Message to Parents

Hello and welcome to Emerald Activities! The following is meant to give you a brief idea of who we are, what this site offers your child, our approach to internet safety, and the means by which we are supporting this site.

Emerald Activities is a family friendly site designed and run by Heather Harvey and Bradley Adams. We are aspiring game designers and parents to a wonderful little girl. As parents, we are concerned with keeping the content on our site appropriate and interesting, while still giving the children as much creative flexibility as possible. Our site does have a fairly wide age range (the average users range from about 6 to 14 years old), so not all content is targeted at the younger kids. However, we only add content that we feel would be appropriate for our own child.

Our site focuses on creativity by encouraging our users to build unique and inventive images out of the provided drag and drop games, as well as participating in the story telling and role play forums (for the older children or those with parental permission). We frequently hold challenges and contests to spark their imaginations, and they are encouraged to share their creations and their ideas with their peers. In the near future, we will also be adding some more cultural content to help our young users learn about people from all over the world.

Internet saftey is of course a major concern with us as with all parents. Both our forums and our image galleries are moderated, bullying is not tolerated and neither is the sharing of personal information like addresses, real names, etc... We also run filters to remove foul language. Guests and users under 13 can only communicate with others through drop down menus of safe words and phrases, unless their parents have given permission for them to use the regular forum. Regarding children's privacy we follow the United States Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). We do not share user information with other individuals or companies. Further information on our privacy practices can be found in our Privacy Policy. If you have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to contact us.

This site is supported by a mixture of ad revenue and "emerald" purchases. Our site uses google ads which do have filtering to help keep them appropriate to the audience. If for some reason you find an ad in any way inappropriate or offensive, please contact us so that we can block the offending site. As far as emeralds go, they are a new micro-transaction system that we are testing out. They can be earned just by participating on the site, but for those who would like them faster, they can also be purchased. Emeralds can be used to buy extra Magic Maker pieces and patterns within our marketplace. Your support for our site is greatly appreciated and helps to keep the majority of the games and activities free for everyone to enjoy.

As a final note, please monitor your children's activities online. If you follow links on our site (through advertisements for example) you will be taken to other sites that have their own privacy policies and practices. Only you can really decide what content is best for your children. It is also very important that you encourage them to never share personal information without your permission. The following tips are good practices to keep in mind when visitng any website:

• Never allow your child to use their real name online, a nickname is safer and more fun!
• Let your child know not to share their name, address, phone number, or any other personal information... even with their online "friends".
• Explain that they should always use unique passwords (for each site they visit), and that they should never share those passwords with anyone.
• Encourage them to report players/images/content that make them feel uncomfortable in any way. Thats what moderators are there for.

Thanks for visiting our site and I hope you and your family enjoy your time on Emerald Activities.