Well color me excited on this one! No – really! This is great! And not only because I have found something safe and entertaining online for my girls to play, but because I get to give 10 (TEN) of my wonderful readers an educational, fun, safe, and slightly addictive – even for Mom – product to play!
National Geographic’s Animal Jam is a colorful, virtual world for children to explore. Now, it says it is for ages 5 – 11, but my 3 and 4 year old’s are hooked!
My kids created their avatar to play with and properly named their pink bunny, with yellow ears, and hearts all over, “Princess Cuteflower”. It just fit.
We took Princess Cuteflower – we call her ‘Cute’ for short – through doors and tunnels and down paths in the virtual world of Jamaa. We played games and danced in Club Geos, painted pottery and printed coloring pages in the art studio in Coral Canyons, recycled paper and plastic trash in Sarepia Forest, and made warm cups of hot cocoa on Mt. Shiiver at The Hot Cocoa Hut.
And we still have to explore the beaches of ‘Crystal’ Sands, the ruins of the ‘Temple of Zios’, and so so much more. Not to mention all of the little clubs and stores that we can get into that allow the kids to play games, answer trivia, and put their artistic skills to the test! Kids can even watch movie bytes in the Sarepia Theatre!
In addition, kids can make friends with other avatars and play games against them. Like Tic – Tac -Toe, The Shell Game, and Match Four. All games that my girls can easily play and Katie even beat all of her opponents today!
As if that were not enough, a player can earns gems to buy and swap clothing and goods with other players!
But my favorite, favorite, favorite thing so far about Animal Jam is that as the child goes along their journey, opening doors, running down paths, and hanging out in rooms with their friends is that it is really an educational game! YES! You know how I LOVE educational things tied in with fun time!
There are little “buttons”, green with a leaf for earth science facts, a gold animal paw for animal facts, and even little red ant buttons to learn about insects. Katie and Sarah clicked on them all and kept having me come and read them for them!
Truly, guys… this is a GREAT learning tool for kids!
One of my fears in doing this review and giveaway was the online safety issue for my kids. But National Geographic has thought of that too! When you sign up you have two accounts. One child account and one parent account. You, as a parent can monitor everything your child is doing online. In addition, you can monitor their settings and YOU control if they have chat capabilities, who they buddy up with, and so on. It really gives me a sense of control over who my kids are “playing” with!
“Plus, Animal Jam is supervised 24/7 by moderation technology as well as a team of professional moderators who uphold both safety and good conduct. And, Animal Jam is free of advertising and product promotion!”
YEA!
You can imagine that I am going to give National Geographic Kids Animal Jam 5 huge stars, two thumbs up, and the big ole stamp of Lori approval! An added bonus is that it keeps my kids busy for longer than 5 minutes, so that adds another star!
You can play Animal Jam for free. But take it from me – who played a whole week without the code so the kids could learn how to use a computer – it is way more fun and educational when we had a membership!
So – here is the deal! You can pay per month – $5.95 – or buy a longer membership for your kids!
OR -10 (TEN) of my wonderful readers can try out the game for FREE by winning a one month membership for their kids!
Giveaway open to US Residents, 18+
Giveaway Ends 4/29/2011 at 11:59pm CST
The Giveaway
Like Animal Jam on Facebook and Tell Them I Sent You
Extra Entries
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Enter Another Giveaway on my Site – 3 points
PLEASE join me in thanking National Geographic and Animal Jam for this Very Generous Giveaway!
** I received the product discussed for the purpose of review. Your experience with the website and products may differ from mine. All opinions and writings within are mine and can not be used without prior permission.**
Like them on FB and tagged you there
lol hahaha wtf hannah is awesome screw me
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Entered the RockNLearn giveaway #1
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well right how i’m 11 and my animal’s name is prieecs happy buddy
Like Animal Jam on facebook. Told them you sent me.
Am following you via GFC.
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fb fan tony l smoaks
liked them on face book and told them you sent me: http://www.facebook.com/PlayAnimalJam?sk=info#!/PlayAnimalJam/posts/127605530649458
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my email adddress is tishabaffoe@hotmail.com i guess i was sopase ot enter it before
There are lots of good things about Animal Jam.
There are also beginning to be bad things about it.
I just posted a big review of it – if you’re interested you can see it at http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/animal-jam I’m the only parent reviewer.
In brief, the trading of rare items has become the focus of the kids playing the game. Tricking more trusting players out of their rare items is common.
If your kids are just starting this won’t be a problem because they won’t have any of these rare items to lose. But if they’ve been playing for a while, and show their rare items around, they can expect to be mobbed with trade requests. I have been floored at how many new and inventive ways these little thugs have found to try and cheat my kids out of their items. Over the last week, with MANY TEARS and MANY HORRIFIED screams, my daughter has had all but one of her rare items tricked out from under her by virtue of her seven year old gullibility.
My grandson has been playing Animal
Jam for about a month. He enjoyed it so much that I bought him a membership.
This past weekend we played the game together and I noticed there was a lot of
sexual innuendos going on and also some very visible sexual interaction between
the animals. Private invites to dens were constant in the trading room. I
followed some of those invites and all but one was for sexual purposes. We
reported some of these people but they remained in the games. I searched the
internet and found other reviews where others observed the same activity
on Animal Jam. I reported this to Animal Jam and hope they will take action to prevent this. The game is great and a lot of fun otherwise except for the trading issue which another reader reported on.
Animal Jam is a freud were you automatically pay endlesly or until you destroy your credit card account. White collar criminals!
when i write my username and password the game make me write them again and again and again
what i do now this is aproplem
I wrote a review on this on my blog. Beware that this is an addictive game which will make your life as a parent difficult as you try to control Pandora’s Box that results from the addictive aspects of this game. http://researchingmommy.blogspot.ca/2012/11/animal-jam-addiction-disorder.html
WARNING!!!!This once wonderful game has become a nightmare for me as a parent, its been taken over by adults and teen hackers! The language and sexual talk is out of control !! 2 years of hard earned items stolen by hackers in seconds left my kids unconsolable!!!!! They have the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE of any business I have ever encountered !!!!! They are ruining Nat Geo’s Reputation!!!! Don’t even start -My kids are devastated
My daughter has been begging to get a membership to Animal Jam and it’s helpful to hear what other moms think of it. I’m always wary of letting her “play online” however this game has seemed pretty good so far. There is definitely a lot of emphasis on shopping and earning currency in the game, but she has learned about animals while she’s in there too. I like that they have free educational content we can do offline, and I’ve never seen the behavior brought up by other commenters while watching her play. Wish she would have been playing when you did your giveaway – happy to hear it received your stamp of approval!
Hi, thank you for writing this post. I have read and heard so many terrible and horrific things about Animal Jam, that I was beginning to view it as an evil, monstrous, sweet-children destroying machine. Really, if you have been on nearly any of the other sites that cover this topic, than you defiantly understand. Truly, I think everyone is assailing AJ a bit (a lot) too harshly. Now I realize that if you monitor your child/children well, and take advantage of the parental controls, this can most certainly be a very family-friendly, fun, and educational game. Thank you again, you’ve helped me see this in a new light.