PrimaryGames.com: Online Interactive Educational English Games

PrimaryGames.com: Online Interactive Educational English Games
Reviewed by
MEIZAREENA BINTI MIZAD
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
PRODUCT AT A GLANCE
Product Type:
Interactive games
Language(s):
English
Level:
Beginners, Intermediate & Advanced level English learners
Activities:
Free educational games, colouring pages, interactive e-books, holiday activities, musical
postcards and crafts. It provides free arcade and learning games for kids and teens featuring
the best action, adventure, sports, and racing games.
Media Format:
Online
Operating Systems:
Windows or any operating system that supports current web browsers
Hardware Requirements:
Speakers
Supplementary Software:
Current web browser
Documentation:
None
Price:
Free of charge
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
PrimaryGames.com was created by PrimaryGames, Inc. PrimaryGames is one of the fastest
growing gaming companies on the web and has been entertaining both children and adults
since 2000. The company was originally founded by teacher Susan Beasley, who built online
games to keep the students in her classroom entertained while they were engaged in
learning. Over a decade later, the company has grown into several websites with millions of
users from all over the world. With several thousand game titles and growing, PrimaryGames
strives to bring our users the best gaming sites on the web. This website provides interactive
games on the Internet for kids, parents, and teachers. The site features free educational
games, colouring pages, interactive e-books, holiday activities, musical postcards and crafts.
It provides free arcade and learning games for kids and teens featuring the best action,
adventure, sports, and racing games.
Games spotlight, arcade, cool game, all game are the kids’ game available to play (Figure 1).
Games at PrimaryGames provides kids games, math games, reading games, girl games,
puzzles, sports games, print colouring pages, read online storybooks, and hang out with
friends while playing one of the many virtual worlds found on PrimaryGames. There are also
popular games like Fantage, Club Penguin, ourWorld, and Moshi Monsters in our virtual
worlds section. Holidays at PrimaryGames has a large collection of holiday games, crafts,
colouring pages, postcards and stationery for the following holidays: Christmas, Halloween,
Easter, Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve (Figure 2). Learning at PrimaryGames invites
teachers to visit the Curriculum Guide to find games and activities to meet the classroom's
curriculum needs for Math, Science, Language Arts, and Social Studies. (Figure 3).
Figure 1 below shows the Games Spotlight, Arcade, Cool game and All game.
Figure 2 below shows the collection of Holidays at Primary games.
Figure 3 below shows the teachers’ site at Learning at Primary games.
EVALUATION
Technological Features
The website is user-friendly especially to the primary school children. This website is free of
charge; anyone either visitors or learners can browse to the website without any registration.
Users can use their PC or laptop via an internet connection, and the speed of website
operation depends on the capacity of the CPU of the computer and the speed of the internet
connection. There were no delays when the programme is running but it surely depends on
the internet connection. The websites works with the web browsers which are Google
Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. The graphics used are colourful and cheerful
that will attract the kid’s attention. As it is easy to use and to explore, you just click on the
button on which games you prefer to play and it will bring you to the games you wish to play
(see Figure 4). The videos, sounds, pictures and other media in the website can be played
without any requirement of installation of other software.
Figure 4 is an example of ‘Arcade’ and when clicking on the ‘Action’ button it will lead you to
the action games and other action games available (see Figure 5).
Figure 5 shows the available action games.
Activities (Procedures)
There are nine areas in this website that are Home, Games, Learn, Celebrate, Make, Videos,
Top 100, Virtual Worlds and Mobile and Tablet (Figure 6). In the Home page, visitors or
learners can look at the games provided and the website has to offer (Figure 7).
Figure 6 below shows the home page for the website which has all the online games.
Figure 7 below shows an example of the puzzle game. By clicking the Jigsaw Puzzle it will
bring to the selected puzzle and other puzzle games offered. (see Figure 8).
Figure 8 is the selected puzzle.
The Puzzle game is apart from other games provided by the PrimaryGames.com. The jigsaw
puzzle provides you more options for you to choose and play. You will not find it difficult as it
is easily explored and used which is relevant to cater the needs for primary or school
children.
Teacher Fit (Approach)
Apart to be played for the kids, this website is also suitable for teachers, using the learn
button. It is possible for the teachers to view the Curriculum Guide to find the right game or
activity to meet the classroom or kid's needs. The guide is broken up into four areas: Math,
Language Arts, Science and Social Studies. This quick guide contains content descriptions
and grade level suggestions for all of the educational activities on PrimaryGames. The
language used in the website is English and it is applicable and suitable to all the learners’ or
visitors’ level of proficiency.
Here, the teachers also can basically get free printable worksheets and colouring pages and
fun sheets from the Activity Pages; find lesson plans and bulletin board ideas and labels in
the classroom extras; get the teaching insights and tips from the author and other teacher as
well as receive the nest education sites found on the web.
Other than that, it is a good practice for the teachers especially who are teaching the primary
school children as the games are attractive and fun to be played. The Maths section for
instance provides five other sections: Games, Bookshelf, Printable, Videos and Teacher
Resource so that teacher and the kids are able to learn and explore (see Figure 9).
Figure 9 below shows the five sections under Maths ‘Learn’ button.
Apart from that, there also videos uploaded in the Learn section where students can watch
and learn from there (see Figure 10).
Figure 10 below shows the videos under Math Videos and other videos uploaded.
Thus, it is clearly seen that the purpose of this website is to create a fun and creative way of
an online interactive educational English games for the students to learn and develop their
thinking skills. The primary kids can develop creative thinking and imaginary skills by playing
the games online. This website allows learners or visitors to be individual learners as it is
more to self-study skills where you learn on your own. Therefore, it is limited that only
individual learner can explore and play the games and the teacher becomes the moderator. It
would be better if the PrimaryGames.com could provide games to be played in groups or pair
work as it offers more interpersonal/group communication among the learners.
Learner Fit (Design)
Since learners can choose either to play educational games, make cards or play imaginative
games, therefore it is focusing more on independent learners. Learners have the tendency to
explore the real life situation when for instance they go to jigsaw puzzle or play virtual world
where they are able to develop their critical and imaginative thinking. The language used is
easily understood and it is user-friendly. Learners also find it very interesting if they were to
view the ‘Learn’ section where it has a lot of free printable worksheets and videos which suits
the level of kids from Grade 1 until Grade 6. Learners have the right to choose any activities
or games from the website without any distraction. If they like to watch the videos, they can
select it and watch it more than once. It is so easy!
SUMMARY
On a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), this website should be given 4 due to user friendly and its
relative ease of use. The graphics and the image presented in the website should be given a
credit as it is found most attracting.
There are no grammatical or linguistic errors with regards to grammatical accuracy. It is just
that the videos uploaded are more towards cartoon types that is lacking of current cartoon
characters updated in the TV nowadays.
As for use of computer capabilities, the website relies more on games and videos where
there are lacking of text types to be read or written by the kids or learners. The overall ease
of use is certainly a Very Easy rating because it does not need to install or download when
using it.
The overall evaluation deserves a Good rating since it caters the needs not only for kids but
teachers too. Thus, it is proven that the website helps the teachers to make their teaching
and learning English more fun, attractive and interesting too!
SCALED RATING (1 low-5 high)
Implementation Possibilities: 4
Pedagogical Features: 4.5
Use of Computer Capabilities: 5
Ease of Use: 4.5
Overall Evaluation: 4
Value for Money: 5