Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs...For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:1-2, 5

Friday, December 17, 2010

Tiny Planets

Tiny Planets: Bing and Bong
I was given the opportunity to review the website, Tiny Planets.

{ Tiny Planets provides award-winning educational entertainment set in space exploration and discovery, inspiring creativity and critical thinking in youth ages 4 to 12.
Tiny Planets features the cosmic adventures of Bing and Bong, two whimsical aliens who travel the Universe of Tiny Planets together on their gadget-loaded plush sofa. With Bing and Bong, children are encouraged to think for themselves, assume social responsibility, take care of our planet and learn about the mysteries of space. }


Tiny Planets Home is your central location to access all our Tiny Planets web sites. The Tiny Planets online content has won two BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards – Interactive Best Entertainment Website and Best Children's Interactive. We're quite proud of that!


On Tiny Planets TV you can watch any of the Tiny Planets television episodes. This series was co-created with Sesame Workshop and emphasizes science education and early learning goals, such as social and emotional development, language and literacy, problem-solving and reasoning, knowledge and understanding of our world, and creative development. Tiny Planets is the only television program to be endorsed by Montessori Centre International, and it's been a favorite in nearly 100 TV territories around the world. Thank you Montessori!


My Tiny Planets is a new online community and virtual world based on science and space exploration that combines social elements and gaming to create an engaging space exploration experience. Children create an avatar (affectionately called their “Space Cadet”), solve galactic missions with Bing and Bong, sharpen their wits with fast-paced mini-games, navigate their spaceships and avoid wormholes, adopt and care for their own planet, and nurture exotic plants in a biodome, all the while racking up achievements and special badges for their accomplishments.


On Tiny Planets Fun your child can take a few moments to enjoy brainy puzzle games (like fractions, sound and seek, and symmetry), as well as coloring books and comics.


On Tiny Planets Books you'll find interactive story books for younger children featuring Bing and Bong, their friends the locals and the flockers, and all the endearing planets in the Universe of Tiny Planets. Read these books with your child, or teach your child to read on their own!


Tiny Planets Learning is our site for parents, homeschoolers, and educators. Here you'll find lesson plans that include educational activities and science experiments to do at home. Also, you'll see how every episode in the Tiny Planets television series maps to early learning goals. Some Tiny Planets parents have even created curriculum for their children using these creative resources!


Tiny Planets Labs is our playground for things to come! We participate in several EU University research projects, keeping us technologically sharp. When we create new games, we put them on our labs site to test them out. Let us know what you think!

So far, my older boys, ages 9 and 10, have played on the website. They have mainly played with the My Tiny Planets and Tiny Planets Fun…my 9 year old responded with “It’s Awesome”, when I asked whether he liked it or not. He especially likes making his journal and playing the games.

It is free to sign up and create accounts for yourself and your children…though I will preface to say that the website is not totally free. There are many aspects that are free, but there are some that you will need to purchase “keys” in order for you child to use all areas. The “keys” are relatively cheap…10 for $1.95, 25 for $3.95, 85 for $9.95, 250 for $25.95 and 600 for $49.95. Most of the games or activities cost anywhere from 5-10 keys, but as I said before there are free ones too. I will also mention that creating accounts for your children was a little difficult at first as I saw no explanation of how…but I did figure it out. You need to click on the small “create a cadet” link first, that will give you names to use for the cadet account and then ask you to give a password. I like the idea that my children’s names are not on the website. FYI---write down this information so it is easier to “add cadet” on the parent’s account, especially if you have multiple children, as you may forget what they are by the time you need themSmile. After you have gotten cadet names and passwords for each of your children that will be playing, go back to the parent’s account to sign up. Once you’ve done that it will ask you if you want to “add cadet”, click on it and put the cadet name and password that you wrote down, at that point you should be able to purchase “keys” if you want. I personally have not purchased “keys” yet as they still have many things they can do before we need to do that.

I like that there is a lot to do at the website…that it has multiple arenas to play at or do and for a wide difference in age. I would recommend this site, especially for those with boys.

To read other TOS reviews on this product click here.

Disclaimer---I was asked to review this website and (I still need to contact them) I  will receive some “keys” in exchange for my honest review.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for taking the time to review our website. We're glad that the children enjoyed themselves. If you're looking for new science experiments to incorporate into your curriculum, be sure to check out our blog at www.tinyplanetsblog.com. There's science, space facts and history for the family.

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