Helping Kids Game Their Way to Awesome Animal Care
Teaching children how to take care of animals can be tricky. It’s hard to know where to begin. Thankfully, the Internet provides a multitude of fun and educational tools for young children. Today, I’m going to highlight one of the most fun, kid-friendly websites out there that can help children learn how to take care of their pets.
Adopt Me provides a simple, fun, and interactive way to introduce children to caring for animals. The game offers the chance to adopt virtual pets of all different types: cats, dogs, turtles, hamsters, horses, goldfish, and more. Each pet has their own profile, which has a list of options for favorite foods, hobbies, color, ect. Users can own up to 24 different pets. Users also have the option to adopt somebody else’s pet instead of creating their own.
The create a pet screen
Basic gameplay includes:
- Taking your pet to the vet when they are sick
- Grooming your pet
- Taking your pet to the park to play with them
- Going to the pet store to buy food and other things your pet needs
- Entering your pet into the best of show contest
Scotty the Scottish Fold cat winning best in show
Some pet breeds also have specialized places they can visit. For example, horses can visit the horse races and fish can go to the disco.
In addition to basic gameplay, the site also offers some bonus goodies, which include:
- Dressing up your pet with fun clothes
- Over a dozen fun, easy games to play
- Getting your pet a job to earn money
- Voting/competing for Pet of the Month
- Chatting with other pets
- Greetings cards with your pet on them
- Visiting fun, themed lands like Easter and Christmas village
Children will enjoy all the site has to offer, and will internalize respect for the responsibility it takes to care for a real animal. It’s a great way to introduce them to a concept as abstract as caring for an animal. Check out Adopt Me today!
Be sure to always supervise children when on the Internet, and make sure they know about safe Internet browsing. For Internet safety tips for children, visit www.netsmartz.org.
Would you let your child play an online game to learn some of the basics of pet care? How do you teach your kids how to care for pets? Let us know in the comments section!