Is ABCMouse Worth the Price?

If you’re a parent of small children, then you’ve probably seen the commercials (over and over and over again) for a website called ABCMouse.com . If you haven’t, it’s basically an educational website for children that you subscribe to monthly. I know, I know, just like me you’re probably thinking, ‘Why on earth would I pay for something like that? There is so much on the internet for free!’ And that’s true. I can tell you my son’s favorite websites right off the bat, and they’re all free. But my complaints about free sites are that they have pop-up advertisements, they don’t always work (games will crash unexpectedly or freeze), and sometimes my son needs help finding the right games or figuring out the directions. ABCMouse has no pop-up advertisements, and we’ve yet to have a problem with it not loading, crashing or freezing (it better not if were paying for it!).

So, What Does it Have?

Well, pretty much everything. For $7.95 a month, your child chooses an avatar and can navigate through a virtual classroom. Subjects range from math to reading, science to art. They’ve got it all.

What’s Good About It?

Free Trial. Need I say more? Try it out free for a month. If you don’t like it, be sure to cancel it. There are no strings attached.

Differentiation. There is literally so much on this site, and they appeal to a large array of learning styles. They have audio pages, games, puzzles, art. They do their best to reach all types of learners.

Leveled Learning. You choose your child’s level (from early pre-K to K), and you can change the levels up or down at any time. When you change levels, you get a whole new set of games/activities.

Easy Navigation. There’s a lot to see on ABCMouse but the tabs are easy to locate and navigate through. My five year old can play without much supervision, and doesn’t need much help following directions or understanding what to do for each activity.

Engaging. The games are brightly colored, fun and entertaining. They hold my son’s attention and he doesn’t even realize he’s learning.

Incentives. Kids earn ‘tickets’ for every activity they do on ABCMouse. They can save up their tickets to ‘buy’ items (they’re not spending real money at any time, no worries there) for their virtual room, virtual fish tank or virtual hamster cage. My son loves the hamsters. He builds elaborate tunnels for them, which in itself is educational.

What’s Not So Good About It?

It’s Not Free. No, but it’s not overly expensive either. At $7.95 per month, it’s way cheaper than tutoring!

Too Much Independence. It’s easy to let your child play for hours, but if you don’t want them sitting in front of a computer all day, be sure to monitor the time they spend online and set a limit for how long you want them to play.

Distracting Incentives. I mentioned that my son loves the hamster cage ticket incentive. Sometimes that’s all he wants to do on ABCMouse, but that’s not really the educational part! So I tell him I set limits for how long he can play with the hamsters.

Forgetting About It. There is a possibility that you will purchase ABCMouse and then not use it much. If that’s the case, then get on there and cancel your payments! ABCMouse will automatically renew each month unless you tell it not to (you can cancel at any time). So be vigilant about your usage.

After all is said and done, will your child jump up reading levels and become the super learner they talk about on the TV commercials? I don’t know about that, but with a free trial, it’s worth a shot!