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photo credit: whiteafrican

Computers used to be reserved for grown-ups. They weren’t kid-friendly. But today, computer games for toddlers have revolutionized the ways your child learns and has fun! You don’t want to just pick a game based on a character your child loves – or the price tag.

Pick a toddler game for the computer that your little one will be able to play without help from you. Many parents simply go by the age on the box, never looking to see if their child is ready for certain skills required to play the game. The result is that your toddler gets frustrated and you feel as if you’ve just wasted money.

Computer games for toddlers should be very easy – to the point of point and click. You don’t want them to have to spell out long words or navigate a complicated strategy to succeed with the game.

Visual graphics are also important when you’re choosing the right computer game for your tiny tot. It’s not all about characters – they want bold colors, easy instructions and levels to see when they’ve “won” at the game.

Many companies have in-store systems that allow you to take a test drive of the actual game before you buy it for your child. At the very least, the company should have a comprehensive set of screen shots that you can see so that you’ll know what the game play consist of.

Keep an eye out for inappropriate content such as risqué clothing or violent battle scenes. You want simple computer games for toddlers that are age-appropriate such as puzzles, hide and seek, and learning concepts using letters and numbers.
Some Great Online resources for Computer games I have found:

• PBSKids.org
• Review of Sesame Street Games Online
  
• Noggin

Some other Computer/Video Games to check out:

• Leap Frog Leapster Learning Game System – Great Video Game system to take with you places and has wonderful learning games you can buy for it.  Both my kids (3 & 6) have it.  It has great built in games for coloring, and math skills.  I love the Letters on the loose game I got for my 6 year old.  It’s great practice for writing letters.  I also really like the Cars game and the Nemo game.
• There are a variety of Educational games for the PC, some good ones are Dora the Explorer, BackPack and Lost City Adventure, Thomas and Friends Special Delivery. Arthur’s Computer Adventure

photo credit: Wootang01

Toddlers love Sesame Street!!  My Kids when they were younger couldn’t get enough of Elmo and Abby Cadaby.  They had the dolls & toys with Elmo and were always excited to brush their teeth with their Elmo toothbrush!!  Sesame Street is a great educational show for kids, but their are so many other Sesame Street products that are Educational too!!

There are some great Sesame Street Online Toddler Games on Pbskids.org!  PBSKids has great Sesame Street Printables you can print out for your child to color.

Here are a few of the Sesame Street Online Toddler Games I found:

• Abby Cadabby Adventure Game: You first get to choose a habitat.  Then Abby picks a letter and you have to choose the objects with that letter with the magic star.  It’s a fun way to reinforce letters.  Unfortunately the game did take a while to load and the sound skipped a little bit as if the connection was being interupeted.  I found this with most pbskids games.  I am not sure if it is that their server gets overloaded soemtimes.  The game itself is good.
• Cookie Monster Letter of the day Game: This is another fun game that reinforces letters.  Cookie picks a letter and he can only eat objects with those letters.  You then drag the objects to his mouth and he eats the ones that start with the letter of the day.
• Elmo goes to the Doctor: Elmo isn’t feeling well so his mom is taking him to the doctor.  You then have to guess why he isn’t feeling well.  If you guess Tummy- then he says ouch-and rubs his tummy.  Elmo doesn’t really want to be at the Doctor’s.  Elmo sees his friends in the waiting room and you can click on them to see why they are there.  Then Elmo goes by the toys and you can click on them to play with them.  ( I think kids would really enjoy that part!) When Elmo goes into the room to wait for the Doctor you can click on things in the room to see what they do.  After the Doctor’s Elmo goes home and you can play with the toys in his room by clicking on them.  I like how you can interact with a lot of the objects in this game.
• Journey to Erney: Big Bird tells you to pick the object that sparkles to begin the game.  Once you start your journey to Erney, you need to find Erney by clicking on the box that Erney is hiding in.  This is a fun game.  It does take a little while to load.

There are many more games on Pbskids.org for Sesame Street as well as many other shows.  I will review some of the other games soon.

Another great way to play Sesame Street Online Toddler Games is to actually by some of the games on disc for your computer.  The Great thing about that is that you then don’t need to worry about loading time or internet connections.  There are many great Sesame Street Toddler Games for the Computer.  Below are a few for the computer and also Play Station Game systems.