Website Review ~ Free Rice

Website: www.freerice.com
Appropriate for ages: 8 and up
Helps with: math, vocabulary, foreign languages, geography

Review: This is a great site because children can practice scholastic skills and help fight hunger around the world at the same time. The idea is that you pick a subject and answer questions. For each question that you answer correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to hungry people through the UN World Food Program. If you go to freerice.com, it will automatically put you in the vocabulary section. But, if you go to the top of the page, you can click on the subjects tab. That will give you the option of answering questions about famous art, chemistry, English grammar or vocabulary, geography, foreign language, and math. Kids can pick a topic of interest and try their best to answer (learning new things at random,) or they can pick a topic like multiplication where even an upper elementary student could be successful. It is a great way to practice your multiplication facts while helping others at the same time. The nice thing about the site is that you can adjust the level of the questioning. Also, the site learns to adapt to your skill level. Questions get gradually tougher, but as you start to miss them, they start to ease up again. As you get questions correct, your bowl (on the right side of the page) will fill up with rice.