I have an old Powerbook G4 that I haven’t known what to do with since getting my Macbook. It occurred to me that it could become my daughter’s computer.
So can anyone recommend some good games and educational software for young children and toddlers? They need to be able use it without reading. I’ve googled for free games that will run on a Power PC but there isn’t much out there. She’s getting tired of the few I’ve found so I need to find some good ones to spend money on.
Don’t give up so quickly there’s a lot out there if you keep Googling and looking enough.
I’m not sure what kind of games little girls like though.
Actually, does she watch much Nickelodeon, Dora, Blue Clues, stuff like that? Go to their respective websites, a lot of those have flash type games (both educational and entertaining) for kids her age… for free!
Can it run in Classic mode? If so, try Millie’s Math House. (I am slightly biased because my mother designed it, but it’s a great piece of software - no reading required.)
Ditto to what cmyk said. When younger my son spent his computer time at http://pbskids.org/, now he’s a fan of the games at lego.com
Just watch out if your kid finds google. Let’s just say that if you go to elmo videos on youtube, it can very quickly get… inappropriate.
My son, now 5, has been playing games on the pbskids, playhousedisney, noggin, etc. websites for several years now (he taught himself to read when he was 3, in large part due to spending time online). Pixeljam also has some good games (dino run and rat maze).
Funny story: today he asked my wife what the name of his school was. (He’s not in kindergarten yet, due to a late birthday.) Turns out he was on classmates.com, which he had gotten to somehow after a google search for “no losing wii”. That is a common punishment around our house (he LOVES super mario brothers wii), and I guess he was trying to find out a way around the consequences of his actions.
Firefox has Kidzui, you can install it as a plug-in. I have no idea if that would work with a Mac, sorry.
It’s a cute simple browser for children with all the kids favorites in one place. My five year old took to it right away.
The Macintosh operating system comes with built-in parental controls. If you have OS 10.5 on your Powerbook, you can set up an account and explicitly list the top-level domains that the account can access. e.g. Set up the account to only be able to go to pbskids.org .
Also try starfall.com - my daughter was a total addict at that age.