5 Games that Entertain and Educate Kids while You’re Trying to Work From Home
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With school suspended for over 30 million students, parents everywhere are in search of ways to keep their kids engaged.
The educational gaming experts at Terminal Two, built by Endless, have put together this list of their favorite (and did we mention free?!) games that they are encouraging their own children to explore over the coming days.
These are great games for introducing foundational computer science and computational thinking concepts to middle school age students.
White House
Do not judge a book by its lack of color! This time, you get to decide what color this world should be. Using the magic of CSS, hack your world into a unique burst of color and light revealing hidden objects and clues. In this puzzle-based exploration game, your child will learn basic CSS techniques used to color and set attributes to the 3D objects in this unique town. Want to paint the rest of the town? Well, get through the house first, and you might just get to leave through the front door. At the end of the game, your child will have had a full introduction to CSS concepts like color hex value, font styling, scale and changing style attributes of objects.
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Ovum City
Can you control the chaos? Hack your way into the cyberpunk world of Ovum City. In this open-world game, you’ll debug broken code, solve puzzles, and upgrade your hardware as you explore. Don't get caught by the drones! It's up to you how Ovum City evolves, and in moving the world forward, your kiddo will edit parts of Javascript code with real code syntax through a code window, compile action and error messages to teach the concept of debugging.
The Passage
You've landed on a mysterious planet with one mission; find the secret map to locate the hidden bunker. Hack the world in this puzzle-based action game to cross perilous lands and the obstacles within. Find out if you can outsmart the passage. In doing so, your learner will gain exposure to Javascript programming syntax, solve puzzles through debugging and editing parts of real code using variables, math, step by step execution, logical sequencing, loops, booleans and conditional operations.
Aqueducts
In Aqueducts, all the water has disappeared from your village and it's up to you to save the day! Control variables and solve puzzles to connect the pipes and bring water back to your village. In this game players are introduced to Javascript programming syntax. Plus, they’ll solve puzzles through debugging and editing parts of real code using variables, math, step-by-step execution, logical sequencing, loops, booleans and conditional operations.
FROG SQUASH
A coding-themed variation of the arcade classic “Frogger”, your students will use code to help their frog dodge arrows, saws, and fire balls and reach safety.
This game is simple but addictive, and will leave your learner with an understanding of basic execution order, loops, and conditionals as general coding concepts. Learn how to play here.
Other games worth exploring:
Make it Fly in Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=make-it-fly
READY? Are you sure? OK, LET'S PLAY!
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A bit more about Terminal Two Games: Our games focus on a child’s desire for play and video games, connecting each game’s “mechanics” to a programming concept. A grid-like gardening game is a perfect place to teach arrays. Strategic tower defense games can teach instances and classes. While in Terminal Two, kids will have fun first, but inadvertently find themselves solving problems and tinkering with ideas central to computer science and computational thinking.