A Review of ABCMouse.com

Photo Credit: ABCmouse.com

Being a mom with two young children, I am always on the look out for what can best benefit them that is both educational and fun. About a month ago, my daughter started pointing out ads for ABCmouse.com whenever they played during Disney Junior. The ads were vague, but definitely intrigued me since both of my kids were getting very excited over it.

So, two weeks ago I caved and told both of my kids that I would sign them up for ABCmouse.com. As soon as I went to the site, a page popped up requesting payment. Since I had already promised both of my kids that I would sign up, I felt that I had to pay to at least give it a try. I do wish that they had given a website preview prior to paying, but the payment options were reasonable - $7.95 per month, or $79.00 for a year, and I decided to give it a month long try.

After paying, I was immediately taken to a page to set up an account as a parent. One of their nice features is that there are four people allowed on each account, including a parental control. Each of the kids is allowed their own customized avatar and special teacher for their level.

Once everything has been set up, the child is taken to a virtual classroom that has daily lesson plans already set up, along with a virtual zoo and farm, art pages, music, and more; and have levels for toddler through kindergarten.

In seeing my daughter (who is in kindergarten) play on ABCmouse.com the content seemed almost too simple. It may be because her school is more advanced, but she is already able to read basic packets and what not, and the highest level of content (at least that I have seen so far) is the basic ABC's. For my son (who is pre-school level), everything is perfectly matched, and the lesson plan has worked wonders in adding to his knowledge.

ABCmouse.com does offer incentive to kids to keep going with their lesson plans. For each segment that is completed (and each lesson is broken down into four segments), there are tickets rewarded. The number of tickets given is in direct relation to the difficulty of the segment the child just completed. After a lot of tickets have been collected, the child is able to go to the virtual store and can get pets for the classroom, new clothes for their avatar, and accessories.

Now that I have seen my kids interact with the site, I feel their is more positive to it than negative, and love the fact that there is a safe, and controlled, virtual spot for my kids to play on, and know that there is no way for them to speak to strangers. The content is well thought out, and very broad, and is well worth the price. I am excited to see how the site changes and evolves over time.