Now the school summer holidays are with us, here is a new educational games website designed for parents and children to play together:

ChooChooGames is a new educational games website for children aged two to six-years-old recently launched in the UK. ChooChooGames (www.choochoogames.co.uk) uses the online medium purposely to engage children and their parents in a learning conversation and in turn, a shared learning experience.

With young children spending increasing amounts of time online and the fact that there is a huge choice of multi-media games available to them, many parents have concerns about the effects on their children. Among them is Rafal Han, creator of ChooChooGames.

Han explains: “The internet is huge part of people’s lives, offering us fantastic opportunities. I wanted my children to embrace this technology and the educational opportunities it can bring, but not at the expense of the time we would usually spend together.”

Created in association with experts at leading Polish universities, ChooChooGames is an educational-play website enabling young children to reap the benefits of edutainment, as well as developing good communication and bonding skills that can only come from time spent interacting with other people.

Han continues: “ChooChooGames enables parents and children to enjoy the online world with each other in the same way they might enjoy reading a book or doing a jigsaw puzzle together.”

Bernadette Tynan, international best-selling author, leading expert in mind, brain and learning and President and Founder of UK children’s charity, Beautiful Minds says: “What’s brilliant about ChooChooGames is that it really brings parents and children together in a fun learning experience. None of us have as much time to spend with our children as we would like and with children enjoying quality online products more and more, websites like ChooChooGames mean that parents can not only spend more time with their children, but they can do it in such a way that is both educational and lots of fun.”

Han’s concept has become not only part of his family life but over 50% of families’ lives in Poland and in just two years has become Central Europe’s largest children’s educational-play website.

Along with aiding parent-child communication, ChooChooGames can help children with literacy and numeracy skills, hand-eye coordination and fine motor-neurone skills. The innovation behind using icons and animation instead of menus ensures that the website is child-centered, allowing even toddlers to play and learn.

Here are some comments from parents about the new site:

"I spent some time on the site and am happy to say it is lovely! My three-year-old really enjoyed the toddler activities – the sound effects made her giggle and she enjoyed the ‘surprises’ that are part of some of the games so she was keen to try them all out. The variety of activities kept her interested and engaged and I found them age appropriate. It was also great practice for her to use the mouse and learn about how to select activities. "She is so keen to play on the ChooChooGames website that I have now added it to her daily routine. She plays for around 30 minutes with me while her one-year-old brother naps.”Carla van Heerden, ToddleBabes

Carla’s three-year-old daughter comments on her favourite games:
"My favourite game is the painting nails and the painting houses. I also like to brush the teeth on the hippo, getting all the germs out of his teeth to get them nice and shiny. I like the lipstick game too but it’s tricky as I keep dropping the lipstick."

"My daughter found the ChooChooGames website to be good fun. She particularly enjoyed the game involving household appliances – being able to touch the images on the screen using the mouse is great for her hand eye coordination. The site allowed her to play with everything safely and in a controlled environment."
Rowan Perkin, registered reflexologist and mother of Ella, aged three

"I think the graphics are great – so different to other websites I have seen in this genre."Laura Driver, Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy?

"ChooChooGames gives me peace of mind in terms of children's mental stimulation, social growth and general development."
Simon Dalton, myfamilyUK

"My son absolutely loves trains so the website appealed to him immediately, he particularly enjoyed looking inside the train carriage. In terms of the games themselves, we had great fun playing them together. The bright colours and animation really grabbed his attention, and he enjoyed listening to the different sounds and music".
Tamara Bavin, mother of Thomas aged three and a half

For more information go to:
(www.choochoogames.co.uk)