Review: Zoowhiz Online

Recently the kids and I were given access to ZooWhiz, an online interactive learning environment.  What on earth IS ZooWhiz, you ask!?  That's what I wondered when I heard the name!  In ZooWhiz, children are set up as zoo tenders, and through learning activities they build their own zoo of animals.  ZooWhiz is set up for ages 5 to 15, and provides educational activities in three different categories.  ZooWhiz offers both free and premium subscription options.   In the premium subscription you get access to more animals for your zoo, more games to play, and the ability to more finely target learning areas to focus on.  

How does it all work?  

You'll need to create a parent account (which you can do for free), and then a child account within it (which you can also do for free!).  From the parent account you can view reports (coming soon), set activities (coming soon), and put age "floors" on the learning activities your kids engage in.  When your child logs in they see this:

The main area, front and center at the bottom, is the learning area.   When they click into the learn and earn building they can choose to do math, words, or reading questions.  These cover everything from basic addition, basic letter sounds, and basic spelling to geometry, fractions, measurements,vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension.  By successfully answering questions kids earn coins.  The coins can be used at the Biodome, to buy animals for their personal zoo.  Coins can also be used at the Arcade to unlock/play games.  But - you can only play in the arcade for so many minutes a day before you're locked out.  Which is nice!  

Lastly, there is a milestones area of the zoo.  This is where you can look at which questions you answered right/wrong, and see your progress in the 3 different areas in ZooWhiz.

What I liked:

• The ability to set age floors on activities.  If I notice the kids are breezing through certain types of activities, I can go in and change the level so they only get harder questions.  Nice Mom, right?!
• The large variety in types of questions asked.  For example - comprehension such as which type of present would fit in a box that is which shape?  Which of these foods would we normally eat for breakfast?  Select all the ___ in the picture.  Find the matching picture.  Etc.  There are not many repeats in the same type of questions within a step (how ZooWhiz defines levels).
• The fun "extras" on the site - tons of great printable coloring pages for the kids
• The fact sheets about the animals (a premium feature), and the great variety of animals - my kids were quite entertained looking through it all and deciding how to "stock" their zoo.  My 6 year old enjoys the scary animals in particular.  Dragons AND dinosaurs are both residents in his zoo!
• Great videos to help you learn how to get started with the site, they make it easy to walk through the setup and get started with your kids.

Other thoughts:

• I found the site much easier to use for my 6 year old.  My 5 year olds required quite a bit of hand holding to read the directions and navigate.
• Related to the above thought, I didn't find all of the site navigation to be intuitive for a child.  Lots of clicking and back arrows required.  That being said; overall the graphics and design of the site are high quality!
• To me, as an adult, the zoo was not exciting.  It was a "list" of animals.  I had envisioned an animated zoo where you could watch your animals wander and interact.  Maybe see the dragons take on the squirrels!?  Instead the zoo area is simple a listing of all the creatures you've collected.  To the kids though?  They are happy to scroll through their inventory of zoo animals.
• Even in the premium subscription there are "advertisements" that pop up - screens telling you about other educational programs.  This was distracting.
• I'm not sure how challenging (or entertaining) ZooWhiz would be to children at the older range of the 5-15 scale.  In the categories right now the upper ages of 10-15 are grouped together, and that is quite a wide range to be covered under one label.

I use ZooWhiz as a supplemental fun online activity that I feel okay with letting the kids play after our "core" studies are complete.  I've enjoyed it and think it's well put together and polished.  The site is growing fast and still expanding, there are many features that still say "under development".  I'm definitely going to keep an eye on how the site develops over the next few months.  I'm excited to see it mature from the fun and innovative site it already is to an even better one!

Want to try it out?  You can sign up for free at ZooWhiz's website.  If you want a premium ZooWhiz account you can get one right now for 50% off, due to the fact that the site is still developing and rolling out some of the new premium features.  The cost is $14.95 per child, per year.  ZooWhiz offers a 14 day money back guaruntee on the premium membership so if you decide it's not for you - no worries.

Want other thoughts and opinions?  To see what the rest of the TOS Crew had to say head over to the Schoolhouse Review blog.  

I was provided with a ZooWhiz subscription to review the site free of charge.  That being said, all opinions expressed are 100% mine.