Playing word and math games

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In a world of violent video games, where dexterity of the thumb and index finger is infinitely more important than the flexing of the cerebrum, there must be a place for children and their parents to interact and actually learn something from that overpriced multimedia computer/gaming system. Take a deep breath and enter the ROMper Room, where learning is a four-letter word -- cool.

Educators can add some powerful software weapons to their ongoing battle to teach word useage and mathematics, thanks to a couple of easy-to-use homework creators.

First, Crossword Factory 3 creates customized puzzles with a few clicks of the mouse. The handy interface uses word lists combined with clues to randomly generate the standard across-and-down, boxed presentations suitable for printing or e-mailing to students in various graphics formats.

Teachers begin by either creating their own word list from 65,000 possibilities or selecting from a predetermined topic, including "Rulers of the Past" (requiring knowledge of dates), "Active Lifestyle" (sports words) or "See the World" (famous landmarks).

All clues can be edited to accommodate students' comprehension levels, and an art element and humorous riddle or quotation can be thrown into the finished product.

Then a click on the Generate icon displays a ready-to-solve puzzle that can be further refined by font choices, adding areas where the child can print his or her name and the date, word color and even box size.

As an important, free benefit, owners of the software also can download an additional 20 lists on such topics as "Synonyms" (636 word pairs), "Periodic Table of the Elements" (25 words) and "Animal Scientific Names" (100 word pairs) to further enhance a wide range of lesson plans.

Next, Mathematics Worksheet Factory Deluxe lives up to its name by offering 60 randomly generated types of printable homework activities to hone knowledge of core number concepts, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Covering areas to appeal from kindergartners to 10th-graders, the simple interface allows the user to click and choose from 13 subtopics, including time, money, geometry, percentages, fractions, measurements and graphing to quickly display and customize a set of problems.

The program is not as flexible as Crossword Factory 3, but it does allow color variations, the placement of those inspirational quotations and riddles at the top of an assignment, the ability to add equation templates, and a wide degree of numerical manipulations to satisfy any educator's requirements.