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Interesting and Educational Web Pages for Children?
watashiwananashidesu asks: "I am a teenager with no siblings and a a good number of little cousins. Being something of a nerd, I'm incredibly popular with these cousins, especially the ones who are 8-11. Recently, when my first cousin (female, 8) was over, I began a collection of links that she might enjoy--sites that were appropriate and fun.
Now that the Cold/Flu season is over, I can expect more visits from my first, second, and third cousins, and I'm left with a dismally small collection of links (eight, to be specific) for them to peruse. Also, the few I have are unsatisfactory; they're mainly corporate sites like Barbie.com and Lego.com with a few non-corporate games mixed in. None of the sites have any educational value, least of all about the things that I really want to expose them to--science, math, literature, and computers. In fact, I especially need sites that will teach them about computers, so that they'll be able to better keep in touch with me, when we're all older. What are some good sites I can bookmark for my cousins that are: educational, appropriate for children aged 5-11, (mainly three boys and two girls), fun, not a security threat, non-corporate (though this last one is optional)
Also, how can I make my friends/protégé(e)s/cousins make the best of what few links I have or manage to find?"
It's slightly corporate but a great site. www.noggin.com is the site for the kids tv channel Noggin. It has some great educational games etc. My 2 year old LOVES to play 'Pigeon patterns' with Bert on in the "play with me seseme' section.
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/tes sellate/
http://www.educationindex.com/
It's a site of educational links, but has categories for age group and more. Unfortunately, all the kids I used to send there are young adults now and can find stuff themselves.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
www.howstuffworks.com is pretty good, though it might be for the older of your cousins.
Bonus.com not so educational, and some ads, but lots of fun games for kids ages 8 to 80. Battlefield is an especially addictive mulitplayer cartoony tank game, lots of fun.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
i assume you've already used the link howstuffworks? it's pretty appropriate for any age, and has a great section on computers.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Volcanoworld
www.howstuffworks.com is my favorite educational website, They are starting to add more advertising but it shouldn't hold you back from checking it out...try doing a search on "computers", "mp3" or some other computer related term...maybe try "fiber optics"?
Orisinal.com. The coolest collection of flash games you will ever find. Just have mercy on his server :)
Boom Shanka
Safeplaces.net is a beautifully done Flash animation site geared towards kids. Very good graphics and sound and lots of things to interact with on the pages. It isn't exactly educational(other than getting them comfortable with using a mouse and experimenting with an interface), but it is certainly entertaining and completely appropriate for small children.
(And now I pray they won't get /'ed for this.)
Yes, I work for them.
hang brain.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (our version of PBS) has a great kids site - lots of flash games, science pages, etc.
http://www.abc.net.au/children
BadAstronomy.com
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
The Exploratorium. Especially, the activities in the "Accidental Scientist" and "Try This!" sections. And if you're ever in San Francisco, you should visit it. Lots of hands on exhibits designed for kids. Can't say enough good things about it.
http://www.sfskids.org/templates/splash.asp is the san francisco symphony orchestra's kids site. It's got a cool little flash app that runs in the browser that lets kids compose their own music with a variety of different instruments. If nothing else it'll teach them a little about music and possibly get them interested in playing an instrument.
This is a virtual pet site with MANY games and other interesting things to do. It is absolutely free and the ads are small.
a classic
Now that the obvious joke is out of me, here are some more serious ideas....
one poster mentioend why not getting them outside and do something physical. With that in mind, you can look here at yes mag. Yes Mag is a good science and engineering magazine aimed at children around your cousins age. The website has links to articles, sites and some good from hands on science/engineering activities.
Another site I used heavily this past summer at the computer/tech camp I worked at was Space Kids
Actually looking at the national organzation, actua, that ran the camp I've worked at just now, they also have a list of project and links you can do here: Actua Projects
If you want to teach them something about programming, I've been looking around for Logo I believe this site has some good tutorial movies on how to use the program.
There also always the Bill Nye, Beakmen's of the world too which may be good starting grounds.
http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/ - slightly older kids maybe 10+
m
http://www.abc.net.au/outthere/stuff/animal01.htm educational
from here http://www.abc.net.au/kidsabc kids
Sesame streethttp://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/
Play Schoolhttp://www.abc.net.au/children/play/home.ht
my favourite beginners site. Not specifically aimed at kids but steers well clear of nasty stuff.
Lots of computer links
http://www.blackstump.com.au/
From the black stumphttp://www.blackstump.com.au/kids.htm
at this point you are never going to run out of links, theres links of links
zoo flash extra cool with sounds http://www.oac.schools.sa.edu.au/oes/zoo/
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
"Yes, officer, I confess. Hand me a piece of paper to write off my guilt. :)"
Twenty-seven, sir, twenty-seven and I'm still playing CartoonNetwork.com games. Even during business hours - that should be definitely added to my charges.
Say what?
Oh, no sir, a please pardon me for letting you down and not getting caught playing legally allowed games like: Grand Theft Auto, Quake 3, WarCraft and other. I find them... err... unrealistic.
Serious now - for kids under 9, just like me (divided by 3), I found the games available on cartoonnetwork.com hard to resist. If you wanna get the addicted to good stuff (of course), that IS the place.
__________
Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace!
Let's be serious here. (I personally am in a similar situation.) A few great educational/fun kids sites . . .
t tp://cbc4kids.ca/t tp://www.pm.gc.ca/kids.aspo n.ca/mce_ccm/mce_ccme.aspu m.ca/English/Games/index.ht mlg /o nalgeographic.com/
h ttp://disney.go.com/: //www.si.edu/
http://canada.gc.ca/cdns/children_e.html#kid
h
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/kids/
h
http://www.civilizati
http://www.virtualmuse
http://kids.discovery.com/
http://pbskids.or
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
http://www.nati
http://www.yahooligans.com/
http://scholastic.ca/
http
A buddy of mine turned me on to http://www.squeakland.org. Squeak provides an object oriented environment that's drag and drop, and fun to play with. Think of it like Oracle Forms, Power Builder, or VB for kids. There are published squeak projects that are fun to play with. At the same time, kids can make their own. I'm just getting my feet wet, but I expect to get my daugher (7) using it soon. And it's supported under Linux, Unix, Mac, and other, less useful, operating systems.
Here's how to post links... if you know HTML, just write them as you would for a web page, otherwise follow this format:
#a href ="http://www.google.com">Google #/a>
will give you:
Google
but umm, those #'s should be a less than sign because i don't know how to make slashdot NOT make the first into the actual link!
BrainPOP It was a bit nicer when they didn't use cookies to keep you from seeing more than 3 movies a day, but very fun and educational movies about all kinds of stuff. Better than school, but what isnt?
And good luck! Teaching kids and having fun at the same time is w-a-y-y-y-y cool. Explore the links together, see which ones THEY like.
Got a spare box? do a little "install fest" to get started, let THEM click here and there and fill in what they want, then get online and get started. Sort of one thing leads to another leads to another.
Loved that old PBS show "connections", BTW.
Try Squeakland From their site:
(who modded up the stupid "slashdot.org" posts so people don't see relevant ones from ACs?)
Here's two:
http://www.whyville.net (geared to younger kids)
http://pumas.jpl.nasa.gov/ (Practical Uses of Math and Science, generally grade 3 and up)
You should find this useful:
Web Sites for Kids from the American Library Association.
Have fun.
"When I grow up, I'll be stable."
...the cbeebies site from the BBC.
It's a collection of sub sites organised around BBC children's programmes. Most of them have flash games, stories, activities for kids etc. The parent's section sets out what the site is all about from an educational persepctive, plus there's a parent's newsletter you can sign up for.
The Patent Office has a kids page. My mother is actually a Philadelphia elementary school teacher and she used it in class once. It went well
I think it's much more approporiate to suggest something that informative and *safe*, like an educational site such as Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
My 4 year old loves this site. She's always wanting to go to pbskids.org
'Pleasure is the Disease, Pain is the Cure' - Lilith
I usually find out some cool stuff too :)
A friend of mine runs prongo.com - it's pretty much a site with counting games and other sorts of "edutainment" - probably more skewed to the younger set (maybe 3-7), but worth a look.
The Librarians' Index to the Internet is the best place I know of to search for high-quality web sites.
A few moments of searching there found some likely winners:
Space Place
The Kids on the Web
Kids' Castle
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
For a good site with material for kids try the Internet Public Library, www.ipl.org. It's been going strong for 8 years as of Friday.
http://disney.go.com/preview/toontown/special_offe r/preview/index.html
http://candystand.com/ (not much educational there)
http://pbskids.org/
http://planethotwheels.com/
The coolest link is http://www.juniornet.com/ it's a client you download and can let the kids roam freely within it.. even has a safe form of email... it's very cool.
Sorry I forgot to turn on the HTML Formatting and the link didn't come out right.
Big Idea Fun
Sorry About that.
[SIG] Far better to be thought a fool then to post on
In no particular order - ymmv, but my 6-year-old favors the following:
k ids.com/ (a little commercial, but not too bad). mos.org/ (Boston's Museum of Science)
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
http://www.space
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ (was better for the kids before January, but still lots of great archival stuff)
http://www.exploratorium.org/
http://www