This Military Appreciation Month guest post comes from one of our favorite Military Mommy Bloggers, Lori, over at Air Force Wife Life. Check out her blog and read below about why she loves Zoodles, the kid-safe internet browser.
Why I love Zoodles
Currently I’m living overseas in the Middle East with my husband and our two extremely cute and extremely curious children. I’m writing this because I’d like to share with you a service that I recently stumbled upon. I’m so very glad that I did!
It’s called Zoodles. Have you ever heard of it? If not, it’s definitely worth checking out! It is basically a kid-friendly internet browser that you install on your computer. I found Zoodles a little over 4 months ago and my whole family loves it. Here are my five reasons why we love Zoodles:
1. It’s fun. My children ages 8 and 5 love going on their Zoodles dashboard and exploring every day. Every day they ask for Zoodles and because I enjoy it as well, we’re on there almost every day. It’s brilliant for learning together as they have a Parent-Play Along Mode that I use sometimes with my 5 year old.
2. It’s educational! Can you believe that my 8 and 5 year old are asking to play around on something that they can learn from? YES! Zoodles is full of games that are exciting, inspiring, thought provoking, and educational. There are different areas on the Zoodles dashboard that take you to books, art, and games. My daughter, ever the budding artist loves the art section and my son enjoys playing games that focus on geometry. He’s 5 by the way.
3. It’s parent friendly and safe! There are parental controls that let you limit what your kids can see, set time limits on how long they can be on, and block websites and content that you don’t want them to see. There is also a progress report that you can log on and check, or have emailed to you so you know exactly what your child is doing and how much of it they are doing. You can also promote certain games so that they are learning based on their current levels and needs.
4. Video Mail!!!! It has it! Living overseas, we really enjoy using Skype, but sometimes it can be a pain because you have to coordinate with each other and with an 8-hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time difference on our part we’re usually in our pajamas when Yia Yia or Pop Pop want to chat. Let me just say that video mail has been a godsend. The kids pop on and make a 30 to 45 second video that they can email to their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins and the kicker is that our family members can reply back! Neat right? We definitely think so. I’ve watched my children’s relationship with their family members over 6000 miles away flourish into something great because of Zoodles video mail.
5. It’s cheap! We subscribe to Zoodles for $4.95 a month and that is not per child. That’s just how much we pay as a family for the awesome service that is Zoodles!
Zoodles is available to you anywhere. I highly recommend this program for my fellow military families because honestly, it’s priceless to watch your child’s face light up because they have Zoodles mail from a loved one and being excited to send mail back.
I hope I have convinced you to check out Zoodles at least once (maybe more), and I hope you find as much success with it as our family has.
-Article Contributed by Lori Tupper
