FunGooms

Fungooms is a games website that has been designed to be extremely simple to use. All the navigation and games can be used just with the mouse. The site is completely intuitive. No instructions are required and no reading is needed. The site is based around very simple icons. The games are centered around very friendly loveable characters and have been designed to be purely fun and keep frustration to a minimum. There are no penalties or scores, only amusing events, surprises and gentle calming music. We have taken a minimalistic approach to the appearance so that the player does not get confused or overwhelmed. All the games are designed to be played in full screen by pressing f11 so that the player does not have to struggle to see what's going on. Our thanks to Ned Langman for this recommendation.

The Plasma Screen and Whiteboard Room

More FREE whiteboard curriculum activities than you'll get through in a year! Fantastic links to lovely resources designed to be used on your IWB. Search the resources by topic or key word to the left of the screen. Thanks to Sally Paveley for such a terrifically useful site.

Comic Master

A wonderful resource for reluctant writers or anyone who just wants to make their own comic strip. The interface is a bit busy and requires click/drag or equivalent access, but if you can get around that, it's brilliant!

Alphablocks

Alphablocks is a series of adventures that invite you to have fun with words. The Alphablocks are twenty-six living letters who fall out of the sky onto an empty, white world and discover that if they hold hands and make a word, it comes to life. They learn as they go along and they're always ready to have a go, help each other out and make their own entertainment. Alphablocks is really engaging for pupils of all ages who are learning to read. Its simple purpose is to entertain, while showing that wordplay can be a lot of fun. It is based on best-practice phonics teaching and it can help children develop engagement and confidence with reading and making words. Every episode is different: there are songs, stories and games. The CBeebies Alphablocks website will feature all twenty-six episodes, with games that enable children to join in and make words to help the Alphablocks in their adventures.

Signed Stories

This is a sensational resource for everyone. Full of signed, spoken, well known children's stories with music and sound effects too. Absolutely brilliant. You could use a variety of inputs (switch, eye gaze, touch screen or mouse etc) to start the stories too.

Animal Jam

Animal Jam features a full spectrum of play that caters to children at all ability levels and developmental stages. With constantly evolving educational content, children can discover real-world plant and animal facts, plus follow enriching storylines paired with National Geographic's multimedia educational content! Join a community featuring fun activities and games, as well as chat with online friends in a safe and moderated environment. Thanks to Sharon Cahill for the recommendation!

Beatrix Potter Spoken Stories

This is a lovely collection of spoken stories that can be accessed via a single click. Clear diction and large pictures. German, Japanese and French versions available for some of the stories too. Thanks to Chelsie Gordon and her pupil for the recommendation.

Flower Garden

Beautiful mouse/ touch screen / Smart Board / Plasma screen practise. Create your own flower garden! Thanks to Trish for recommending this to Check The Map.

One Switch Accessible Games

There are soooooooo many excellent games here, each with their own description, that it would be crazy to list them all again on Check The Map, just click the link and read through. Here you'll find such retro remakes as Frogger and Whack-A-Mole, alongside puzzles, timing games, shoot-em-ups and more. We highly recommend this site for single, two switch and two player games.

Sensory World

Freely available interactive website designed especially for adults with learning disabilities, set around a virtual house. Visit the kitchen and learn about Health and Safety, Nutrition and Hygiene. Go into the Music Room and create your own band or orchestra. Take a look at the sensory room and choose your own themes for the bubble tubes, glitter ball, star mat etc. A Money Manager will also help you keep track on your finances. Watch this site, as it is currently in the second phase of development which will see the addition of a sensory garden amongst other elements.

Games of precision

Switch / IWB / Keyboard / Mouse timing games

ZEFRANK

Lots of wonderful interactive ‘toys’, many at simple cause and effect level

Musical Mouse or Touch Screen

This is brilliant! Practice simple mouse or touch screen movements and be rewarded by colour and a choice of sound effects or catchy music. If you know anyone of any age who is struggling to use a mouse, you must check out this link. Thanks very much to the Help Kidz Learn team at Inclusive. NB, this also works in conjunction with EnorMouse (also linked to Check The Map) if the intended player has a visual impairment.

BBC Newsround Switch Accessible Reader

The BBC have launched an accessible newsreader, providing access to the content from the BBC Newsround website to single switch users. The site aims to provide some good quality regularly updated and age-appropriate content to this audience, particularly as it is exactly the same content that is available to everyone else. Key features are a highly simplified scanning interface, fully voiced text, and being fully configurable, including fonts and colour-schemes. Although designed primarily for switch users it will also hopefully be of benefit as a teaching aid for people who may have learning or cognitive difficulties, and people on the autistic spectrum in particular, due to things like the simplified interface, simultaneous text & speech, and connection with real-world events.

Man in the Dark

Weird and addictive, use your mouse / touch screen to move and watch the man loop and twist around the screen. Clicking once with the mouse begins a repeating animated sequence of more and more men, clicking again returns you to just one. Excellent for early mouse skills, group work.. Thanks very much to Trish and Gill for finding this oddity.

Help Kidz Learn

HelpKidzLearn is a collection of free software for young children and those with learning difficulties to play online.

Something Special

To accompany the popular CBeebies TV show, you'll find a lot of interactive games, stories, signs, songs and clips of Mr Tumble to enjoy. A colourful and entertaining resource, perfect for learning early signs and ICT skills.

Art Pad - A good alternative to MS Paint

This needs a little intervention to get going but is accessible enough to warrant a link here. Choose different sizes of paintbrush, text or paint bucket splodge to create your own beautiful piece of art with a mouse. Helps to brush up (sorry) on your dragging and clicking skills. If you like this, try Art Rage and Jackson Pollock Art, both linked to Check The Map. More thanks to Mandy at Southview School for another gem.

Mr Picasso Head

We absolutely love this - create your own Picasso portrait by dragging and dropping with a mouse, touch screen or IWB. Then authentically sign your masterpiece. Massive thanks to Mandy Griffin of Southview School for sourcing this.

Roy the Zebra

Free interactive reading games, perfect for using with your interactive whiteboard or on a computer. Words that rhyme, full stops, capital letters, high frequency words and much more...thanks to Suzanne Sear of Charlton School for spreading the word about this very useful and entertaining freebie.

Loomy Accessible Portal

An accessible portal for people with learning disabilities. This site makes surfing the web easier, with clear graphics, accessible layouts and speech feedback. Thanks to Martin for recommending this site so we could share it on Check The Map

Ninja Balloons

A great game for introducing the mouse or learning to press and hold a switch with a partner. Instructions are on the site so I won't go into them here. Needless to say it's easy to play with a nice colourful screen and tons of levels. Have fun.

Askability - NEW symbolised website

The Askability website was inspired by The Children's Society Solihull branch, after watching children at their project misunderstand the news about the war in Iraq. They decided that there was a need for a website which was presented entirely in symbol to enable children with learning disabilities to become informed about ongoing current affairs and also create a central forum for children to express their views and opinions.

Jackson Pollock - Create some Abstract Art

Thanks to Charlie Danger for telling us about this beautiful site. Use your mouse, headpointer, rollerball or joystick (or finger on a touch screen / whiteboard) to create the next masterpieces of the art world. To change colour click your mouse etc. This is a brilliantly simple program with no confusing buttons or distractions. Have fun.

YAP - Interactive Lifestyle Website

An interactive lifestyles website for young people designed by young volunteers with a learning disability. It has music, fashion, video clips and lots more. Yap is a website for all young people made by young volunteers with a learning disability. On this website you can see young people doing the things they like to do and there are some fun things you can do too. All the ideas and the things to do on this website came from the young people involved in making it.

ICT Games

This site provides ICT activites linked to the English National Curriculum. Divided into literacy and numeracy there are tons of wonderful resources and games that cover topics such as: counting, subtracting, number bonds, weights and measurements, division, multiplication, more & less, shapes, clocks, fractions, decimals, percentages, money... and then, for literacy... phonemes, initial letters, letter forming, spelling patterns, high frequency words, sight recognition, reading, listening, rhyming.... and there's so much more. Many useful teacher tools that are great for whiteboard work are to be found here too. The site isn't switch accessible and you need Flash Player to run the games. It's a fabulous bank of learning tools and makes everything just that little bit more fun... All games are designed, made by and © copyright 2005 of James Barrett.

Dance Mat Typing

A free typing tutor with animations, spoken instructions and a colourful, fun interface that can be made full screen. The program has different levels of difficulty and simple typing exercises with visual feedback at each stage. Our thanks to Ann Middleton for this useful link.

Poisson Rouge

Loads of wonderfully animated simple games with sound effects. There are jigsaws to make, pictures to colour, counting games and letter games in French and English, some simple mouse skills games, games that can be switch adapted if you use space bar and arrow keys... lots of recommendations to add this and our thanks to members of SENIT.

Sticky Art from the Blue Man website

Now it's not just paint you can chuck into your own collage - but marshmallows, crunchy bits, jell-o, balloons and twinkies (what are they?). This excellent, interactive site gives your mouse / switch / touch screen users the chance to make their own artwork and send it to their friends. We're not admitting which one in the gallery belongs to Check The Map but know you'll do considerably better. Incidentally, marshmallows and crunchy bits only stick to something sticky.... enjoy. Many thanks to Trish Davidson for this great find.

Knee Bouncers - switch games selection

These are designed for a younger audience, but make wonderful switch/early keyboard activities with simple cartoon graphics and sound effects. Choose from 'Underwater Adventure' (any key press gets an animation); 'Guitar, Piano and Drums' - any key press generates a sound - fantastic for switch group work; 'Jump & Float', and 'Peekaboo' are great for sustaining holding down a switch or key - the longer you hold the key down the longer you see the picture; 'Balloons, Bubbles & Flowers' is a nice sensory activity where each key/switch press creates a bubble that floats upwards then pops satisfyingly. Lastly, there's 'All Aboard' when a train chugs into view and each key/switch press animates a bit of the train. My favourite is Jump & Float - but you be the judge. Our thanks to Jim Robinson of 'Punch' for permission to add this to Check The Map.

Sky Writing

Skywriting is taken from the growing bank of free to use tools and resources created for teachers who are teaching with an interactive whiteboard (IWB) on their main site www.iwb.org.uk For pupils learning about letters, large motor movements can really help to make the activity fun and memorable. This is a wonderful whiteboard / touch screen resource for group or individual work.

Online Colouring Books

This is a lovely resource - part of the ton of books, puzzles and games for children of all ages on Magic Keys. Use mouse or touchscreen to choose from standard painting tools and a range of colours to create your own picture. There are loads of outlines to keep you busy - from flowers to footballers. Great practice for struggling mouse users, or for those budding artists that find an adapted mouse / touch screen access much more successful than using a paintbrush. You can print outlines to colour off the computer or your finished work to show off.

Teenzone from Trans-Active

Teenzone, by Mencap, contains all sorts of useful, accessible stuff centred around Teenage issues. Click the link to go to a page where you can find out more about transition, play on a beat box, make faces, play games and more. Fairly good mouse control is needed for the activities on this site, though a lot of the information is simple and clearly read out as you move your mouse over pictures, videos and words.

Make a Snowflake

This is brilliant. Use your mouse, touchscreen or whiteboard to touch falling snowflakes, or move on to the more creative business of 'cutting' out symmetrical shapes to make your own, unique snowflake. Check The Map's shoddy effort is gallery number 10539500 but we're sure you can do a lot better! When you're satisfied with your snowflake, you can print it off as a jpeg for all sorts of uses. Thanks to David Fettes for pointing us in the direction of this addictive resource.

Alarm Clock on your PC

What better way to help those with issues around understanding time and remaining on a task for set periods than a lovely big on-screen clock with a programmable alarm? Thanks to Dave Lane, there's one that can be linked live whilst you're connected to the Internet (or downloaded if you search in the downloads section).

Choice and Voice

We are a group of people with Learning Disabilities who have set up our own website for other people with Learning Disabilities. We hope the site will grow through the contributions and involvement of other people with Learning Disabilities wherever they live. We would love to hear from people and get contributions and ideas from people who have visted the site and would like to use it more. The more contributions and ideas we get the better the site will be.

More fireworks

If you liked the previous fireworks link and want more, this is for you. Same thing, more colours... Great for early, simple mouse/ interactive whiteboard / touch screen work or paired activities between mouse and switch users.

Fireworks

The premise is simple - clicking anywhere with your mouse (or setting a switch to emulate a left mouse click) will produce a satisfying and never ending stream of fireworks. Great for early, simple mouse / touch screen/ whiteboard work or paired activities between mouse and switch users. Thanks to May and Frank who have given permission for us add this link.

Election Special - In Symbols

An area of symbolworld dealing with the election. Loads of information about parliament, What is an MP, What is an opinion poll etc, plus simplified statements from the main political parties, all in symbols.

Facial Expressions

The Cat Came Back

This link opens to a busy front page so look for the picture of the cat and click on it. You will then find a lovely little cartoon and song. Watch the cat thwart his owner's many attempts to get rid of it. Thanks to Richard Walter from Meldreth Manor School for recommending this.

Candlelight Stories Online

Eight different cartoons and excellent 3d animations. Happily, most play full screen and the material spans different age groups. Text is used in some cartoons. Help is probably required for most students to click on download links. Download times are generally quite short.

Story Books

This site links to lots of online books. Some with flash animations and sound; some have text read out. Unfortunately the site has pop ups and other links so students may need help navigating to the stories. Lots here for all ages and some lovely illustrations.

Boohbah Activities

There's no easy way to describe this site but i'll try: A wonderful collection of very colourful flash activities that interact with mouse clicks. A front screen takes you to lots of different things to explore and do. I like the synchronised blob dancing best. Go see. (Many thanks to Sarah Anderson and the pupils of Delamere School for recommending this).

Croatian Fairy Tales - Animated

These lovely stories use traditional music and beautiful ilustrations. Where there is text it is clearly read out. Navigating to the stories requires quite a lot of mouse control, though once loaded, some will just play through with no interaction required. On other stories students can explore pages and find different sound effects that help explain and give context. Worth a look.

Starfall - Learn to read

You'll find lots of interactive online games to help early literacy here, from letter recognition to non-fiction and comics. Aimed at younger children, different short activities are easy to work through with lots of fun animations. There are also many classroom ideas and activity sheets for teachers to download.

Cartoon Games from SVT

From the Swedish TV Network that brought you Horse Harmony, this site is very funny, very addictive and great for practising mouse skills. This link takes you to the home page. Press START to enter, then mouse over the screen to find musical cartoon links to lots of other games. I guess it helps if you speak Swedish, but if like me you don't, it's all still pretty easy to work out. Tons of games, tons of fun.

Horse Harmony

This is a bizarre and funny site, a horse quartet! Click on the horses to get them singing and click on them again to stop. Simple, great for practising early ICT skills and very entertaining.

Magic Balls from Trans-active

One of the many games you'll find on Trans-Active, a fantastic site supported by Mencap for teenagers with and without learning disabilities to work together. Fire different coloured balls to make rows of two or more. Play with the keyboard (space & arrow keys) or set up for a switch/ touch screen user. Nice sound effects, though the time runs out quickly. The Check The Map Team's best score is 6588. Let us know when you beat it!

Symbol World

Dedicated to the use of symbols, a wonderful site with tons of free symbol-supported stories, news, games, jokes