Free Online Sports Games for Children
When I was a kid, my family had Pong and that made us pretty cool. Then my dad got an Apple IIe and we had text-based games like Lemonade Stand and Oregon Trail. Yep, we were the hip family in the neighborhood with the techie dad. The only thing that even came in as a close second was the fact that my friend Kathleen had an Intelevision system. Man, I LOVED playing Astro Smash at her house.
I don’t have to tell you how much times have changed. My daughter and my nephew were born into a world dominated by a video game culture. My nephew got a DS last Christmas and my daughter got one this Christmas. Neither of them can image a life without computers. My nephew has a couple of console systems at his place, but here at our house we stick to the DS and games we can play online.
Both of the kids are little sports nuts, too. They’ve recently graduated out of the kinds of games you can find on Noggin or Nickelodeon. They want more “grown up” kids’ games 
Of course, that means I have been screening more online games than ever to find ones that are safe, kid-friendly, and fun. Free is always good, too. You have to watch your pennies in today’s economy.
I signed Gigi up for an account at ActionAllStars.com. She got to choose how her avatar looks, dress her, and even give her a hairstyle. She even named her (GigiA). I made a screen cap when we were done creating the character. That made her happy. I was happy, because I was able to determine whether her avatar could use Safe Chat or Safe Chat Plus. Both chats allow players to communicate with one another, filtering each message that includes blocked words or personal information. The Safe Chat Plus (which is what I chose) only lets the player use predetermined phrases and words.
Once we were done, I had to click on a link in an activation e-mail that was sent to my e-mail account and we were ready to have some fun. He headed over to the Pavement server and played a little basketball, baseball, football, and took a turn with some virtual surfing (Gigi especially liked doing the “Dolphin Ride” and the “Lazy Boy”). You get to pick your favorite team for some games, because MLB.com (MLBAM) and NBA.com (National Basketball League) have partnered with Action Allstars. Gigi picked the Tampa Bay Rays when she was trying out one of the baseball games that was sort of a cross between a baseball diamond and a pinball machine.
Since she needs to get the hang of things, we played everything in regular mode instead of challenge mode. She earned a few tokens and was able to shop for new items for her avatar. You can even buy furniture to add to your “Home Turf”.
All in all, this was a great experience for both of us. We had a lot of fun playing together, I felt like it was a safe environment, and many of the games were simple enough for her to play without my help. I very much recommend giving it a try.
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