them all and given a choice, would play them from dusk till dawn 😉
A couple of drawbacks, though are:
- Only a very few of the games are available on iPAD, which means I have to sacrifice my laptop whenever sonny wants to play on the site. And moreover, since 4- and 5-year-olds are not as proficient as older kids in using the laptop/desktop, supervision is a must so that they don’t end up deleting important files by mistake (This may or may not have happened to me!).
- The shows/videos are available only in the US, which means that the rest of the world is left searching for them on YouTube or asking friends/relatives in the US to send DVDs of their favorite shows whenever they visit.
2. Starfall
Starfall is a publicly supported charity which is dedicated to early education – Pre-K to Grade 2. Reading through phonics, mathematics games, action songs, the talking library and tons of other fun stuff make this site a wonderful experience for sonny – so much so that he never feels like he is “being taught”, rather he looks forward to his playing sessions on Starfall.
This website also has an app version which includes everything. A yearly membership to all the content costs $35 for a home license. The good news is that part of the content is free. This means that you can try it out with your children and buy the full version if and only if your children like the app. And the best part is that this safe, ad-free app is super easy and intuitive for small children to use and requires almost zero supervision. Say yay for another relaxed cup of coffee and check below video out!
3. Originator Kids
Originator Inc’s “Endless” series of Apps are one of the best that there is and have won many accolades and awards. Sonny loves how the “monster-like” alphabets and numbers sound out their respective phonics and values (sometimes to the tune of famous compositions!) and then come together to form words or do maths operations. The animation at the end of each completed word/number helps internalize the concept and acts as a reward system to keep sonny going.
You can try part of the apps for free and if your children love it, then buy individual packs (based on Level) or the whole bunch clubbed together. We have used almost all of the apps in the series. Currently, sonny loves Endless Wordplay and Endless Numbers. Check out the below demo of the endless reader…..
