A friend recently pointed me to the web site FreeRice The idea is that you play a vocabulary game, and for every word you guess correctly, the advertisers will donate 20 grains of rice to the world food program run by the UN. Since there are about 7200 grains of rice in a cup (found through google, so it must be true) and since this game is tremendously addicting (I easily get to my personal limit, 2000 grains of rice a day) it seems like a good deal all around.
The best part is that anyone can play at her own level. I have been learning new words: nidus means nest and nabob means important official, for example. Then tonight I introduced Eleanor to the game. She gets excited when she gets words right, like snake means serpent ("I learned that from Narnia!") She doesn't always know what she is guessing, but I think she's learning new words, or at least that it is fun to know words. She also has learned some about what kids in other countries have to eat every day.
p.s. After doing a bit of reading, I learned a bit more about the site. I guess my main concern might be that it is not a 501c3 charity, so no one sees the books to see how much revenue is generated by the ads vs. how much rice is donated. However, I am naive enough not to worry about this. Another concern is that it is much more efficient for me to send actual money to poverty causes than it is to play this game, so let me encourage all of you readers to find a worthwhile organization to donate to. There are other concerns as well, none of which currently override the main point of the game, which is fighting world hunger with literacy (and fun!).
The best part is that anyone can play at her own level. I have been learning new words: nidus means nest and nabob means important official, for example. Then tonight I introduced Eleanor to the game. She gets excited when she gets words right, like snake means serpent ("I learned that from Narnia!") She doesn't always know what she is guessing, but I think she's learning new words, or at least that it is fun to know words. She also has learned some about what kids in other countries have to eat every day.
p.s. After doing a bit of reading, I learned a bit more about the site. I guess my main concern might be that it is not a 501c3 charity, so no one sees the books to see how much revenue is generated by the ads vs. how much rice is donated. However, I am naive enough not to worry about this. Another concern is that it is much more efficient for me to send actual money to poverty causes than it is to play this game, so let me encourage all of you readers to find a worthwhile organization to donate to. There are other concerns as well, none of which currently override the main point of the game, which is fighting world hunger with literacy (and fun!).
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