The name alone intrigued me! I just had to see what it was all about. My kids love animals, and so they really wanted to check ZooWhiz out!
ZooWhiz is an online learning adventure! Where you are the zookeeper.. Becoming a Zookeeper is really easy. You just create an account, which is free. This is geared towards children 5-15. Here are the things you get in a Free Keeper Account:
- Access to all the of the educational activities
- Some of the animals for your zoo
- Some of the arcade games
- Basic reports telling you how you are doing
- Limited play out of school hours
Another cool feature is that Teachers can create accounts for their classrooms. You can read more about this here.
If you would like more features you can upgrade your Free Keeper Account to a Premium Zoologist at anytime. Right now, for a limited time you can upgrade your account for $29.95 for a 1-year subscription. That is a pretty good savings!!!
The extra benefits to the Premium Zoologist Account is:
- More animals for your zoo
- Endangered animals for your zoo
- Detailed Dynamic Reports that show you how your work is going, and where you need help
- Premium Integrated Contest Selector to let you choose the exactly the right educational activities for you
- Unlimited play out of school hours
Our Experience:
First we created our accounts, then the Monkey’s started picking their avatars. Middle Monkey went straight for the pink haired girl. Then little monkey didn’t want the same girl, so she picked the blonde with pigtails. Monkey Man went with the little guy on the end with a a cool hat (as he says, he looks like a zookeeper).
Then we decided to check out the zoo! ZooWhiz has four buildings to choose from. The Learn & Earn, Arcade, Bio dome, and Milestones. This is what each one is used for…
Learn & Earn:
They complete an educational activity to earn coins to use at the Arcade or to buy animals for their Virtual Zoo. When they enter they have to choose which subject they would like to work on. Monkey Man’s favorite was Math.
Once you have chosen a subject you can pick an age level and a step. There are around 7-10 steps for each age level. There are 7 age levels in Math. Once they are in a subject, they get the instructions read to them by an Australian voice. The great thing about the activities are that they have over 17,000, so they shouldn’t get bored.
Middle Monkey’s was reading, and Little Monkey was Words. There are 3 age levels in Words and 5 age levels in reading.
Arcade:
Arcade is just as it sounds. They get to go and have fun! My kids love the Arcade. They spend their coins to play. Some games are for learning while some are just for fun! Here are a few of the games they get to choose from: Rainbow Conga, Bubble Plunge, Goal Glory, and more!
Biodome:
This is where they use the coins that they earn to purchase animals for their virtual zoo. My kids really enjoyed picking out their own animals for their zoo. My son likes certain animals so he stuck mostly to those. While my daughters like more of a variety. There are hundreds of animals to choose from. They have 14 categories: Ocean, Desert, Tundra & Polar, Grassland, Mountain, River & Lake, Domestic, Rainforest, Dinosaur, Mythical, Marsh & Swamp, Forest & Woodland, Forest, and last but not least the Extinct.
My kids are eager to get animals, so they haven’t gotten to many rare ones yet. As the more exotic tend to cost more. Every once and awhile I like to put my two cents in to get a cool animal. LOL!
Milestones:
Milestones is so they can see a detailed report for all completed activities. Below is a sample one:
The Smiley faces are how they grade them. Like the all green one is Over 95% correct. The all yellow smiley is Over 60% correct, and the red one is Under 50% correct.
There is also a bar at the bottom of the screen. This is where you can see updates. It keeps track of their coins earned, animals in their zoo, zoo level, and educational score.
Our Thoughts:
My monkey’s really LOVED playing this game. They found it really neat to build their own zoo. They love playing the educational games, to earn coins. Just as much as they love buying animals, or spending them on the Arcade.
Monkey Man really loved the feature that allows you to click on any of the animals and they learn more about them. Such as details, habitat, threat, diet, and scientific information. This is great for him, cause he LOVES to learn about animals.
The girls really enjoyed this as well. They weren’t frustrated with the games, and the incentives kept them wanting to play. They have LOVED picking out new animals.
My Thoughts:
I was really impressed with this program. I was a bit worried at first that their would be to much play, and not enough learning. But this seems to be a pretty good balance of the two. I also like that, I can go in and set what grade level I want them working at. This helps a lot when they are either above or below grade level, like a few or my kids.
Another cool feature I stumbled across was that you can adjust currency, and measurement. So if you live in Europe, Canada, or anywhere! You can change it to fit your needs.
I am also very happy with their Customer Support. I had to email a few times due to difficulties. They were very quick to get back to me, and answer my questions.
Due to them upgrading my graphics sometimes had a few issues. You do need Flash 10 to be able to play this.
All and all, I was really impressed with this program. I wouldn’t use this as a sole curricula, but this would be great for just supplemental, or for things to be reinforced.
My kids will keep on playing! I certainly never have to fight them to get on!
So go sign up NOW!
See what the rest of the TOS Crew has to say about this program.
*I was given free premium memberships from ZooWhiz in exchange for my honest review as part of the TOS Crew. All opinions are 100% mine or my monkeys.
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