GoNoodle is a cute website that uses videos and helpful mindfulness breaks to provide children with fun exercises in math, spelling, and vocabulary. The site was designed for schools but can easily be adapted for home use. Parents can register for the free version, and they can upgrade for more videos. The free area includes curated videos and three GoNoodle selections categorized as grades K-2 or 3-5. The GoNoodle videos are well-animated for a younger audience with measured breathing and dancing activities. Older elementary students may feel they are too grown up for the activities and GoNoodle animations because the videos in the two sections are quite similar. Students may require trial and error to find their favorite videos from the curated selection, but they can tag favorites once they find them. Each video is entertaining and only lasts a few minutes, intended to provide a needed fun break and then get back to their work. The site tracks the amount of time spent on activities (or at least how long the videos ran) so students can progress to the next level and feel rewarded for their effort. While this might not be the right choice for every child, this free option is worth trying to see if it can provide a child with fun, achievable goals for exercise and mindfulness and help with attention skills.

• Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
• Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
• Presents educational concepts accurately
• Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
• Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
• Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
• Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

• Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
• Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
• Visually appealing to children in the target age range
• Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
• Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
• Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
• Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

• Has a free or trial version
• Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
• Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
• Student should be able to use independently after first use
• Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
• Multiple users can save a profile
• Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
• Can play without sound and not distract others
• Students can save work between sessions
• Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
• Requires registration before using the first time
• Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
• Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
• Overall - Easy to use

• Auditory Processing
• Audio is not clear or voice is robotic