Searching for high quality, online learning games for children can be a bit of a minefield. The quality of online games varies significantly and it can be difficult to find ones that correctly support your child’s learning at school. It can also be tricky to find a game that balances being educational as well as enjoyable for kids. Quite often, in my experience, online games for children are either fun but not educational…or so educational that they aren’t very fun for kids!

We were therefore excited to discover Phonics Bloom– a collection of online Phonics games for young children, that in my opinion perfectly strike the balance of fun and learning.

What is Phonics Bloom?

Phonics Bloom is a UK website that offers a combination of free and paid for Phonics games for children to play online. Phonics Bloom’s games are made for mobiles, tablets, desktop and interactive boards. Their games are designed by a team of experienced teachers and parents to ensure they correctly support the way children learn to read and write using Phonics in school.

What do we like about it?

• Children Enjoy Playing The Games- Perhaps the most important point, children thoroughly enjoy the games. The games are pitched not only at the correct level for learning, but also at the right level of humour for young children. For example, my children were in absolute giggles playing ‘Odd and Bob’- which is a game where you have to sound out a word then ‘feed’ it to the correct alien. Depending on if the word is real or fake determines which alien you should feed it to- get it wrong and you make the alien feel sick! The laughter in my house would suggest that this is comedy gold for a 4 year old!In my opinion fun and laughter are incredibly important when it comes to learning- if a child enjoys trying to read and write through Phonics, it’s no surprise that they are much more likely to want to keep developing these skills.

• Develops Key Skills For Learning to Read and Write– I can honestly say, these games have built my children’s confidence and ability in learning to read and write. My eldest has developed his understanding of the phonemes and can now correctly sound out and blend CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words easily (along with some even trickier words!), something that he was only just starting to learn how to do last week.

• Range of Games– Phonics Bloom also ensures children stay interested in learning Phonics by providing a range of different games, with really novel themes.  For example, ‘Fishy Phonics’- where the child has to sound out and read the word then correctly ‘fish’ the matching picture and ‘Yes/No Yeti’- where the child has to correctly read the question in order to answer yes or no.

• Designed by Teachers & Parents– Personally, I found it very reassuring to know that the team behind Phonics Bloom are experienced teachers and parents. This gave me confidence that the games had clear learning purposes and would compliment a child’s learning at school. We loved that written below each game is an explanation of the skills the game aims to help children develop when playing. It really helps you focus on what you would like your child to gain from playing the game, enabling you to support them more effectively during play.

• Supports Parents– Phonics Bloom isn’t just a collection of fun, educational Phonics games. If you delve a little deeper into their website you’ll discover tonnes of valuable information for parents and teaching staff about Phonics. For example, they provide a comprehensive overview of what Phonics actually is, the benefits of Phonics and detailed explanations of each of the Phonics phases.

• Value– There are games on the site that are free to play. In order to play all the games you need to subscribe. In my opinion, the subscription price is great value for money. The games are high quality, there’s a range of different types of games and it covers all six phases of phonics. For use at home (1 user) it costs £15 per year, for a school (up to 35 users) it is £99 per year.

Find out more about Phonics Bloom on their website here

* Please note this post is sponsored and we were provided with access to all the games for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.