Reading, the Key to Learning

I remember the simple pleasure of curling up with a good book as a child.  I would devour books at an incredible rate reading about so many different new ideas and places.  The love of reading can lead to a lifelong lust for knowledge and is the essential ingredient to learning every other subject.  At Learning Is Fun Store, we have fun software that will improve your child's reading level, comprehension and expand their vocabulary.

A great program to get kids reading, writing and thinking comes from Reader Rabbit.  Both Reader Rabbit Personalized Reading Ages 4-6 and Reader Rabbit Personalized Reading Ages 6-9 feature Reader Rabbit and Sam the Lion in adventures that entertain and teach.  Each of these programs has age appropriate lessons to get kids reading, thinking, and doing puzzles.  There are printable activities and parental progress reports to help you keep your child on track.

Designed for young elementary school students, Elementary Advantage Essentials Language Arts is a wonderful learning solution that will help kids hone their early skills.  This program helps them understand spelling rules, vowel sounds, consonant sounds, and other phonics skills.  It will improve reading comprehension, help them grasp main ideas, learn the parts of paragraphs, and play vocabulary games.  A good all around program with lots of fun and engaging lessons.

Reward your child's reading habits with a wonderful book program from the people at Disney.  We now have a Disney Digital Books 3 Month Subscription available at a discount price.  This software will get you going and comes with a three month subscription good for up to three accounts for children as well as a parental account for reviewing activity and providing words of encouragement.  There are over 600 titles available with all your Disney favorites and is appropriate for all age groups with something for every interest.

Rainy Day Fun

Nice weather, if not here, is right around the corner and it's time to get kids outdoors to play and burn off excess energy and calories.  In to every life, a little rain must fall, and, it's good to have activities for children when they are confined indoors and studying and chores are already done.  At Learning Is Fun Store, we have some creative activities from Crayola that will keep kids busy for hours, and, they won't make a mess while having fun.

One of my favorite new additions to our website is Crayola Animation Studio.  Kids learn to easily create animation right from your computer and develop computer skills as well.  After your child completes a picture, a shadow of what they just created appears in the background.  This allows your child to add another slightly different picture creating movement when all pictures are shown in sequence.  Children get joy and satisfaction in sharing their creations with family and friends.

A fun activity that can be shared and enjoyed by adults as well is Crayola Photo FX Studio.  This program makes it easy to take pictures from a variety of different sources, including your own digital photographs, and add fun details and creative borders.  You can then use these pictures for cards, invitations, calendars, scrap books or photo albums.  The possibilities are endless with this software that can give everything a custom look.

The whole family can enjoy the Crayola Art Studio, a program that allows you to create realistic pictures and includes 1,000 templates to get you started.  Your kids can experiment on screen with tempera paint, acrylic paint, watercolor, chalk, crayon, oil pastel, colored pencil, markers, and more.  There are hundreds of preset colors, or create your own with an onscreen palette.  Your family can have fun creating  invitations, greeting cards, decorations, illustrated stories, and just about anything else they can think of.

Train Your Brain

No matter how young or old you are, you can train your brain and improve your concentration, memory power and critical thinking skills.  Games that entertain and exercise your brainpower are a wonderul way to do that.  At Learning Is Fun Store, we've added some software that the whole family can enjoy while relaxing and keeping the mind robust and healthy.

Brain Games software is a lot of fun and always has enough variety to suit every mood and family member.  Brain Games Brain Puzzles 2 is a stimulating collection of logic challenges, Mahjongg, matching contests, word puzzles and jigsaws.  For a little different twist, try Brain Games Brain Teasers.  This is a gigantic colllection of logic, stacking, matching, jigsaw, and word building games that each have hundreds of levels making them suitable for any skill or age.

Designed to help older students challenge, measure and develop important critical thinking skills, Core Intelligence Builder was devised by top MENSA puzzle editors.  Fun and helpful for anyone over the age of thirteen, you can select the level of difficulty, stress conditions and test length.  These varied and extensive practice tests will make thinking quicker and more effective. A great way to challenge the brain and help kids prepare for college entrance exams.

Getting the Upper Hand on High School

When a teen reaches high school, the pressure to succeed can be enormous.  Kids have to contend with trying to keep grades up, and, at the same time they are bombarded from every direction.  They are encouraged to participate in a whole host of activities, study, have a social life, try to fit in and prepare for either college or the working world.  It's easy to get a little lost, but, at Learning Is Fun Store, we have some software solutions that can help ease the pathway to achievement.

High School Advantage 2011 is a wonderful program that can follow your teen throughout the upper grades.  It will help improve your students confidence and grades by engaging, reinforcing, supporting and motivating them with interesting and challenging lessons that they can learn at their own pace.  A wide variety of topics are included, some of them are algebra II, geometry, trigonometry, biology, chemistry, physics, US history, US government, economics, writing and researching papers, as well as basic conversational Spanish, French, German and Italian.

Another fine educational software suite for teens is High School Success Deluxe 2010.  This comprehensive software covers over 100 subjects and includes over 600 learning activities and 2,000 exercises to keep students engaged in learning.  Perfect for any learning level, topics include algebra, writing, biology, chemistry, history, foreign languages and much more. You also receive access to tutor.com and Britannica Online Premium for additional learning support.

Not Just Fun and Games

At Learning Is Fun Store, we believe that there should be a healthy balance between learning and having fun.  When you make a game out of learning, you take the sting out of the process and it becomes much easier to digest.  When the teaching method isn't dull and boring, children pay better attention, listen longer and learn more.  We have just added some new software for the younger set that we are happy to say is quite entertaining and educational.

To help teach kids the essentials they need by first grade, Excelerator PreK-1st Grade is an ideal solution.  It is the perfect mix of skill-building lessons and entertainment that will keep youngsters playing and learning.  There are more than twenty animated, multi-level games that will help children grasp key early math, spelling, vocabulary, memorization, problem solving and creative skills.  Self-paced games allow children to learn at their own speed as they play color, letter, and number matching games, sorting exercises, match cards, and there is a Creativity Center for drawing and painting too.

For early elementary school students, Excelerator 1st-4th Grade will increase confidence and boost grades while keeping kids engaged in learning.  This program will help your child grasp essential concepts in addition, subtraction, geometry, vocabulary, problem solving, art, music and more.  There are over 25 games that will have kids play and solve mazes, matching puzzles, brainteasers, tricky puzzles, silly riddles and connect the dots.  At the Creativity Center they can even create their own music, or, draw and paint.

Learning the Disney Way

We've all grown up with the charming and endearing characters created by Walt Disney and children still love them.  Disney Learning is an enchanting and entertaining way to start your child down the path of early learning.  Their programs are loaded with age appropriate lessons that will build the knowledge and thinking skills kids need to succeed.  Designed for children 18 Months to Age 3, Disney Learning Toddler will teach your child all about colors, shapes, letters, numbers and early phonics with the help of Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.  There are 74 activities, including a charming journey through the Hundred Acre Woods via illustrated pages that come to life.

With youngsters Ages 2-4 in mind, Disney Learning Preschool begins to teach children early math and simple spelling.  There are seventy activities with Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.  Also included is Disney's Stanley Wild For Sharks game where kids will explore Stanley's underwater world and learn valuable environmental, social and emotional lessons.

Disney Learning Kindergarten is designed to further develop creativity, imagination and critical thinkings skills with 60 fun learning activities.  Children learn phonics, spelling, increase their vocabulary, practice addition and subtraction, and more.  Kids get to go on a special phonics quest with Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice as they search for lost items.  All of these programs entertain and teach, youngsters have a wonderful time and learn so very much.

Spring Fever

Spring is in the air and it is that time of year when people start thinking about taking care of all those household tasks that they have been putting off.  You might also be contemplating some new additions to your backyard.  At Learning Is Fun Store, we have some software that will help you catch up on repairs or make homemade furniture for your yard or patio.

Black and Decker Everyday Home Repairs is a fantastic way to save money.  This comprehensive video guide will provide you with step by step instructions for repairs to windows, doors, walls, ceilings, basic plumbing and electrical as well as exterior repairs.  It also has a project estimator that will help you determine if the repair will fit your budget and you can print out instructions, material lists, photos and the tools needed to complete the job.  You will also learn trade secrets and tips to help you complete common repairs.

Many people enjoy woodworking, get ready for spring with birdhouses for your feathered friends or a new picnic table in time for barbeque season.  Instant Woodworking Design gives you detailed instructions on these and many more projects.  Choose your project and the dimensions you'd like and the plans will be drawn up right before your eyes.  Each project has a material list and includes nailing points.  There are plans for a dog house, bookshelf, wine rack, shelving and more.

Investing in Success

There are many software programs available for children that are curriculum based for individual grade levels.  However, there are also some fine software suites that are designed to follow your child through multiple grades step-by-step.  These programs are a slightly larger investment up front, but, over time can actually be more economical.  Designed by educators, they will boost confidence, kids get to learn at their own pace and computers have infinite patience and are non-judgemental.

Academic Fitness Elementary School is brought to you by the makers of trusted Weekly Reader.  It will follow your child through first to fifth grades and allows you to monitor progress.  It covers all the core subjects including; Science, Social Studies, Math, Literature, English, History, and Geography.  It has 150 hours of tutorials, 7,600 questions and answers, I-Pod content and over 30 hours of audio books.  When all the content is considered, it is quite a bargain.

Another excellent program is Elementary School Success Deluxe 2010.  This program journeys with your child from kindergarten through fifth grade.  Endorsed by educators, it has award-winning lessons in a variety of core subjects.  There are over 800 fun and educational activities and 5,000 exercises.  This program also gives your child access to free homework help from Tutor.com along with a bonus Encyclopedia Britannica  Children's Learning Suite.  Come visit Learning Is Fun Store for these and other fine learning programs.

Out of This World

Many children still dream about becoming an astronaut and blasting off into outer space.  At the rate that technology is advancing, that dream just might become a reality for more and more of them.  Until that day arrives, help them learn more about our galaxy, the universe and the space program with some fascinating software.  Let's Explore Space Missions takes a look at the past fifty years of space exploration.  Kids will learn about U.S. and Russian astronaut programs, missions and space probes.  They will also learn about what scientists believe is in store for us in our future space endeavors.

Britannica Touch the Sky, Touch the Universe attempts to answer age old questions that everyone has about the universe.  Children will find the latest information on how a galaxy develops, where shooting stars come from, what causes an eclipse, and much more.  This program is packed with videos, simulations, and photographs of galaxies, nebulae, stars, constellations and the solar system.  Kids also have access to internet-based activities, research projects and productivity tools for school assignments.

Kids can take a fantastic journey in the Encyclopedia of Space and the Universe with exciting 3-D tours.   Just about every subject involving outer space is covered, kids can watch astronauts in training, learn about space technology, stars, constellations, planetary systems and much more.  It even includes an interactive virtual observatory to explore the night sky.  So, come investigate all the different knowledge adventures available at Learning Is Fun Store.