Suggestions for Good Educational Software For Kids?

[omightyisis]

I would like to buy my niece some educational science or math software that she can use on my brother's Mac. But everything I have found so far is either Windows only (and pretty lame) or released a minimum of 6-8 years ago and also pretty lame.

Does anyone have any recommendations for good Mac educational software?

Thanks in advance!

 

[SilentPanda]

How old is your niece?

 

[omightyisis]

She is seven but has already read both Danica McKellar math books -- in other words, she is *extremely* precocious and easily bored.

 

[SilentPanda]

Depending on her interests, you might not need a strictly educational game. A game like Sim City can teach her math and money management indirectly. In an RPG you can work on calculating the minimum and maximum damage of various monsters and weapons and their damage per second.

My nephews are younger than your niece, but this weekend I was playing Scribblenauts on the DS and while they can't spell, I was letting them choose what was to be created and they could at least see how the words were were being spelled.

Here is a quite extensive site on using MMO's (specifically World of Warcraft) as an educational tool: http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/ Might spark some ideas about other games.

 

[omightyisis]

Actually, SIM City is a really good idea. I guess my thinking was too limited.

I'm going to check out Scribblenauts as well.

Thanks for your thoughts!