Easy scrolling for faster chatting!

To get started, just click on the chat icon and browse the subcategories. Choose from various greetings, questions, and answers. There’s even a special Pirate lingo section if your kids arrr feeling nautical, which will come in handy in the Pirate Fun Zone coming soon!

Jumpeez can use fun pirate lingo as they sail through the new Pirate Fun Zone coming later this week!

Take a look at the conversations we have to offer. We think it’s a great way for kids to interact and express themselves, all while staying protected!

Other Jumpeez will see the end phrase displayed!

Of course, our chat is completely safe and comprised only of canned phrases written by JumpStart. As always, if you prefer to disable the chat function altogether, just head to “Manage Account” > “Online Game Pref” on the JumpStart.com homepage and turn off MMO.

Jumpeez can safely talk to each other using canned phrases approved by JumpStart!

We hope you enjoy our new chat and find it more user-friendly. Check it out and let us know what you think!

“Where are you going?” asks Jack SlothSprout.

“I am going to explore JumpStart,” Bugsy FlameCloud replies. “Follow me!”

JumpStart.com is taking children’s gaming to new heights with the addition of canned chat! Jumpeez can now communicate with one another using pre-selected words and phrases. We know kids love to chat online with their peers, and sometimes dance moves alone won’t cut it. We’re dedicated to keeping your little ones safe and happy, and we’re confident that the new canned chat function will do just that!

Canned chat is now available at JumpStart.com!

Here at JumpStart, we want to make sure your kids are both having fun and, of course, learning. The great thing about canned chat is that while your kids are socializing with their Jumpee friends, they’ll also be learning sight words that are important to their reading skills.

Edward William Dolch is famous for his creation of a list of important words that occur frequently in children’s (and indeed, all!) books. The Dolch words are now known as “sight words” because most of the time, they cannot easily be recognized by pictures or sounded out according to normal phonetic rules. There are 220 sight words and another 95 nouns that should be standard knowledge by third grade. A full list of the Dolch words and additional nouns is available here.

The words that appear in our brand-new canned chat function are based on Dolch’s research. As children use “sight words” repeatedly to communicate with other players in the virtual world, they will become more familiar with them and recognize them more readily. By including many “sight words” in the canned chat menus, we hope to advance the reading levels of our players and build their confidence in school!

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With this exciting new feature, your child will be able to celebrate his or her achievements with friends by sharing all the cool accessories and extras earned for completing learning games! Plus, the new interactive world will soon have organized events to teach teamwork and more.

Because you’ve chosen JumpStart for your child, we know that learning and safety are very important to you. We have compiled the following important FAQs to help you better understand how these new features will enhance your child’s learning adventure with JumpStart:

Will my child be safe?

Of course! Your child’s Jumpee (personalized avatar) will only be identified by its special Jumpee name (for example, “Sandra SpeedySnake”), and no personal information will ever be shared. Plus, only 25-30 Jumpeez will be interacting at JumpStart.com at a time.  We feel that this provides a calmer, more controlled environment for your child to learn and play in.

How do the Jumpeez communicate with each other?

The Jumpeez interact through dance moves and emoticons (super-cool smiley faces).  We recognize the potential dangers of unrestrained “free chat” and that the challenge of typing words can be frustrating for children this age.  To keep everyone safe, we have restricted communication to dancing and facial expressions.  Soon, we will have “canned chat,” which will allow players to choose from age-appropriate, pre-selected phrases and greetings to send to each other.

Jumpeez express themselves with floating emoticons

What are the benefits?

We thought you’d never ask! First and most importantly, these new features provide incentives for your child to continue playing the learning games at JumpStart.com.  By interacting with other Jumpeez, your child will see all the cool new things their hard-earned coins can earn. Nothing motivates better than the possibility of having tiger-striped skin or an awesome new set of antennae to spruce up your Jumpee! Your child will be able to celebrate learning successes by dressing up with friends – such fun!

Plus, your child will build confidence and learn teamwork while making friends and working with others to accomplish missions in the online world. We’ve got all sorts of exciting events planned that will give Jumpeez everywhere the chance to work together and accomplish amazing feats!

Jumpeez form a conga line and dance through JumpStart!

Stay tuned to the JumpStart blog for updates on when you can expect your new friends to appear at JumpStart.com – it should be by the end of July!

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Facebook, Twitter and blogs may sound like havens for college kids, but today, more and more parents are turning to the web to rekindle old friendships, share stories and catch up on the latest gossip. Sounds good, right? But how would social networking fit into your life?

Let’s start with the basics. Here are some quick and simple definitions of the most popular social networking types and services:

• Blog: A web log. Basically a virtual journal or diary
• Twitter: A micro-blogging service that lets users send short and sweet life updates (tweets) of 140 characters or less.
• Facebook and MySpace: Social networking sites that allow users to create profiles, share photos, schedule events and more.

Now that we are all on the same page, let’s get to the why? To find out why parents love connecting with others online, we checked in with some of our favorite mom bloggers. These ladies have a way with words, so who better to explain the top reasons for using these new online gizmos? Here are the top reasons they shared:

1. Connect:

In the words of Tracey from Just Another Mommy Blog, she blogs, “for the same reason that mothers used to throw Tupperware parties….to connect with other people who are willing to listen to me rant and rave about the miniscule details that parenting 3 children involves.” Tiffanie of Three Peas in a Pod offers similar sentiments saying, “Parenting is tough, but staying connected to other parents helps our job go a little easier. Many times you learn that you are not the only parent out there that is dealing with that.” For MaryTara of the Bon Bon Gazette, blogging offers a platform to share her own learnings about autism and special diets. She explains, “What started out as a project mostly for my own personal use started to really reach others and I began receiving more and more feedback from “strangers” about how my experiences and advice had touched or helped them in some way.”

2. Tips and Tricks:

As Angela of Nine More Months explains, “Moms are a wealth of information. And weird as it may sound, when I have a parenting question, the first place I turn to get an answer is the Internet. I trust what other moms and dads have to say, and with so many people having access to the Internet, I’m bound to find someone who has ‘been there done that.” Cecelia from Cool Baby Kid adds, “With the ability to collaborate with other parents around the world [online], we can exchange parenting tips, cool product finds and so much more.” Carissa of Good & Crazy People, harnessed the power of social networking just last week when her daughter came down with pink eye. She reports, “I got several different tips and ideas for how to combat it, from all three, my blog, facebook AND Twitter!” Some parents, like Amy from 1 Girl + 4 Boys = Paradise, have even found money-saving ideas through their social networking connections. She explains, “I have learned about a lot of special offers, coupon links, and sales that really help out our family budget.”

3. Creative Outlet:

For some parents, blogging is the perfect creative outlet. Shara of Mamalicious Finds says, “I just plain love to write. I always have. Blogging gives me that creative outlet that I crave and it keeps my mind working.” Heather, author of The Gift Closet, agrees, explaining that she started her blog, “as a place I could let my creative side flow. I like to share ideas, tips, recipes, funny or inspirational stories.”

But it is Tracey of Just Another Mommy Blog who offers perhaps the most compelling reason to connect with other parents online, “I can do it in my jammies or at 2 am once the monster in the closet has been banished!”

If you’d like to see what our panel of social networking moms are up to online, we encourage you to check out their blogs!:

• Just Another Mommy Blog (Tracey)
• Three Peas in a Pod (Tiffanie)
• Bon Bon Gazette (MaryTara)
• Nine More Months (Angela)
• Cool Baby Kid (Cecelia)
• Good & Crazy People and Mom it Forward (Carissa)
• 1 Girl + 4 Boys = Paradise (Amy)
• Mamalicious Finds (Shara)
• The Gift Closet (Heather)

I was just wondering if you have any tips for children with special needs. I have two sons 11 and 12 years old with fragile x syndrome and autism. They both love the computer but always want to stem on games like spongebob. Any help is appreciated, Elise.

Answer:

Here are some suggestions for working with your sons:

• Understand their learning styles. Children sometimes learn best when they are taught according to their learning style. Here are some examples of learning styles:
  • If your boys are physical, you can play games that require them to move around and jump on words or math problems.
  • If they are artistic, draw or cut out pictures of words, sounds, and numbers.
  • If they are musical, listen for rhythms and beats and add words or numbers.
• Use pictures, logos, words, sign language and concrete examples or materials to present new ideas, concepts, etc. For example, when learning new vocabulary words, have the boys draw pictures to show a definition. With math concepts, use real objects to introduce new ideas – cut a round cake into pieces to show fractional parts. Then you can eat the answers!
• Provide opportunities for your sons to be active and move around. There are lots of ways to learn with moving around. For example, put cards on the floor with math problems (you might want to tape the cards to the floor for this activity). Make a spinner with numbers or find one that might go with an old game. Spin the spinner and whatever number it lands on, have player 1 jump to the card that has the correct math problem (or crawl or walk backwards, etc).
• Sounds like you are already using computers and educational software. Games like Spongebob have logical thinking built into the game. If they like Spongebob, use the character to introduce other learning opportunities. There are probably Spongebob books available. Create a Spongebob poster board with a cutout mouth. Get some small plastic balls and write some math problems or vocabulary words on them. You can shout out an answer or definition and have the boys find the problem or word that matches your answer. They can throw the ball through Spongebob’s mouth!

Although this is not my area of expertise, I hope these suggestions help!