Wonder Rotunda Featured in "Pink Lemonade of Life" Holiday Gift Guide
By Eric Garfinkel on December 2, 2009
A highly innovative new website takes kids on thrilling world adventures in a first of its kind 'virtual theme park.' - You might call it a 'virtual world's fair!'
Wonder Rotunda is an online educational theme park designed to get kids thinking about the planet, what they're interested in and passionate about. On Wonder Rotunda, kids (ages 7-12) can do everything from zip line through a tropical rainforest, steer a submarine through the human digestive system, dive the Great Barrier Reef or operate a smoothie stand! Jam packed with 13 'game shows,' there is never a dull moment - yet they are learning and exploring every step of the way.
Created by a D.C. dad who was inspired by the 1964-65 N.Y. World's Fair and wanted to recreate that experience in a new, fun online experience.
My 8 year old absoluetly loved this site! She would play it for a little while and then come tell my all about the new things she learned - does it get any better than that?
A one year pass to Wonder Rotunda is $45.00.
http://www.pinklemonadeoflife.com/2009/12/pink-lemonades-2009-holiday-gift-guide.html
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Visiting Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty With Kids
By Eric Garfinkel on November 20, 2009
Visiting Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty is a highlight of any trip to New York City. Ferries depart from Battery Park stopping first at the Statue of Liberty. To complete both the Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty tours will take you 3 or 4 hours, so getting any early start before the lines form at Battery Park is a good idea.
Ellis Island
Purchase a ticket with the audio tour. There is a version designed expressly for children. Begin your experience at Ellis Island with the 30 minute film "Island of Hope, Island of Tears". This film is appropriate for children and it will give your family a great overview of the historic site. Then, using your audio guide move through the building, from the Registry Room, on into the various examining rooms used to screen arriving immigrants. The kid's audio tour explains the screeening process through the eyes of a young person arriving in America as an immigrant.
Kids can look up their family history by checking passenger records of the more than 22 million people who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.
The Statue of Liberty
The audio tour for the Statue is also very helpful and there is a kid-friendly family version that you can ask for.
In the base of the Statue, there is a terrific museum about the design and creation of the Lady Liberty with drawings, models and and structural parts, that visitors pass through before descending to the observation area. If you want to visit the Statue's crown, be sure to book the special advance tickets for this. Only 240 visitors per day are allowed to make the journey to the crown.
About Wonder Rotunda
The Wonder Rotunda is an online educational theme park (for ages 7-12) that sparks curiosity, helps kids find their interests and passions, and inspires them to think about making a mark in the world. Topics explored include marine life, space exploration, animal life, classical music, nutrition, American government, globalization, climate change, money and business, the visual and performing arts, film making and climate change. Take the Free Tour.
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Off the Beaten Track of Smithsonian Museums-- National Portrait Gallery--- Great Place For Kids To Learn History
By Eric Garfinkel on November 9, 2009
Five blocks on off the National Mall is the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, one of the hidden gems of a visit to DC with Kids.
This a place for kids to view amazing art work and long their history in the process. Put a face and personality to history is a great form of experiential learning. Portraits of political leaders, advocates for social justice and pop icons hang on the walls of this museum along with a brief description of the subject's place in history.
The portraits are housed in the third oldest building in Washington, the original Patent Office. It has a beautiful courtyard atrium, perfect for catching lunch. Also sharing the building is the Smithsonian's Museum of American Art. Organized in galleries around historical events, this museum provides a wonderful way to link our nations history to the art of the times.
Be sure to visit the Lunder Conservation Center on the 4th floor where kids can watch (through glass) as conservators restore and preserve the Museums' collections.
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"Mommies with Cents" Review of the Wonder Rotunda
By Eric Garfinkel on October 5, 2009
"My 7 yr old son was given the chance to try out Wonder Rotunda. He thought it was very exciting and so much fun. He really liked making his own character (avatar) to play the game with and also being able to make a friend to go in the park with him. The first thing he tried out was the “You’re in Business Big Smoothie Adventure”. He thought it was really cool that you could earn money to buy things. That was a big incentive to explore the whole park plus a great learning experience about money. I was really impressed with how much information they give about money itself, running a real business and wise ways to save and spend your money. One thing I really liked as a parent when my son played the game was the great message about protecting the environment that it told throughout the park. I also really liked what a great learning tool it was for kids to learn about their bodies and staying healthy. This game had so many important messages and learning opportunities that any parent would love to have their child play it again and again. My child not only thought it was a great game but as a parent I would highly recommend it to family and friends. I also think this would be a really good game for kids to play at school. It is full of nonstop fun but educational at the same time. I give it two thumbs up. It is truly a “wonder”. "
http://www.mommieswithcents.
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"Families Matter" review of the Wonder Rotunda
By Eric Garfinkel on October 5, 2009
This inexpensive “virtual theme park” is some of the most fun you can have without ever leaving the comfort of your own computer chair. And at only $45 dollars per yearly membership, it won’t break your budget either.
Once registered on Wonder Rotundra your kids take their own personalized avatar on a virtual vacation. From zip-lining through the rainforest, visiting Kangaroo Island on a night adventure to propelling through the human digestive system, kids will not only have a blast, they may just learn some things along the way.
In addition to the 15 different adventures, kids can also earn “wonder dollars” to spend on food and souvenirs, find hidden gold coins for added surprises, participate in 13 different game shows and even print out a personalized ‘certificate of completion’ as a keepsake of their virtual tour. Plus, if your little adventurer wants a change, they can try their hand at running their own smoothie stand.
Even though this virtual vacation is designed for children 7-12 years of age, I found it to very educational and a lot of fun.
http://familiesmatter2us.blogspot.com/
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"Conversations with Moms" Reviews the Wonder Rotunda
By Eric Garfinkel on October 4, 2009
"As a Mother, I want to set my sons up for success. One way I try to do this with Jeffrey is through playing, “school”. I’ll buy those educational workbooks targeted for his age and try to make a game out of it. My son loves playing games. But no matter what I’ve tried, he’s really just not into those workbooks. He’ll start a page and then get bored quickly.
I’ve turned to the computer for solutions. If it’s on the computer, even if it’s educational, he seems to enjoy it a lot longer.
The game is designed for kids 7-12, so along with my son, I invited my Godson who is 8 years old to play.
They immediately got excited when at the start, they got to choose and design their own avatars. Each ride was not only an adventure but a miniature lesson in different subjects including the human body, the wonders of the ocean and space.
My favorite game was the Big Smoothie stand. In this game, they allow kids to go into business for themselves creating and selling smoothies. Not only do they teach you how to make the smoothie, they also teach kids about profits and how it’s calculated. I say your never too early to learn about profits and how to handle your expenses to achieve the most profit.
During each ride, kids can follow along on their checklist to determine what subjects they’ve covered so far. At the end of each adventure, kids get rewarded with a certificate of achievement. Then if they feel lucky, they can test what they’ve learned through a Game Show that quizzes them with the objective of earning points.
My Godson and son were both having fun without even realizing the education they were getting.
My only critique was that I would have loved to see an option to return to where you left off in each adventure. My son had to stop playing in the middle of a ride and couldn’t return to where he left off. He had to start from the beginning and was a little discouraged. But other than that, this is a great fun way for parents to teach their children. In fact, as I’m writing this, Jeffrey saw the photos and is now constantly asking me if he could play. A one year unlimited access pass to the Park is $45. Passes can be renewed annually for $35."
http://conversationswithmoms.com/2009/10/03/rotunda-review-virtual-educational-theme-park/comments(0)
Washington Post Article - A Virtual Theme Park for Kids Explores Life's Wonders
By Eric Garfinkel on September 28, 2009
A Virtual Theme Park for Kids Explores Life's Wonders
By Mike Musgrove - September 27, 2009
"I think this is educational," observes my 8-year-old stepson, about half an hour after logging on to Wonder Rotunda, a Web site aimed at kids that was recently launched by a Washington area dad.
I wonder briefly if the jig is up, but he continues to explore the
virtual theme park, intrigued by the prospect of winning and spending
the game's "wonder dollars" to buy virtual food and loot with which to
decorate his virtual treehouse.
I'm not sure whether he'll be playing next week -- who ever knows
these things? -- but for now he's intrigued enough to sit still through
discussions about how the human digestive system works and which
presidents appear on U.S. currency.
Wonder Rotunda, the creation of former international trade lawyer
Eric Garfinkel, opened for business online in August. Parents pay $45
for a year-long membership, or "park pass" at the site, a
two-dimensional virtual world based in part on some of the Great Falls
resident's earliest memories as a kid growing up in Queens and
attending the 1964 World's Fair.
Thanks to that subscription fee, the site doesn't have the
advertising that blankets most kid-oriented sites, and there's a
pleasant, old-school look to the thing. Garfinkel paid an animation
team and a programmer for some of the work that went into the site, but
Wonder Rotunda, two years in the making, is largely a one-man show.
"I was the chef, cook and bottle washer for this project," he said.
This isn't Garfinkel's first foray into the kid marketplace. In 1992,
he made a major professional switch, from a career in law and public
service, to start a toy company. Back to Basics Toys launched with the
idea of bringing back classic items such as Raggedy Ann dolls, tin
robots and Lincoln Logs -- stuff from an era before movie tie-ins and
Happy Meal promotions were standard fare. Amazon.com bought the company
for an undisclosed sum in 1999.
Garfinkel's new site is a tiny player in what has recently become a
fiercely competitive market as kids spend more time online. In 2009, an
estimated 9.7 million children and teens in the United States will
regularly visit virtual worlds, according to research firm eMarketer.
By 2013, the firm projects that audience will grow to more than 15
million.
The breakout successes in this market can be mind-boggling. Take Club Penguin, for example. The kid-oriented social-networking site was started by a few dads in Canada who wanted to build a safe, ad-free interactive world for their kids. A year after it launched, the service had 2 million users -- and a year after that, in 2007, Disney came along and bought the site for $350 million.
Naturally, every kid-friendly company from Mattel to Lego has sought
to stake a claim online. Wonder Rotunda isn't the only offering with an
educational component, either. Last year, Knowledge Adventure's chief
executive described to me one educational title it had in the works as
"World of Warcraft for 3- to 10-year-olds."
Garfinkel said he didn't do a lot of market research as he was
developing Wonder Rotunda; he mostly came to this space as a concerned
father. "My daughter was spending time on Webkinz and Club Penguin," he
said. "They weren't as constructive as I thought they could be."
Where Club Penguin is social networking for the kid set, Wonder
Rotunda is more like an educational CD-ROM that happens to be parked on
the Web. There aren't any chat rooms, and kids don't "friend" other
players.
So far, Wonder Rotunda's few write-ups have been favorable: Common
Sense Media, which reviews kid-oriented products from a parent's
perspective, gave the site its top ranking of five stars.
Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer who follows kids
and online trends, took an instant liking to the site last week.
"Something like this really makes sense," said Williamson, who has a
6-year-old and an 8-year-old.
Williamson said it makes sense to have an offering for younger kids
that doesn't push social-networking features. "I think that's really
smart, in terms of appealing to parents of younger children," she said.
Kids past 10, on the other hand, will probably clamor for a more
socially engaging experience, she said.
Not everybody was as enthusiastic about Wonder Rotunda's prospects,
however. Chris Byrne, an independent toy industry analyst, said that
kids typically use the Web as an outgrowth of their TV-watching habits:
If they watch a lot of Cartoon Network shows, that's the site they go
to when they get some computer time. Sites such as Cartoon Network's
have a lot more marketing muscle and aren't handicapped with a mission
of trying to tuck in educational content.
"This looks like a good idea from a very well-intended place," he said, "but it's got an uphill battle against it."
Byrne pointed out the Healthy Eating Super Coaster, one virtual ride
he spotted after a look at Wonder Rotunda. Educational, sure -- but
could that possibly be any fun?
"There's a reason Candy Land is 'Candy' Land and not Vegetable Valley," he said.
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Review of Wonder Rotunda by Common Sense Media.org
By Eric Garfinkel on September 15, 2009
Common Sense Media gave us 5 stars out of a possible 5 and said:
"About as close to perfection as an online experience for preteens can be, Wonder Rotunda is safe, fun and highly educational."
The Overall Review (5 out of 5)
"Parents need to know that this vibrant virtual world is designed to replicate the sense of wonder and excitement the creator felt as a child visiting the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. About as close to perfection as an online experience for preteens can be, Wonder Rotunda is safe, fun and highly educational. Eric and Diane Garfinkel, founders of the company Back to Basics Toys, used their own worldwide travel experiences and input from their four children, ages 9 to 23, to develop the colorful animated adventures and fascinating background facts. (Did you know that the fifth type of tastebud is called umami and located in the center of the tongue?) This closed site is not free, but there are no ads"
"It’s a little slow to load in places, but overall Wonder Rotunda is gorgeous to look at and easy to use. This virtual theme park does a nice job of using exciting avatar-driven rides and experiences to inspire kids to learn more about the world around them. Kids will have fun zooming down into the colorful park map, entering various buildings and rides, and feeding their avatar from the food booths. The cartoon narrator, Mr. Wonder, explains things on a grade schooler’s level; for instance, “urine, also known as pee.” Throughout each adventure, kids can pause the program to read a few paragraphs on topics they’ve just encountered. For instance, as their submarine whizzes through the human digestive tract a la Fantastic Voyage, kids can stop to learn more about the taste buds and salivary glands.
The best thing about Wonder Rotunda is the rich variety of interactive adventures, which cover topics as diverse as tropical rainforests, African wildlife, marine life, money and business, American government, nutrition, classical music, and social causes."
On Educational Value (5 out of 5):
"Kids can learn lots by paying close attention to Mr. Wonder, an affable animated tour guide who explains what things are and how they work in each of the 15 park adventures. Each of the activities, which range from zip-lining through a tropical rainforest to hot-air ballooning over the Serengeti to running a smoothie stand, is supplemented by additional reading material kids can delve into for more details. Completing an adventure unlocks an associated quiz where kids can test their newly acquired knowledge. At any point kids can pause the action and consult a glossary for unfamiliar terms."
On Messages (5 out of 5):
"The site encourages kids to explore their world and educate themselves so they can become successful, caring adults. Through the dozen-plus adventures kids learn that life is a feast of interesting opportunities, from starring in movies to supporting worthwhile causes to helping run our country’s government as elected officials."
"The site is completely ad free. Kids do earn Wonder Dollars, which can be spent on snacks, souvenirs and postcards, just like in a real theme park. However, kids don't have to blow all their money on junk food and stuffed animals. For instance, buying a healthy snack from one of the 12 food stands, such as yogurt or carrot sticks instead of cheese fries or cinnamon buns, gives avatars more energy for exploring the park. Also, kids can hire blimps to fly over the park raising awareness of their favorite causes, such as saving marine mammals."
On Privacy: (5 out of 5)
"The personal info kids have to reveal to sign up is negligible, and they can't post anything personal because the site doesn't allow content creation or interacting with other users. "
On Parental Controls (5 out of 5)
"Parents enjoy a tight rein, in part because users have to pay to join. Kids can't use the site until a parent or guardian has purchased a year's pass and activated it. Parents can keep tabs on their kids' activities with a monitoring tool that tracks which adventures a child has completed, the topics he's read more about, and even how many quiz questions he's answered correctly."
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Review of the Wonder Rotunda by GameVortex
By Eric Garfinkel on September 9, 2009
"Educational games can struggle in finding a balance between fun and learning. Wonder Rotunda skips over most of the old learning-game paradigms and opts for more of an interactive film concept, something that kids understand well from DVD special features and games. The animation, delivered entirely through a browser, is fluid as long as you have a decent connection and only suffers from occasional slowdown. The style of Wonder Rotunda is more hand-drawn than computer animated, making for a style that feels like classic TV animation or early-reader books. Kids can use basic tools to create customized avatars as they explore the game, and even create a parent or companion avatar. Stress on "basic," compared to the avatar creation tools present on platforms like the Wii or other similar services, but kids can at least choose hair and skin color along with clothing in their favorite color.
The idea of an interactive film carries through all the activities in Wonder Rotunda, with lots of spoken interludes and animations introducing each section of this virtual theme park. Your host, Mr. Wonder, will bring you along during each adventure, describing the new sights and introducing new games or activities along the way. Parents with younger children will find that much of Wonder Rotunda requires good reading skills, so it's likely to be a paired activity rather than something early readers do on their own. All the same, the game can be a good place to practice reading skills, and there is enough narration to give the reading partner or parent a break. There is also the option to turn on captions, for any of the spoken dialogue. The depth of information here is the biggest selling point, almost like Wikipedia had come alive and popped off the screen with interaction, animation, and illustration that will capture a young child's imagination.
Gameplay:
The concept of Wonder Rotunda will connect easily with a modern audience that loves theme parks and enjoys adventure on a grand scale. Why be content to watch kids on TV exploring the Serengeti when you can go yourself? Love space adventure, but don't yet have a seat booked on a trip to the moon? Wonder Rotunda provides unparalleled armchair adventure, but skirts the dangerous piece of exploring in favor of learning. Parents are likely to find the arguments around games as learning vehicles wearing a bit thin, especially when most of the settings for popular games are fictional and fantastic. Wonder Rotunda proves that everyday science, history, and geography is as fantastic a setting as anything kids are likely to find in a traditional make-believe game. Some adventures stretch the limits of practical science, such as the "Digestive System Adventure," where kids venture inside a giant working digestive system for a look at how food moves through the body. Disney may be concocting something along these lines, but we haven't seen it yet. It's reminiscent of Innerspace and lots of fun. Other interactive adventures take kids to remote places on Earth and provide a close-up look at various flora and fauna that keep the planet thriving.
Other topics covered in Wonder Rotunda may seem a bit more mundane, such as learning about government, money, or nutrition. The appeal will be there for older kids, but the younger set won't be likely to connect as much with the "fun" part of learning that doesn't feature interesting animals. There are more than a dozen activities in total, each featuring a quiz segment and the opportunity to earn a "guide badge" that kids can display in their resident home called a "Treepod." The Treepod is like a clubhouse you can visit to view accomplishments and progress, and where you can view objects collected throughout the game. Participating in activities earns you "Wonder Dollars" that can be redeemed for food around the park, or toys and gadgets in-game that you can collect. There's no multiplayer or interaction with other players, avoiding the idea of a social network and all the associated security worries that parents may have. Whether you subscribe to the notion of Wonder Rotunda more as an interactive Wikipedia, a game-film hybrid, or a languid learning game where everybody wins, it definitely has the potential to capture your child's imagination.
Difficulty:
There's no penalty system in Wonder Rotunda, but there are ways to earn greater rewards. After completing the "Healthy Eating Super Coaster," kids will learn about food groups and proper nutrition, which they can use in the real world ('natch!) and also in the park's various food stands. Choosing between a corn dog, cinnamon bun, or green salad with grilled chicken means the difference between refilling more or less of your avatar's food gauge; this is Resource Management 101, the notion of feeding your avatar good stuff during the game, and kids are given all the tools necessary to make smart choices through the "Healthy Eating" ride. The challenge level of the various quizzes in the game isn't customizable, which is a shame. Some option to modify the level of challenge to match younger players would be nice, but this could always be added since the game is served up online through a browser. Non-readers won't be entirely lost, but much of Wonder Rotunda is closed off to them because of the additional detail you'll uncover as you browse through the various rides and attractions. The writing is certainly more accessible and less technical than a science textbook or Wikipedia, but younger kids will definitely need a guide (real-world, not the avatar variety) to get the most out of Wonder Rotunda.
Game Mechanics:
Everything in Wonder Rotunda can be experienced through a standard browser, through clicking on highlighted images or icons. The navigation could not be simpler or more intuitive, although some periodic slowdown is the byproduct of playing at the whim of your PC's processor load and Internet traffic. Each area loads in advance of your adventure, meaning that there are no load-screens during play in a specific area. You can pause play at any time through a side menu that otherwise is hidden apart from showing a small tab. Any other navigation is all done through the main screen, and moving around Wonder Rotunda is done through a map view that contains clickable images. Quizzes and other question-and-answer segments are straightforward, requiring only that you click the option of your choice to move forward. Playing in fullscreen mode is especially nice, since it hides all the distracting browser elements you don't need to see, but a bar remains at the top showing various places on the Wonder Rotunda main site you can visit.
The majority of the resources on the WonderRotunda.com site are for parents or teachers, to gain a better understanding of how the game works and what it provides for children. Creating an account requires a parent/guardian login and password in addition to the login and password your child will use. There are some very basic tools on the backend that parents can use to monitor what kids are doing in Wonder Rotunda, and to see the results of their opt-in quizzes, guide badge attempts, and post-adventure surveys. These surveys seem slanted toward identifying how interested kids may be in learning more about specific parts of the content, guiding the creators of Wonder Rotunda as well as parents in continuing the learning outside the computer. The closest we've seen before to something like this, in terms of balancing information and learning with fun, was the short-lived Pokemon-themed learning site.
Wonder Rotunda offers a more consumer-neutral platform that parents will love, and that offers enough variety to capture imaginations across a wide age range. Especially considering that a one-year "park pass" costs less than most home board games ($45 for a one-year pass, or $35 to renew a pass), you'll get plenty of real-world bang for your Wonder Rotunda buck.
Recommended. "
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Review by New York Times--Frugal Traveler--Seeing the World on a Budget
By Eric Garfinkel on September 2, 2009
New York Times (September 2, 2009)
Frugal Traveler--Seeing the World on a Budget (On-line by Matt Gross)
The other day, my daughter, Sasha, was exploring the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia. She’d flown there by seaplane and was scuba diving 30 feet down when — whoosh! — a giant Maori wrasse, a thick, bluish-yellow fish that looks as if it’s made of Plasticene and is twice her size, zipped by. Next, after startling a stingray, she swam around with a bottlenose dolphin, before heading back up to the surface and on to the Serengeti for a hot-air-balloon safari. O.K., this is not entirely true. At 9 months, Sasha can barely stand, let alone scuba dive, and if anyone in this family is going to Australia, it’s probably me. But it is at least virtually true — that is, it took place entirely in cyberspace, through a new educational Web site called WonderRotunda.com, which offers children ages 7 to 12 the opportunity to explore the world (or a cartoon facsimile of it) without leaving the computer desk. At $45 for a yearlong pass to this interactive theme park, it’s a whole lot cheaper than buying plane tickets, booking hotel rooms, going out to restaurants and all the chaos and unpredictability of, you know, actual travel.
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/virtual-vacations/
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