VISA and the NFL have teamed up to provide a FREE football themed video game to promote people's interest in being financially savvy. FINANCIAL FOOTBALL is a fast-paced, interactive game that that teaches money management skills while you play. You can compete on a virtual grid iron in either a one player game or in head-to-head action against a friend by answering finance related question to lead your team across the field to score touchdowns.
Start the game by picking how long you want to play (5 to 20 minutes) and selecting which NFL teams will be going heat-to-head against one another. Next pick a difficulty setting playing either as a Rookie (Ages 11 -14), Pro (Ages 14-18) or Hall of Famer (18+). Players then can select defensive and offensive plays with difficulty levels of easy, medium and hard which are followed up with questions about financial literacy and money management that correspond to the selected play's difficulty. This customization makes the game fun and educational not just for kids but adults as well.
If you get a question right you your team is successful with their play, but if you get the question wrong than your QB will get sacked, your running back hit for a loss, or a wide receiver drops the ball. The harder the successfully completed question the better your players do so an easy question might get you one or two yards, a medium question 5 yards and a hard question could get you ten yards or maybe even a break away touchdown.
In head-to-head mode players only answer questions on offense. Whoever does the best will get the best results from their players and win the game! For single player mode, you also have to answer questions on defense with correct answers resulting in sacks, tackles for a loss and interceptions while wrong answers allow the other team to break long runs or have completions in the passing game. How well you can answer the questions will determine if you are a winner or loser in FINANCIAL FOOTBALL.
FINANCIAL FOOTBALL takes a topic that can be boring and mundane for many kids, as well as adults, and adds some excitement to it that will help ingrain important tips and information into people's heads as their competitive instincts get them involved with this game. As a parent, I'm always keeping an eye out for opportunities that combine entertainment and education to assist getting kids to embrace learning.
This game created in partnership between the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, Visa's Practical Money Skill's for Life program, and the NFL , has been out for a few years now. I like to promote it during the NFL season each year because it is a very well done effort to educate people on an important topic in an entertaining way. I really encourage you to take advantage of this FREE football game.
Available to play online via your personal computer or laptop,FINANCIAL FOOTBALL puts players fiscal knowledge to the test in an online simulation game environment by combining the structure and rules of the NFL with financial education questions of varying difficulty. Visa has also released the game as a FREE iPhone app on iTunes, along with an optimized HD iPad version. The game can be played in single player mode or against a friend in head-to-head action. It really is a fast-paced, fun game that can be challenging for all ages.
** A Geek Daddy received the featured product for free to review **
The winter months can be cold and dreary in Michigan, but that hasn't prevented my kids from exploring tropical habitats filled with lush vegetation and exotic creatures over the last few weeks. They've been able to go on a Rainforest Journey without having to leave the comfort of our home thanks to an innovative online science and reading curriculum program created by the company EdTechLens. Designed for children 5 - 12 years old, EdTechLens' Rainforest Journey teaches the life science components of elementary school science curriculum through taking kids on a vibrant, multimedia tour of a rainforest. Students are walked through five multi-chaptered units of study during their Rainforest Journey which include the big picture of the rainforest, adapt or die, animals, plants and fungi, and ecosystems.
(c) EdTechLens - Rainforest Journey
Whether using for home schooling or to supplement what a child is being taught at school, the curriculum format of this program ensures kids are learning during their Rainforest Journey. Parents can customize the reading level and educational complexity so it is appropriate for their child's grade in school from Kindergarten through 5th Grade. We've been utilizing the first grade edition (CLICK HERE to sample one of the lesson segments my kids have used) and it has meshed well with where my twins are in their studies at in school. If children are struggling to read along through the presentation on their own there is also an optional audio narration component that reads the text as a child follows along. Scientific concepts such as ecosystems and the water cycle are explained through easy to understand graphs and illustrations. Plus there is a focus on using this experience to expand a child's vocabulary as they make their way through each section of this online teaching aid.
To reinforce the lessons learned in each unit of the Rainforest Journey includes a printable activity sheet that parents and kids can work on together before they move on to the next topic. Also each section concludes with an online test that measures a student's comprehension of their grade appropriate material and provides parents with an assessment. Parents can block children from moving on to next unit of material until a satisfactory score has been achieved.
Rainforest Journey's online educational portal will work with any computer or handheld device that can connect with the Internet. It's lessons are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and the New York State Science Standards plus each lesson includes a non-fiction reading passage to promote literacy. To further assist with reading skill development each of the learning sections provides parents with a Lexile score and word count to assist with measuring a child's abilities.
To prevent children from considering the educational aspects of Rainforest Journey as being boring or burdensome, lessons include video clips and photographs specifically selected to pique a child's curiosity. Brilliantly colored amphibians, bug eating plants, camouflaged predators, distorted fungi, and rhinoceros-looking insects will wow and intrigue kids into wanting to learn more.
My son's favorite animal is the jaguar and he was just thrilled by the photos and video of this ferocious feline when we came upon them.
It is nice that you can select a specific grade level from K - 5 so that you know the material is relevant and relatable to the child using a Rainforest Journey. My twins are beginning readers and their teacher has asked parents to make sure students read for 30 minutes every night after school. With pages that feature one line sentences crafted for first grade aged children to read this was a perfect opportunity to get in their reading every night while enhancing their interest in nature, conservation and science.
An annual subscription to Rainforest Journey is normally $50 per grade level. So for example using the program for one child in first grade would cost just $50 for twelve months access. But say for example you have multiple children in kindergarten, third grade and fifth grade and want to customize the complexity for each of their individual learning levels that would be a $150 subscription fee. Unless you use this special code ETLN2015 which will provide new subscribers to Rainforest Journey with a 50% discount on their order! This is a limited time offer and I'm not sure when it will expire.
Before making a decision, CLICK HERE to take a walk through Rainforest Journey to get an in-depth overview of the activities and resources provided through this educational tool. Check out samples of the five lesson units as well as compare how the kindergarten version differentiates from the fifth grade. Take a few moments to watch a video orientation that explains the program and its merit. Note that a Rainforest Journey isn't fun and games meant to amuse kids but rather a serious educational tool which utilizes interesting topics and visuals that entice children to be enthusiastic about learning. Put those cold winter days where your kids may be trapped in the house to good use with a Rainforest Journey.
