As those long days of seemingly endless play and fun wind down, kids everywhere trade in water guns and hours of playtime for textbooks and nights of cramming. Give your kids an extra hand with their schoolwork through academic software. It doesn't matter if your child is in kindergarten or entering high school, there are many programs designed to target specific subjects and will even help your child with typing and creative skills.
Extra Credit
From presavvy than ever. Take advantage of you child's computer skills with various software games and learning programs that will not only be fun to play, but will also help develop and improve math, reading, science, and other subjects. Some of these programs may also pique a child's interest in photo editing or web design.
* '''Photoshop Elements 8''': This software for the Windows operating system allows users to re-size photos without distortion, edit and create movies, and add cool features such as artwork, objects, and animation to pictures. Photoshop Elements 8 is compatible with Windows 7 and Windows Vista, and works with Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.
* '''Kidspiration''': Help your child develop their reading, writing, and math skills with Kidspiration's visuals. Some children need to see numbers or objects in order to process problems, so Kidspiraiton brings to life 3,000 symbols and have five visual math tools to guide students. Kidspiration is great for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, and can be used on PCs and Macs.
* '''JumpStart Advanced 2nd Grade''': If your child is entering the second grade in September, JumpStart Advanced has over 100 activities geared toward giving your son or daughter an edge. Kids will learn reading comprehension skills, improve their addition and subtraction aptitudes, and even typing! This four-CD software runs on Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.
* '''Mathematica 7 Student Edition''': From simple calculations to problems fit for Einstein, Mathetmatica helps students as young as five and those doing postgraduate work with homework and lab reports. The software features curated data, image processing, 12 application areas, and 500 functions.
* '''Read, Write & Type!''' Some reading and writing programs are either too advanced or too slow for kids. Read, Write & Type teaches children to write whatever they can say at their own pace. This is accomplished through lesson adventures and animated sentences all leading up to writing on their own.
