Children nowadays are spending most of their time online. They watch plenty of YouTube videos, and there are a lot of things that catch their attention. Some go to different YouTube channels for kids and look for some things that catch their attention. Others just browse and browse without even finishing a single video. On the other hand, parents are so bothered by the things their children learn online. With that, they tend to search for websites where their children will learn and enjoy at the same time. Starfall games are one of those websites that these kids can invest their time in.
In this article, we will discuss what Starfall is, the different apps that it offers, and the pros and cons of using it.
What is Starfall?
Starfall is an ideal learning website for early readers who want to have a different learning experience. It features different Starfall-related games, videos, and reading activities that encourage children to learn. It also aims to teach students not only to read but also to introduce them to mathematics, language, and the arts. Children will also enjoy the songs and fiction and nonfiction stories the website offers. Furthermore, it emphasizes efficient ways to teach children such as identifying phonemes, how each letter can be used to form a word, and common sight words. The activities start from learning the alphabet and its associated sounds, followed by simple then advanced reading activities.
In addition to this, it uses a phonics-based learning system that helps encourage children to learn. Starfall games and programs are supported not only by printed materials as well. Parents and teachers can explore the website and work together to efficiently teach the students. They will have ideas on what to teach to the students and what topic to start. This can also be used for children with special needs and who have difficulties in learning.
What Does Starfall Offer?
Starfall Membership
Starfall is free to use for everyone. However, you can subscribe to its low-cost membership program to unlock all of its content. The cost depends on the membership level you will subscribe to. The membership includes animated songs, reading activities, and basic mathematics from Kindergarten to Grade 3. It also supports the production of new books, educational games, movies, and children’s songs.
- Home Membership – It costs $35 for the whole year. Only one household can have access to this membership on computers and mobile devices.
- Teacher Membership – It costs $70 for the whole year. Only one teacher and up to six of their students can have access to this membership on computers and mobile devices.
- Classroom Membership – It costs $150 for the whole year. Only one classroom can have access to this membership. If there is only one classroom designated for each grade, they can also use the media lab.
- School Membership – It costs $270 for the whole year. Only an average school campus can have access to this membership. They can access the website on classroom computers, mobile devices, and even in the media lab.
All of these memberships give access to all the content for both the Starfall App and website.
More.Starfall
This is Starfall’s members-only website. You need to have a paid subscription to access it, but it offers a free sample of activities for parents and children. It provides additional internet-based games for children to keep them motivated and make them explore and enjoy building new words. Moreover, you can have access to a selection of different math games that focus on four fundamental operations.
Starfall Zone
This is a free online game for kids to enjoy. It is composed of Math Games, Physics Games, Hidden Games, Jigsaw Puzzles, and Board Games for kids five years old and above. It contains all the best and free Starfall games.
Starfall Games Free Associated Apps
Here are notable Starfall games and apps for your kids.
Starfall ABCs
This is a learning app that introduces the alphabet to preschoolers. Students will learn the letter and letter sounds and will have early spelling and reading skills. This is because students will get to hear the sounds of each letter when they click it. The app uses an articulated voice to sound out each letter. Moreover, they can memorize them as they are repeated often. Also, they will get to see how each letter is used in words and how these words are used in a sentence at the same time.
After each word, there are bright and fun animations or images of objects that start with the letter that they clicked. There are also interactive games. Additionally, they will be able to see how the words are used in a sentence.
Starfall ABCs is a great place for the students to recognize letters. They will learn how to use the letters and be able to form words and sentences. Moreover, as they learn and develop different skills, they become more and more confident and more engaged in learning.
It is available on your browser using your desktop or tablet and can be downloaded on iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. Also, it helps develop the cognitive, early literacy, communication, and reading skills of children.
Features
- Letter recognition
- Songs
- Interactive games
- Phonics
Starfall Learn to Read
This is one of the best learning apps for children. It offers a wide range of free content that is helpful for students in learning how to read, count, and identify colors. Also, it provides an impressive arrangement of effective and interactive phonic lessons and practice resources. The app features 15 mini-books that are carefully designed to motivate children more. Furthermore, each mini-book focuses on a specific vowel, and every activity catches the child’s attention, which inspires them and makes them engaged in learning.
This app is appropriate for children from Kindergarten to 3rd Grade. It is available on your browser using your desktop or tablet and can be downloaded on different devices including Android, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, and Kindle Fire. Furthermore, the app helps develop phonics skills, reading skills, and comprehension.
Features
- Instructional videos and songs
- Complete-the-word activities
- Matching games
- Blending and isolating short and long vowels
- Consonant digraphs
Starfall It’s Fun to Read
This learning app makes students believe that It’s Fun to Read. This is because after learning a lot about letter-sound relationships and exploring and reading mini-books of different genres and topics, children get to have an interest in reading. With that, not only do they broaden their vocabulary, they also get to improve their comprehension, which helps them enjoy reading. Students will encounter games and activities which include rhymes, alliteration, spelling patterns, and wordplay.
Also, they will get to learn fluency in reading with proper intonation, expression, inflection, and rate. Furthermore, there is an AutoRead feature that you can enable and disable. If the child can read independently, you can disable it so the child can practice reading by himself.
This app is available for download on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and also on Kindle Fire. Also, it is available on your web browser using your desktop or tablet.
Features
- Art Gallery
- Magic
- Music
- Poetry
- Tongue Twisters
- Bird Riddles
Starfall I’m Reading
This educational app helps improve not only the student’s comprehension but also his reading fluency. It provides support for students to learn reading and to read to be able to learn. The stories and activities make students familiar with sight words and make them memorize these words. Furthermore, students will learn how to associate each word with one another and then use them in sentences.
They can also get to be fluent in reading as they will learn the proper intonation, expression, inflection, and rate. Besides, there is an AutoRead feature that you can enable and disable. If the child can read independently, you can disable it so the child can practice reading by himself.
This program is available on your web browser using your desktop or tablet.
Features
- Three Little Plays
- Fiction
- NonFiction
- Folk Tales
- Greek Myths
- Chinese Fable
Starfall Numbers
In this educational app, students will encounter number symbols and their corresponding values. They will be able to connect them to real-world objects making it easier for them to recognize the numbers and know their values.
Moreover, the app includes an introduction for numbers 0 to 25, 25, 50, and 100. There are counting activities that involve coins, and simple math expressions and symbols. Also, there are math songs that the students will surely enjoy singing along to since they can display the song lyrics if they want to.
Starfall Numbers Math Songs
- The Zero Song
- Three Crows
- Once I Caught a Fish Alive
- Five Little Bears
- Higgilty Piggilty
- Ten Little Kittens
- I Have Six Dollars
- Five Little Farmers
- Pirate Song
- The Time Song
- Five Little Speckled Frogs
- As I was Going to St. Ives
- Today is Monday
- The Months of the Year
- Ten Kids Went to Play
Features
- Numbers
- Counting
- Songs
- Games
Starfall All About Me
This is an excellent app for emerging readers. It helps children learn essential vocabulary words like the words that we use in everyday lives. Moreover, they will encounter words for body parts, pets, household materials, and specific rooms inside the house. With this app, a child will create and interact with his Me Character. It is an enjoyable activity, and it helps to improve the child’s ability to enhance and personalize things.
Through this, they will learn to design and know more about facial features. They will also be more familiar with the things inside the house as he is going to label some of the objects inside it.
Features
- Customizable avatar
- Letter and word recognition
- Vocabulary games
- Reading
- Songs
Starfall Gingerbread
This is a great app for children to learn 2D shapes, which include circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles. Also, they will learn some 3D shapes including sphere, cone, and cube. With this app, the children will get to create a tray of a girl or boy gingerbread cookies that they are going to decorate with shapes and colors.
They will then choose their cookie to run through a maze. Moreover, the app will help them learn about different shapes and shape patterns. Also, it helps children see the connection between parts of an object and the whole. After the activity, the child will hear the “You Can’t Catch Me” song. This is an exciting and fun way of learning as it tests the child’s flexibility and persistence in solving things.
Features
- Customizable Book
- Image gallery
- Pattern maze
- Different playthrough
Starfall Pumpkin
This is an app where children will be able to show their creativity and learn some math while having fun. Children will get to design a pumpkin and weigh them on a scale. When a child picks a pumpkin, he can choose from a variety of eyes, nose, and mouths that he can use to create his jack-o-lantern. On each activity, there are directions that the child needs to follow. They are all written in simple sentences.
However, if the child does not know how to read, he can play the audio by tapping the Ear icon. The app will read aloud the direction for the child to follow. This is a great app for children from prekindergarten to 3rd grade.
Features
- Reading and Listening
- Weights (kilograms and pounds)
- Pick and customize a pumpkin
- Gallery of pumpkins
Starfall Snowman
This is one of the best Starfall games that aim to teach children essential vocabulary words. They get to make choices of what word to be used when they see different objects. They will also get to learn the different parts of the body and learn how to count from one to ten while playing. In this app, the child will create a snowman and choose from a wide variety of objects they can use to create one.
There is also a number matching set activity wherein the child will match the number with the number of objects displayed on the screen. There are given directions that are written in simple sentences at the bottom of the screen. The children can tap the “Ear” icon beside the sentence if they can’t read it yet. The app will read aloud the direction for them.
Upon playing, the child will hear the song, “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.” And when they complete the activity, the song “One Little, Two Little, Three Little Snowmen” will be played.
Features
- Snowman gallery
- Memory match game
- Matching number sets
Starfall Turkey
This is an interactive learning app that lets children explore their creativity. In this app, the children need to decorate a silly turkey, and while doing this activity, they can’t help but laugh at all the turkey’s silly jokes. Moreover, they can get to solve symmetrical patterns with animal images. Also, there are games that they will enjoy aside from learning different skills. In addition to this, the games in the app let children explore and play by themselves.
They can opt to tap on the Ear icon if they want to listen to the directions given. However, if they can already read, they can just read them since the directions are all written in simple sentences. If they find the accompanying music annoying, they can also turn it off.
Starfall Turkey Games
- Silly Turkey – The children can put a hat on the turkey, tap on it to color its feathers, and choose a joke that they want the turkey to play
- Animal Symmetry – The children will learn symmetry by playing puzzle games
- My Turkey Yard – The children can see here all the turkeys that they designed
Features
- Reading and Listening
- Silly turkey jokes
- Symmetry puzzles
- Creating and decorating Silly Turkey
Starfall Competitors
ABCmouse.com
This widely used online educational website helps accelerate your children’s learning in different subjects. It provides a wide range of interactive and fun learning activities that cover Reading, Music, Art, Math, Science, and Social Studies. It is created by teachers and education experts and offers a full standards-based curriculum. Children will enjoy all the puzzles, games, books, songs, art activities, and animations that are included in the app. Moreover, it has a tracker that is helpful for parents in tracking their child’s progress.
Literactive.com
This educational website provides interactive and downloadable reading materials for children of ages ranging from two to eight. It offers a wide range of precisely leveled guided readers, worksheets, poetry and learning books, different learning activities including phonics, and a wide range of helpful reading materials. All of these help to gradually develop the child’s skills in a way that they will enjoy.
Khan Academy
This is a free website that provides a world-class teaching environment to students of all ages. It offers a wide range of video lessons that every student can use at their own pace. Moreover, all the contents are created by experts and are always free for everyone.
Have an Amazing Learning Experience with Starfall Games
Children of today have different preferences when it comes to the things that they will do. It is hard to catch their attention, especially when they are not interested. Moreover, it is not easy to teach children, especially young ones. With that, it is important to choose a learning tool that can easily catch their attention and make them engage in learning. Starfall games and apps make it possible to do these things.
Children will get to learn different skills while they are enjoying themselves. Different Starfall activities and games are incorporated into each app, giving an amazing and enjoyable learning experience to children of all ages.
