One Grain of Rice

If you would like to make a difference in the world, by "playing educational games", have I got a website for you!

At FreeRice.com you are given a series of questions to answer. For each question you get right, the UN World Food Program will donate 10 grains of rice to help end hunger worldwide. 

Quiz topics range from: Vocabulary, Grammar, Literature, Famous Paintings, Flags of the World, Countries on a Map, World Capitals, Basic Math, Multiplication Tables, Chemistry Symbols, & Language Learning (German, Spanish, Italian, or French).

Website visitors can set the level of difficulty of questions, which allows children (and adults) of all ages to play.  I especially love the caveat on the website that states:

WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance...

Demo of FreeRice website:

The FreeRice program reminds me of a wonderful children's picture book, One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale.  This was one of those great library finds I remember stumbling upon one day while browsing the shelves of my local library.  I just loved reading this book to my boys when they were little.  It was such a great illustration of exponential growth and a really good story.

Amazon.com Review

Exotic, beautiful, and instructive, this "mathematical folktale" by author-illustrator Demi emerged from her love of India. The narrative and the evocative illustrations combine to create a real sense of the culture and atmosphere of this romantic land.

It's the story of Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days. Remember your math? That's lots of rice: enough to feed a village for a good long time--and to teach a greedy raja a lesson.