Free software for kids aged 3 to 7?

July 5, 2007 8:42 AM

Free software recommendations for kids aged 3 to 7. Fun and /or educational.

We donated some pcs to a HeadStart program, and it would be nice to recommend some good games for an child development environment.

posted by Mom to Education (6 answers total)

Faced with this same issue I tried out a whole bunch of programs, free and commercial, and they all stunk (stank?). Eventually, however, we stumbled on www.uptoten.com and we have never looked back. My toddler son, who has no interest at all in the normal run of EduTV (Dora, Elmo, etc.), is obsessed with it and my only wish is that there were more content available offline. They have a few games you can buy but it's mostly an online resource. It's available in free or "premium" versions, it has over 800 games in the free version ranging from toddler to, well allegedly 10-year old level (though I've never looked at the older kid content) and it's available in several languages at the click of a button. I can't recommend it highly enough for both fun and educational value.
posted by The Bellman at 8:58 AM on July 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

This site is pretty enormous, but I've used it to find a ton of educational games I used to play at school as a kid in the early 90s. It has thousands of free games and some that can be downloaded for, I think, a one-time fee of $5.

http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:24 AM on July 5, 2007

Starfall is a free learn-to-read website.
posted by mdonley at 9:38 AM on July 5, 2007

In a previous thread I found Tux Paint.
posted by theora55 at 10:16 AM on July 5, 2007

If these PCs are online, it may be worthwhile to browse through the Jay is Games "kidsafe" archives. Many of these are online Java or Flash, but there are downloads as well. Nearly all games featured there are free, and quite a few are educational.
posted by Durhey at 1:14 PM on July 5, 2007

Edubuntu is a free Linux distribution which includes educational programs and games. It is available in a live-CD version so you can try it out before you actually install it.
posted by euphotic at 12:20 AM on July 21, 2007