Eek! My kid love to play on the internet, but I'm getting tired of 'games' that are really advertisements for toys! Does anyone have suggestions of fun, educational websites? We've done Starfall and Crayola already, what else is there? I have a 9-year-old going into 4th grade, a 7-year-old going into 2nd, and a almost 5-year-old soon to start Kindergarten.
And I do know the dangers of the internet for kids and closely monitor what they are doing -- which is why I'm so sick of the sites they go to now!
My daughter goes to Meridian Elementary and they have a great list of kid's web sites on their site: http://meridian.adams12.org/. Just click on Student Links on the left hand side.
If you want dot to dot, coloring, mazes, etc. go to www.dover.com. You can sign up for a sample of thier products that they email you once a week. I print them up for my grandchildren. They love them!
I was going to suggest pbskids.org too. Quick question, what do you do from home? My sister is looking for a job that she could work from home. thanks!
pbskids.com, sesamestreet.com we love starfall, haven't tried crayola and noggin.com is really good also
Colonial Williamsburg has a great site, probably best for your 9 year old. www.history.org. Great fun and introduces kids to colonial life and history in a fun way. Good luck!
www.funbrain.com
www.clubpenguin.com
C. M., CBE, CLD, MWA
The Westside Birth Connection
###-###-####
www.westsidebirthconnection.com
Marketing Chair, Colorado Doulas Association
www.coloradodoulas.com
www.Starfall.com is a wonderful, educational site for kids that covers several grade levels. it was recommended by my daughter's Kindergarten teacher and we love it.
My son has been on the PBS website. I've heard that you can subscribe for an upgrade. It monitors your kids learning. I haven't tried it, yet, but my friend has. She likes it. I also let my son go on the Noggin website. Good for you for monitoring your children's internet use. There is a lot of garbage on there. Leapfrog has some great products as well.
Have you tried the NickJr page or playhousedisney.com, my six your old loves to play on the www.playhousedisney.com and there is a disney page for the older kids too. I think my step daughter likes this page www.brainblasters.com check them out and see what you think.
I know that so many kids are in love with computers, but it has become a bit of an indulgence. I think back to when I was a kid and did not have that available, I was not deprived. Get your kids playing board games, and since they are close in age, they can play together. There are some great educational games through www.discoverytoyslink.com
Sorry it is not an actual site for your kids, but it looks like you have gotten plenty of responses on that. I am not a huge fan of letting your kids play on the internet, not just for the safety factor but for the lack of social skills and exercise by playing out side and using their imagination...We have become a society that relies way too much on the internet, for everything! I'm sure I will be judged by my comments from some as I see some people have already done that. SO, good luck. Have fun...
Pay no attention to Annie---You can't have your kids outside playing from sunrise to bedtime. Give me a break. My 5 year old likes pbskids.org...
Try pbskids.org and kids.discovery.com.
Subscribe to mynoggin.com for just $5.95 month, no commercials, you can track progress for each kiddo and it comes with a free subscription to NickJr magazine. PBSkids.com is also another great website. Just noggin.com is good too, nickjr/playtime.com and montanakids.com.
I live in Montana and our state built a website for kids with fun facts, games, etc...google and see if your state has something too!
check this out for your younger ones...
they have some for all ages. Look at the store as well, cause they have plug ins for the computer that only allow your kids to go to certain sites. Check out the computer area of the toy section or store. Hope this helps!
Here are some I use at school:
Monsterfacts.com, readwritethink.org has some fun activities, national geographic for kids, Zoom kids, and reading a-z.
These are the ones my kids like.
www.pbskids.org
www.sesameworkshop.com
www.noggin.com
I don't know exactly how educational you're looking for, but these are very fun, very stimulating and educational in a subtle way. Your kids will think they're just playing games, when in reality, they're learning. Sesameworkshop is like Sesame Street (in the new way - not the weird way it was when we were kids), noggin is a branch off of that. It has a lot more music, and if your kids watch tv, they'll find a lot of thier favorite characters there, as well as on pbskids. Good luck. I know how hard the computer battle can be.
J.,
www.poissonrouge.com is great for younger kiddos. It is french for red fish (I know the web site has a strange name) My twin 4 year old boys love this web site! Good luck!
Dont know if you have boys or girls. My 8 and 5 yr. old girls love American girl dolls and have read all the books. They love their website with its games. Also, my sister gave my kids webkinz and now they love the website and some of the games are challenging. My 5 yr. old was creating words today with a scrabble type game today. check them out.
www.webkinz.com
www.americangirl.com
we love this site. We used the free part for a year and I got dd a subsription for christmas last year for the premier it is just more stuff...mostly she loves the songs and activities on it. whenever we are with cousins etc. they all want to do uptoten with her. we love boowah and koala and learning to count etc. with them. they are fun characters and I think it originates from France or Australia...haha what a difference right? but you can listen to everything in french...we don't get that far on learning but the website is lots of fun and I get to use it as a reward for dd too. some of the songs are also now part of our nighttime routine.
My son loves to play the games on pbskids.org. Check it out.
www.funbrain.com is a very good educational websight. It has a lot of learning games on it. My son has really enjoyed it.
Stephanie L
PBS has a good kids place and so does Cartoon network.
I don't let them be on the internet that often. It's to easy to get somewhere you don't want to be. My oldest who was 11 at the time found a porn site just by mistyping a word. From then on, I have been hyper-viligant about their internet usage. Good luck!!!
mywonderfulworld.org by Nat. Geo.
Webrangers from the National Park Service! It's set up for different age groups and promotes educational learning (without toy ads, etc.) http://www.nps.gov/webrangers/
Have fun!
And may I add...familyfun.com. It has lots of fun printables, also.
It's summer...quit worrying about the internet, and send your kids outside to play.
try rainforestmaths online game and a favorite computer game we have is contraptions and the I spy games.
bobthebuilder.com has great fun activities/videos, etc. related to Bob the Builder, and construction. Might be a little young for the 9 year old, but great for sure for the 5 year old and maybe 7 year old!
http://www.childtopia.com/
http://gamefinder.disney.go.com/
http://www.befunky.com/
One of these may help.
A couple of websites I have used are www.funbrain.com, coolmath4kids.com, and pbskids.org...on pbskids, Arthur has really good thinking games.
Hope this helps!
starfall.com is great!
Hi! I just wanted to tell you of a fun computer game for at least your 5 year old. It's called Jump Start World. (jumpstartworld.com) You can go to the site and see demos of the game. My almost 5 year old daughter loves it!! I don't know if boys would like it as much, but it involves a lot of learning games and fun little tasks that their character has to do. My daughter will be in Kindergarten in the fall and it totally captures her attention and she enjoys playing it. You can download the whole set of learning units for like 70 dollars, or just sample 2 units for around $17, which is what we did at first. Good luck!
My soon to be 2nd grader likes to go to lego.com and hasbro.com
As a teacher, I love www.bookadventure.com
It's a great way to keep kids reading throughout the year! Completely free service! There are games on the website, and the kids get thier own log-ins. They can tell the computer what kinds of books they like to read and print off an age-appropriate list to take to the library, then after they have read the book, they can log back in to take a quiz. Then you can connect your parent account to each of your kids so that you can see what books they have taken quizzes on. They earn points, and can redeem them for stuff from the website to get as prizes!
Hi, I know you posted this a while back. I am just now catching up on my email after moving cross country! I have 4 children and my 3 older ones are 12,9 and 5. They have been going on to 2 websites that I really like. They are www.millsberry.com and www.neopets.com. Depending on which gender your children are they offer basically the same thing. The girls tend to lean toward millsberry and boys to neopets. What they do is create a character and then have to take care of it. They get to earn neopoints or millsberry bucks by playing games. Then they do things such as house, feed, dress, etc. the character. It teaches them many different things subtly while they just think they are playing games. My kids are always excited to log on and take care of them. They also can build multiple characters and see their friends characters. Hope those help!
My 7 and 5 year old love playing the cyberchase game on pbskids.org they get to do different quests and earn screen savers and such. I like it because it encourages math skills and of course reading and problem solving.
My kids like funbrain.com and pbskids.com or is it pbssprout.com. Hope this helps.
My girls are really into www.PBSkids.org. There are tons of games and no advertisments. They love to surf around the sites and see what types of games they can fine.
pbskids.org is a great website
