The Travel of Wiglington & Wenks

The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks is a virtual world based on the children’s story book series by John Bittleston. Through the web-based game, children ages 7 to 14 travel to places around the world, meet different historical people, play games, interact with other children online. This virtual world has more than 100 real and imaginary locations to help children learn about various cultures, people, and important historical events.

The site is intended to be a safe place for kids to play and explore:

Parents can look forward to a safe site for their children where they will be learning about history, geography, landmarks, famous people, inventions, the environment, animals and more.

{from the Wiglinton & Wenks website}

My Thoughts

When I first had the opportunity to review Wiglington & Wenks, I was excited. The graphics were amazing {and cute} and since we are doing geography studies this year I thought it would be a great addition to our school time.

The girls wanted to play right away ~ and really I couldn’t blame them. However, they quickly became frustrated trying to figure out how to access the program and got to the point where they just wanted to do something else. I tried to figure out how to start traveling in the game and ended up having to search through some forums for in order to gain full access. 

Truthfully, it’s not a program that I would want to invest my money in. While it does offer some fun things for kids to do, I had a few concerns:

• Lack of explanation on how to begin. While the site tells you to go to the museum, there are no directions on how to GET there. I ended up finding the museum for the kids, but was getting pretty frustrated myself. You are then supposed to find key items to help various historical figures remember things…again, good luck with that. The girls were just wandering around and not doing much in the way of learning.
• The site offers chat features between players ~ while it is moderated, some kids know how to get around the ‘no profanity’ rule and will use use inappropriate words. You can report various players if you witness something inappropriate {which I did..but couldn’t figure out how to report it}. That said, I’m not comfortable letting my kids explore a site that isn’t as controlled and monitored as I would desire it to be. The company is updating their chat monitoring software, but at the time I am writing this review, it is not done.
• Basically, the game ended up being a huge time-sucker and since we don’t allow the kids a whole lot of computer time, it’s not educational-based enough for me to justify a paying for a membership.

Find Out More

Anyone can play Wiglington & Wenks, but if you would like access to special features {like we did}, you’ll have to subscribe. There are several different options for membership: Monthly {$5.99}, 3 Month Ticket {$16.99}, 6 Month Ticket {$29.99} and Yearly {$48.00 ~ currently 20% off}. For more information, visit their site.

Click on the Homeschool Crew banner to read other reviews about this product.

This product was given to me for review purposes, and I do not have to return the product to the vendor. I was not paid for this post. All opinions expressed in this post are mine.

Core Learning and Crayola Art Studio

If your kids love the computer as much as mine do (begging would be an appropriate word to insert here) and they happen to be a little crazy about art, then you might want to look into purchasing Core Learning's new Crayola Art Studio ($24.95). It was just released in November and is a wonderful program for kids to create their own works of art. The program is based on the beginner levels of the corefx digital art software.

My overall impression of this product that it is AMAZING (and fun to boot)! Once I installed it on our computer, I had very little to do to show the girls how to use it. There is a quick video tour and the girls (ages 6 & 7) and even Zachary (with the girl's help) are having far too much fun using it. You can download a free trial of the software to try out for yourself, but here are few of the features of the program:

• realistic art tools to use - crayons, markers, paint, watercolors, chalk, oils...all available in a variety of colors and strokes.
• color palettes that allow you to mix your own colors or choose from a pre-set range of colors
• undo and mirror image features (rather handy for the kids!)
• hundreds of art images that can be edited and manipulated while kids are learning how to edit pictures
• ability to import your own pictures to edit and have fun with
  

If you have older children, the Corefx program ($59.95) allows you to do even more with graphics and drawing and even animation. Corefx includes many more graphics and art mediums and also has three skill levels.

In addition to art, Core Learning also offers programs for math, health, language, and critical thinking. We've been using the Health for Kids Series ($29.95) and our girls are having a lot of fun exploring the insides of the human body. The program makes it extremely fun for kids to learn about different parts of the human body through animation: the tongue, larynx, airways, mouth, epiglottis and more.

Core Learning also has a special page that lists current promotions available. Be sure to check out the Homeschool Crew blog for more on Core Learning!

Time 4 Learning: Online Homeschool Curriculum

Over the last 2 months, Laurianna and McKenna have been using a site called Time 4 Learning. We did try it with Zachary for a bit, but he is still new to computers (and a bit too curious) so we decided to have only the girls use it at this point.

Time 4 Learning is an online PreK - 8th grade curriculum that can be used a supplement to your current curriculum or even as your entire curriculum for language arts, math, science and social studies. The curriculum is tailored to each of your children's educational needs and levels and includes animated lessons, interactive activities, unit assessments, and printable worksheets for reinforcement (and it is ad-free!). Lessons are also correlated to standards in all 50 states. The Pre-K curriculum is thematic and has seasonal activities focused on learning shapes, colors, counting, weather, and much more.

Children work through the lessons and the lessons are visually checked off when they finish them. After a certain amount of "learning time" (and parents can adjust this time for each of their children), kids are sent to the "playground" to play fun, educational games before returning to their "lesson time".

Parents have the ability to log in and print automated progress reports for record keeping or portfolios. You can also see how your children are doing in all the areas that they are using, and see what areas they need to focus more attention/time on. There are lesson plans and a scope and sequence also available for parents to access at any time.

Time 4 Learning offers a free 14 day trial of the site, lesson demos, a scope and sequence of their lesson plans, and also a parents forum for those that are using the site. If you'd like a quick video demo of the site you can click here.

The cost for Time 4 Learning:

• $19.95 a month for the first child
• $14.95 for each additional child
• a 14 day money back guarantee

The girls have loved using the Time 4 Learning, especially after we have finished our planned school time each day. It is very interactive and the best part is, the kids don't realize that they are still "learning". The activities are fun and the kids can work through them with little help from me. When they are done, I can log on with my infomation and print off reports, see what they have been doing during their time on the site, and adjust it accordingly for the next time they are online.

If you would like to read other reviews about Time 4 Learning and see how others homeschoolers have incorporated it into their day, you can read more at The Homeschool Crew blog.