Jim Stouffer asked:




Everyone wants the best for their kids and unfortunately, math is a weak area for many children. However, you can help your child succeed in math by playing educational games with them. It really is simple. Kids learn better when they are having fun. The opportunities present themselves all the time, all you have to do is take hold of the opportunity and use it to your advantage. Here are five ways you can use games to your advantage.

Educational Games in the Car:

Each day you take your child to school or the daycare. On the way to school, you can allow your child to play educational games on an iPod. The handheld device is easily portable and can be stored in your purse. The games can be downloaded from iTunes at a reasonable price and some are even free.

It is not recommended you allow your child to take the iPod to school or daycare. Many times the device is not allowed in schools and they can easily be lost or stolen. However, they can be kept with you and be used on the return ride home for additional education.

Education while Shopping:

Depending on the age of the child, have your child keep a running total of the items bought. They can either use a calculator or use their head. For a more advanced calculation, have them estimate the anticipated tax.

Make this a game by seeing who can come closest to the actual total. Younger children like matching items on lists to items in the store.

Education while Cooking:

Children can learn valuable math lessons while preparing dinner as cooking is full of counting, measuring and fractions. Cooking can be full of singing and dancing and so many games that are hard to mention.

My classroom actually had “WOO HOO Wednesday.” Rarely did anyone miss WOO HOO Wednesday. Kids just love cooking. Make it a game and your kids’ math will improve.

More Education Games Online

Sometimes you just want to go online and download some games for your kids. I get that. I have even done that. Kids are kids and they want to play computer games like all the other kids. They want to be “cool” and play the “cool computer games” like all the other kids. That is fine but you want to make sure your kids are playing games that are safe. This is what you look for:

Games that reward accomplishments Games that are developmentally appropriate Games that are age appropriate Games you can adjust the levels Visually stimulating Fun animation

Most games will teach your child something. The question then becomes, is the game your child playing teaching your child the things you want your child to learn.

William Murtog asked:




For many gamers, guild clan website hosting can mean the difference between a guilds life or death, literally. Whether a new or seasoned guild leader, having a personal home on the internet ensures the groups ability to collaborate, discuss, and plan future events. Guild Clan Website Hosting has many benefits: planning, communication, events/raids, scheduling, privacy, discussion forums, recruitment, and many other intangibles.

Ever try to get a group of people together in real life at the same time? Chances are someone has not shown up or didn’t RSVP. With video games the same is true; people need to be able to clearly see a guilds schedule of events on a calendar and be able to plan on attending or letting the guild leader know they can’t make it. Without this virtual home on the internet, guilds and clans would be left to hope X amount of members show up for their newest raid, or event. Now with guild hosting a guild leader can assess if they have enough members to go forward with an event rather than canceling.

Guilds and Clans can take advantage of private forums through a guild hosting provider to air out their indifference or discuss latest strategies, events, and recruitment. Without these private forums guilds and clans would be forced to discuss private/personal issues with guild members over a generic forum where non-members could view this. This is not acceptable so the guild host provider gives the guild/clan privacy as well as their own personal space. Discussing family matters at Dunkin Donuts is analgous to discussing recruitment with non members.

With the new age of guild clan website hosting providers springing up such as CharacterPlanet, it is becoming easier to match Virtual Characters looking for Guilds and Guilds looking for Virtual Characters. By taking the approach of matching Virtual Characters to Guilds/Clans rather than Real Life people to Guilds/Clans CharacterPlanet gives its members ability to be virtually matched. Think E-harmony only for the Virtual Worlds. The ability to save hundreds of hours on recruitment is a greatly added benefit of guild clan hosting. When one views a guild site they can easily see what race/class level combinations the guild needs as well as what level equipment one should have or any stipulation such as, real life tournament experience for CounterStrike or Epic gear for World of Warcraft.

Hosting can also mean more notoriety within the gaming community. If you have a guild clan website it immediately gives your organization the credibility it deserves. This landing page for the curious, enviuous, and even your enemies will solidfy your position for that game or games. Fires of Heaven is a great example as their website received hundreds of thousands of hits. It is forming this buzz about ones guild that also leads to more recruits and of course more enemies.

Depending on what game one plays there are a myriad of guild website hosting templates and clan templates as well. A World of Warcraft guild website will certainly look different than a Halo or EverQuest site but the principles are the same. Whether you want to gain more credibility, become more organized as a leader, or create a sense of teamwork within your own guild/clan, guild clan website hosting is beneficial.

There are of course both paid and free hosting solutions. The paid services in the past have dominated but the free ones have made leaps and bounds to give the same services and better in some instances. Most of the paid providers lack a community wrapped around the hosting to make recruitment more tedious than necessary. Regardless of the route you choose, be sure to utilize the awesome power of immortalizing your Guild on the internet with a place you can call home.

Justin Hopley asked:




On virtually every server, primals are the primary method of farming. When people level from 60 to 70, they save their primals to sell for their flying mounts. When people need that few thousand gold for their epic crafted items or epic mount, primal farming they go.

If you are like many World of Warcraft players, you don’t necessarily know of the best spots to farm primals. Some think they know, but don’t realize where the hot spots are at. Here is a quick summary of where and how to farm each primal the quickest.

Primal Earth – Hands down, these are most easily farmed from mining. However, if you are not a miner and are in need of these, the second best place would be the earth elementals on the southwestern region of Nagrand. They are the Shattered Rumblers and are level 66-67. They have nearly a 20% chance at dropping Motes of Earth and you should be able to get 3 to 4 Primal Earths per hour.

Primal Fire – There are a few hot spots for these, but in my opinion, one area is incredibly more profitable than the others. With the release of patch 2.4, there are now a whole army of fire elementals in the Throne of Kil’jaeden in the northeastern region of Hellfire Peninsula. Not only are there lots of fire elementals present here, but they are also on a forced respawn. This means that if there are too low of a number of these mobs up, the game will force spawn more in order to keep a minimum amount always up. If you find yourself farming on non-peak times, it is easy to farm 4 or 5 Primal Fires per hour.

Primal Water – There are two good spots to farm these. The first is Silmyr Lake in northern Terokkar Forest. In the lake, there are Shimmerscale Eels that tend to have a decent drop rate of Motes of Water. The only negatives are that you have to kill them underwater and sometimes there is lots of competition. The second spot to farm Primal Waters is fishing in Nagrand. If you can reach at least 380 fishing skill and have a flying mount, then you can fly around the waterways of Nagrand, searching for ‘Pure Water’ nodes. Fishing in these will grant Motes of Water. Both methods, depending on competition, will result in about 3 to 4 primals per hour.

Primal Air – There is really only one place to farm these and sadly it results in lots of competition. However, they are on a forced respawn! But they are spread out over a large portion of southeastern Shadowmoon Valley, thus making the forced respawn only barely beneficial. I tend to only average 2 to 3 Primal Airs per hour. Hopefully, you do not need many of these!

Primal Mana – Once again, just like the Primal Fires, you can thank 2.4 if you find yourself needing to farm these. Simply accept the quest “Maintaining the Sunwell Portal” from Exarch Nasuun in Shattrath City and then head to Bash’ir Landing in northern Blades Edge Mountain. Kill the ethereal until you get a Bash’ir Phasing Device. Use this and you will be able to see Phase Wyrms. Farm these for very quick Primal Manas. You should be able to get over 5 Primal Manas per hour.

Primal Shadow – These are the worst to farm. If you find yourself needing to farm these, it is easier to farm a different primal, sell them on the auction house, and buy Primal Shadows. But if you insist on farming, head to the Spirit Fields in southwestern Nagrand. Around the enormous crystal mountain are voids. Simply kill them for the Motes of Shadow. You will be lucky to get 2 Primal Shadows per hour. I have killed over 30 of them for not a single mote before.

Primal Life – These are fairly easy to obtain. If you have a character who can herb, simply fly around farming herbs and you are bound to get a decent amount of Primal Lifes. If you do not have an herbalist, then head to Zangarmarsh. The best mobs for these are any bogs in the zone. Some can be found in the northeast of the zone in the Dead Mire, others can be found in Funggor Cavern in the south region of the zone, and more can be found in the southwestern region of the zone by Quagg Ridge. All of these seem to have equal droprates. You should be able to obtain 4 or 5 Primal Lifes per hour.

And there you have it, a quick and simple guide on how to farm each Primal in the most efficient methods. The last tip I have is to try to farm these during off-peak times on your server. It will really make obtaining these less frustrating and much easier. Good luck on your farming!