Tiny Planets is an online educational site that seeks to encourage creativity and critical thinking in children ages 4-12.
The Tiny Planets online content has won two BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards Interactive Best Entertainment Website and Best Children’s Interactive.
Tiny Planets features the adventures of two little aliens, Bing and Bong, who travel space and explore. The site itself is actually made up of multiples sites:
My Tiny Planets – Children can adopt their own planet and take care of it.
Tiny Planets TV – Children can watch episodes of Tiny Planets online here.
Tiny Planets Learning – This portion of the site contains educational puzzles and lesson plans for ages 3-5.
Tiny Planets Fun – This contains games, downloads, episodes, etc.
Tiny Planets Books - Contains interactive books from the Tiny Planets episodes
Some of the Tiny Planets site is free, while other parts can be unlocked by purchasing keys. The keys can be purchased for the following prices:
10 keys $1.95 (about 20 cents per key)
25 keys $3.95 (about 16 cents per key)
85 keys $9.95 (about 12 cents per key)
250 keys $25.95 (about 10 cents per key)
600 keys $49.95 (about 8 cents per key)
When you first visit the site, you set up a Cadet account for each child. You can also set up a parent account and then add your Cadets to that account, which is helpful if you want to purchase keys.
I found the site difficult to navigate, but there is a lot there if you are willing to look for it. The lesson plans fit very well with the games and theme of the rest of the site.
My girls were moderately interested in the site, but it hasn’t been something they wanted to go back and do over and over again. However, there is a lot on the site, and I think it would be especially appealing to boys. I encourage you to check it out and see if it’s something that you and your children would benefit from!
To read more reviews of Tiny Planets, visit the TOS Homeschool Crew blog!
Disclosure: I received access to the Tiny Planets site free of charge for the purchase of this review. No further compensation was received and all opinions expressed are my own.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Your opinions do count with us and we thank you for taking the time to let us know. We’re working hard to make the new games more girl-friendly and entertaining.
Hi. Just wanted to thank you again for reviewing the site. I wanted to let you know that on April 4th the new and improved site was launched. I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have, especially since some of the changes were made because of the Crew’s suggestions. You can check us out at http://www.tinyplanets.com. You can reach me at cheryl@mytinyplanets.com.
Thanks!
Cheryl