What Is Edutainment? Best Edutainment Games & Examples for Kids
Edutainment includes online games, TV shows, back to school activities, or other materials that intend to be both educational and enjoyable. Through the growing adoption of digital mediums in our daily lives, they are even more essential for children to spend their leisure time via fun yet educational content.
Moreover, it can be used for teaching almost every subject including science, history, math, language, and other educational subjects both in the classroom and at home.
So what are the benefits of edutainment theory? How does it differ from merely educational content?
Edutainment vs Learning
Education trains children for challenges that life brings, future career paths, and a more progressive human experience. Learning techniques include a formal structure upon being taught, reading, discussions, and so on.
But edutainment brings fun to learning activities without choosing one or the other! Here’s a list of benefits of this approach compared to traditional education:
- It improves kids’ engagement in learning activities
- It is game-based
- It improves visualization
- It can be versatile and game-based
- It allows flexibility
- It allows online access to a lot of data
- It is easier to learn soft skills via playful courses
- Its visual structure supports hypothetical subjects
- It allows learning anytime, anywhere
Best Edutainment Games
Edutainment games include educational content with gaming elements or cartoons. Add to that scoring and rewards. Their main goal is to entertain kids as they engage with educational subjects, such as educational toys for 8-9 year olds.
There are free educational apps for kids and best educational apps for kids in the app markets for today's digitally-savvy children. And, since they spend much of their leisure time with tablets and laptops, it is important to choose the best games for their mental development.
But don’t worry, we brought together the best edutainment websites, apps, and platforms for your children to play and learn:
1. MentalUP - Edutainment Games
With more than 150+ exercises, MentalUP helps develop attention, memory, logic, visual and verbal cognitive skills providing unique levels from preschool to the 8th grade. It also offers special exercises for children with affective, cognitive, mathematical, and musical intelligence.
MentalUP isn't just for the minds of children but for their bodies. It’s the first app in the world that features more than 240+ personalized, bodyweight fitness exercises in 5 categories for kids.
MentalUP is a Pedagogical Product certified, The Educate Awards winner education platform shaped by the collaborative study of academicians, child development experts, and professional game designers.
Fee: Free
2. Sesame Street
Play educational learning activities, games; watch videos, and print coloring pages with Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and more!
Fee: Free
You can check out the website or download the apps on:
3. PBS Kids
PBS Kids is a great collection of fun online content and applications for your kids to play a wide range of games and watch educational videos.
Fee: Free download
4. Brain POP
Brain POP is an educational website that covers various school subjects while engaging kids with cute animated characters. You can find interactive quizzes, concept mapping, movies, and an array of related activities to boost your children’s learning processes.
Fee: Ranges between $9.95-19.95 / month
5. PhyFun
Phyfun offers realistic physics rules in games emphasizing puzzle solving so that your kids can learn and explore more about the subject. Offering a wide range of puzzles to be solved, it supports problem solving skills including strategy and logic.
Fee: Free
6. Math Play
Suitable for elementary and middle grades, Math Play offers a wide variety of fun games that you can play online, choosing the grade level, content, and game type.
Fee: Free
7. Kodable
Kodable is a coding app for 4-10 year-olds. If your kids are interested in computer science, then Kodable provides an opportunity for them to think like a programmer, so kids can create and play their own games!
Fee: $7,99 per month or $59,99 per year. If you prefer a lifetime subscription, then it is $149
The app is available on:
8. Lightbot: Code Hour
Lightbot: Code Hour is a programming puzzle game that aims to introduce basic concepts of coding to kids without actually having to code. It offers educational games to get your kids interested in coding without overwhelming them.
Fee: Free
The app is available on:
9. Job Simulator
Job simulator is a fun VR game where kids choose from a number of jobs including a desk job or a gourmet chef using the simulator. The games allow children to learn some of the skills needed to thrive in those jobs while in a simulated environment.
Fee: $19.99
The game is available on:
10. YouTube Kids
Specifically designed for kids, the app offers educational, kid-friendly, and entertaining videos on a variety of topics to explore on their own while allowing parents to guide their journey. By the way, don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel! 😊
Fee: Free
YouTube Kids is available on:
11. The Witness
The Witness is a puzzle-based video game developed by Thekla, Inc that challenges the players to uncover the mystery of the island with puzzles while increasing their strategic thinking skills.
Fee: $9.99
The game is available on:
12. World Geography
World Geography is a quiz game that will help you learn everything about geography including capitals, maps, flags, population, language, and much more. This quiz game aims to help people regardless of age to learn everything about geography in an easy and fun way.
Fee: Free Download
The game is available on:
13. Space
Realistic graphics and unlimited scope of the universe merge together in this amazing application. Offered by THIX, this game allows you to create a solar system and understand astrophysic laws while exploring the beauty of space.
Fee: $2.99
The game is available on:
14. CellsAlive
A great way to study science! You can find fun games, puzzles, worksheets, models and much more to learn about living cells and organisms.
Fee: Free
15. Primary Games
Here’s a free platform to learn school subjects via games, puzzles, coloring pages, online storybooks, and much more.
Fee: Free
Edutainment Examples & Ideas
Now, let’s have a look at fun examples for classroom and play time!
1. MentalUP Games for Classroom
How about adding some science and extra fun to your classroom? MentalUP features more than 150+ educational games that can be played in the classroom as a single-player or multiplayer.
These best safe kids games help children develop their logical thinking skills, increase their learning ability and contribute to their success at school and in their exams. MentalUP Games are used by schools and thousands of teachers around the world. Students can play MentalUP as unblocked games at school to improve their abilities!
Here are some examples of samples that you can double the fun in your classroom or home:
Giant Dwarf
Kids love moving. This edutainment game allows them to lean down and up according to the fun monsters.
Memory Cards
This classic card matching game can bring fun to every classroom for kids. Let’s try and improve our memory skills.
Messy Room
No messy rooms anymore! This game is a great way for ingratiating kids to tidy up their rooms while improving their short-term memory skills.
Missed Balls
Attention, please! These balls are trying to hide from keen eyes. But we’re sure the kids can catch them.
Did you like them? MentalUP has hundreds of games like that waiting for you! All Games are created for edutainment purposes, and they’re ChildSafe + No Ads.
2. Taboo
One of the most entertaining examples of educational activities is Taboo.
It allows children to both have fun and actively speak while explaining the words they have learned so far to each other. They will also do an active brainstorming while trying to find the words explained, and have a pleasant time.
3. Clay Story
This activity aims to help kids learn while having fun.
It is appealing to multiple senses as kids listen to the instructions from each other, they also put what they have heard into practice using clay and compete against time. They can also enrich the story by including their own imaginary worlds.
4. Bingo
Bingo is essential when it comes to classroom games. And it also can help kids in vocabulary acquisition.
In this activity, kids draw words from the word box you prepare and the fastest one to complete the word card and say 'Bingo' wins the game.
5. Flashcards Game
It is a great game for them to develop language skills while having fun!
In this activity, students need to use their visual memory successfully and match foreign language words they are learning with pictures.
6. Hangman
It is a pencil and paper guessing game that can be played with two or more players.
A player tries to guess a word, phrase or sentence by suggesting letters or numbers in a sequence. For every letter that the player does not know, a part of the gallows is drawn.
Are you looking for more games and activities for your children?
You can find much more edutainment content designed by academics at MentalUP. Our five-star app that is trusted by thousands of schools and 10+ million families also gives you the advantage of tracking your child's performance.
