Zoodles {Review and Giveaway} CLOSED

What is Zoodles?

Zoodles is a safe online services that makes learning fun for your children. Zoodles says,

"Our goal is to give kids a safe place to play and learn online. We knew that we couldn’t just give kids a typical browser and send them off to explore. Most sites today are way too complicated for young kids to navigate on their own, and they don’t provide enough safety from all the bad stuff lurking on the web.

So, we started from scratch. We built a FREE browser, especially for kids, that makes it simple for them to find lots of fun activities – all by themselves. By launching the icon on your desktop, your child will enter a full-screen mode of Zoodles that will keep them from exiting out and finding inappropriate content or accidentally deleting your important files."

Zoodles has made it very easy for my kids to play online. They know exactly how to find their games because they can see their picture and know to click on it. Even my two year old, Benjamin knows where to find his games. My son Robbie loves playing the science games, Lauren loves doing dress up, and Benjamin loves the you-tube videos. There is plenty of wonderful things for each child.

After clicking on your name, the first thing that the kids get to do is feed their dog. Each of my kids have named their dog a different name and they love being able to give them bonus treats!

Please take a minute to watch this great video on the Kid Friendly Internet Browser:

One thing that you will notice about the next two pictures is that the set up is different for each one. I really like this. Zoodles has it set up in a way that makes it easy for the child. For younger children they get less options. My 5 year old gets the choice to choose her games and do art, whereas my 7 year old can make his choice by subjects or by characters. He is older and can read so this is an great option for him.


What of the most important features that Zoodles has for me, is that it allows me to have parental control of what my kids are doing. Zoodles gives us parental controls so we can customize the games and activities in your child’s Playground. Don’t want your child interacting with a specific game, website, or branded character? Not a problem. You can tell them what you want to block, and Zoodles will remove all related games from your child's Playground. Have a child that's falling behind in math? Zoodles lets you ramp up educational subjects in your child's Playground so he or she can spend more time playing games in those subject areas. Additional parental controls include the ability to set time limits, block videos or printables, and even set violence filters.

Parental controls are free for a trial period and then available only to Zoodles Premium Members.

Another option that I use that I really like is the play timer. The Zoodles play timer lets parents control how long their kids can play on Zoodles. You can set time limits ranging from half an hour to 8 hours a day, and change these settings depending on whether it's the weekend or weekday. Once time runs out, kids are safely brought back to the family log-in screen, and the browser stays in full-screen mode.

The Zoodles play timer is free for a trial period and then available only to Zoodles Premium Members.

Please take some time to watch this video on the Parent Dashboard.

With Zoodles, you get a great directory of games. This allows you to find games by subject, age or character. This shows all of the games that are in the Zoodles directory. If you click on any of my links today, I would recommend it be the directory of games because this is where you can really get a good idea of how many games are available for your child.

For example, if you wanted to find the best games for a four year old, you would click on four year old and find out that there are:

4 year old Games

834 free fun and educational games

With these 4 year old games, your child will learn important concepts in art, attention /listening, matching, and much more

If you wanted to find the best games for a third grader you would click on that tab and find out that there are:

Third grade Games

1049 free fun and educational games

With these third grade games, your child will learn important concepts in logic / reasoning, spatial reasoning, strategic thinking, and much more.

How much does Zoodles cost?

Zoodles believes that every child deserves access to a safe, educational online experience. That's why they've made the Zoodles browser 100% FREE.

For parents who'd like to participate more in their child's Zoodles experience, they offer a Premium Membership tier, which enables parents to block ads, block and promote content, and monitor their child's activity.

All parents who download the free Zoodles browser will also be given a free trial of Zoodles Premium Membership. Once the free trial expires, basic Zoodles members can still continue using the browser for free.

For parents interested in becoming Premium Members, Zoodles offers a number of pricing plans, including $7.95 per month, $39.95 for 6 months and $59.95 for the entire year.

So, Whats my opinion of Zoodles?

I LOVE IT! This is definitely mother approved. I have the timer set for 1 hour for each kid and I know that during this time they are having so much fun and they are learning and I don't have to worry about them. They aren't having any ad pop ups and they are using games that are geared to their age. I think that the premium membership is the way to go because I have control of how long my kids are on the computer and what they are doing.

So, What is my kids opinion of Zoodles?

Lauren: "I really like the games. They are so fun and I can learn. I like the princess games and barbie games and all the fun girl stuff."

Robbie: "I like everything. I love the monster truck game and the lego helicopter game. I like being able to practice for school."

I would highly recommend checking out this website!! It is a great resource for parents and fun for kids.

How about a giveaway!!

Zoodles is offering a great giveaway for one of our readers!! One lucky winner will receive a 3 month premium membership for use at Zoodles.com

How to Enter:

For a Mandatory go to Zoodles online game directory and tell me which games would you want your kids to try.

For extra entries:

• Become a google follower of SavvyMomSaves
• Become a Fan of Zoodles on Facebook
• Become a fan of savvymomsaves on Facebook
• Follow Zoodles on Twitter
• Follow SavvyMomSaves on Twitter.
• Sign up for the free trial at Zoodles.
• Blog or write a facebook post about this giveaway with a link to this site
• "Tweet" this giveaway
• Put my button on your blog or website. Add weblink in comment.

How to Win - Maximize your chances of winning. Please Leave a separate comment for each entry. Only valid after you complete the first mandatory entry. If you are already a follower you still qualify just mention that in comment.

Giveaway Rules:
Giveaway ends 8/24/2010 at 11:59 (PDT). Winner will be chosen via random.org and will have 48 hours to claim their prize. Winner will be posted on blog - if an email is given, they will be contacted. Open to US residents.

Disclosure:
This review is based on my own honest unbiased opinion of Zoodles. I received a premium membership trial from Zoodles to review. You may or may not agree with my opinion. Zoodles was not involved in the writing of this post.

Thank you Zoodles for letting me review your product!