Always Ice Cream: Review and Giveaway!

My daughters really enjoy using the computer, but we limit the time and limit what games they play. My girls are allowed to use a small handful of websites and a few games we have loaded on to a laptop given to us by a friend. However I’m rather skeptical of some kid-friendly sites because of the amount and type of advertising. Wouldn’t it be great for our boys and girls to have a safe, educational, advertisement-free website? I have some great news! I found one!

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These sibling sites are geared respectively towards girls and boys. The idea is to provide something safe, educational, and fun! After watching my girls play and learn for the past month I can tell you they have succeeded! As kids play the educational games they earn scoops (for girls) or gold coins (for boys). They use these to purchase pets, items for their pets, or items for their house or castle.
You can choose games within a range of grade-levels (k-8th) which is nice since no one child is exactly the same as another. The learning games span a wide range of topics including language arts, math, science, music and art, Bible, geography, history, life-skills, and foreign languages. New games are being added all the time and as students complete a level they move on to a harder level. Students also create a person and can customize it using hundreds of possibilities for skin, hair, eye, and outfit colors/styles. 
Rose has been begging me to learn how to type for several months now. She is fascinated by how quickly I am able to type and often mimics my fingers on the keyboard. Until finding Always Ice Cream I honestly thought she would need to wait a few more years before beginning typing skills. So far, this has been her favorite game.  
The typing game keeps her attention and has gradually taught her letter placement on the keyboard. Rose always wants to get to the next level and she loves the challenge! I like that she can see the letters and finger placement on the screen so she is not looking down as much at her fingers. I also like that there is an option on screen to move to an easier level. This way if she is unable to practice for a few days she isn’t stuck with a level beyond her skill. 

This particular website has been a great incentive for my girl. She knows she’ll have a chance to use Always Ice Cream when she completes her other schoolwork for the day…although, she also begs to play on the weekends as well. We still limit their time because I recognize that too much screen time is not healthy for them, but it is so nice to have such a good option for learning and reward.

Since I had surgery over Christmas all of my great ideas for things to do with my girls went out the window. I found myself happily allowing my girls more screen-time than usual because I knew they were learning and I could trust what they were doing was safe without my having to look over their shoulder the entire time.

Ideally each of your children should have their own account.The benefit to doing this is you get weekly reports unique to each specific child and you can customize each student’s account. For now we only have one, but it would be great to have an account for each of my girls. There are several purchasing options so you can choose what is the best fit for your family. 

I know you are really interested now! When you purchase your order (because I KNOW you will want this for your kids!) be sure to put my name, Melissa Williamson, into the “how did you hear about us” field during registration!

And now for the giveaway!!!!
The great people at Always Ice Cream and Clever Dragons are generously giving away a full year membership (valued ta $47.40) to the site of your choice! WOW! Enter through rafflecopter below. 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer
I received a free year subscription of this product from Always Ice Cream in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received.