Luke loves to play on the computer. He can use the mouse to click and push the keys on the keyboard. He loves to play games, but he also goes crazy with clicking and has messed up my computer on more than one occasion. The last time he had somehow changed the date and every site that I would visit would say that the security certificate was expired. I thought I had some kind of virus, but no, it was Luke clicking away.
After that, I went on the hunt for software for children. Something that would disable everything but what I wanted him to play with. About a month later I was contacted by Zoodles to do a review and giveaway of their browser!!
As soon as I downloaded it I knew it was what I had been looking for! Here is a little bit about Zoodles.
"Our goal is to give kids a safe place to play and learn online. We knew that we couldn’t just give kids a typical browser and send them off to explore. Most sites today are way too complicated for young kids to navigate on their own, and they don’t provide enough safety from all the bad stuff lurking on the web.
So, we started from scratch. We built a FREE browser, especially for kids, that makes it simple for them to find lots of fun activities – all by themselves. By launching the icon on your desktop, your child will enter a full-screen mode of Zoodles that will keep them from exiting out and finding inappropriate content or accidentally deleting your important files."
My favorite feature is the full screen browser!! You click on the icon on your desktop and it opens up the browser. From there on, your start menu is gone! Luke can not click on anything but the browser. He can't even close the browser out, if you click on the x to close it, you have to type in "quit" to get it to close. I don't have to worry about him getting into the control panel or any of the other trouble he has gotten into while playing on the computer!
This is a screen shot of what it looks like once you have opened the browser. See, full screen!
Once you click on the picture of the child that is going to play you will see this.
Zoodles chooses games that are age appropriate, so these are games that are appropriate for a two year old child. There are pages and pages of games for Luke to play. I love the variety as Luke gets bored of one game pretty quick. You just click on the game they want to play and it opens it up, still in the full screen mode and they can play, when they are done with that game they can click on games and go back and choose another one.
To get an idea of what games are offered click HERE to check out the PBS Sprout games and click HERE to check out the games offered for 2 year olds!!
Zoodles also offer parents the option of blocking ads and filtering violence. I know I have looked at the computer while Luke was on it and wondered "what the heck is this" well, he had clicked on an ad, so this is a definite plus. And I don't want Luke playing violent games, so this is a must!
Zoodles has parental controls also that lets you encourage certain subjects! If your child is having problems in math, you can choose to encourage math games, etc.
Here is what the parental control screen looks like. Notice that it tells me what Luke has learned based on the games he has played?
And if that's not enough, Zoodles also has a timer!! You can set a timer for week days and week ends! Once the timer ends, the screen goes back to the log in page. This would be so nice for older kids but also helps me get Luke off the computer when its time!
The browser is free to download but to access the parental controls, you will need to purchase a membership.
Here are some pictures of Luke using Zoodles!!
Zoodles wants to give 3 of my readers a 3 month membership for FREE!!!!
Want to win????
Mandatory entry: Visit Zoodles and come back and tell what feature you like most!!!
Want some extra entries????
1 Extra entry: Become a follower of my blog (or already be one!)
1 Extra Entry: Put my button on your blog and leave a link
1 Extra Entry: Follow me on twitter
1 Extra Entry: Tweet about this giveaway and leave a link to your tweet. You can do this once a day for an extra entry every day. You can use this sample tweet:
Want a parental controlled web browser for your kids? Enter to win here Ends 8/10
3 Extra Entries: Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to your post
Good Luck!!!
This giveaway will end on August 10 at 10 pm. The winner will be drawn using random.org and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn. I was provided with a free 6 month membership for review and no other compensation was received. The opinions in this post are my own honest opinions.
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