Working in the field of education has really opened my eyes up to the web. There are a lot of high quality sites out there for kids, but you may also find much of it is junk. Some websites for kids are just not user friendly, while others are not age appropriate. Here you will find some of the best free educational websites for kids that are used in classrooms and at home. These free websites are appropriate for kids in the grade levels stated below.
Educational Website for kids in Grade 3-6
Funology – The Science of Having Fun!
Price: Free!
www.funology.com
This educational website is actually a favorite of mine to use when trying to think of activities to do with kids in the summer. The site itself is very attractive and eye catching with fun designs and colors. It is also very easy to read and navigate. Some of my personal favorite sections of the site include:
Boredom Busters – this is a fabulous idea for young kids who like to get involved and get their hands into a project. If you click on this and then click on “flying things” you’ll notice several projects that kids can work on.
The Laboratory – Again this works well for kids who like hands on projects, especially science. It does a great job of coming up with labs that have simple science basics behind them. What great resource for parents who want their children to learn a little while they make a project or work on a lab!
Tummy Ticklers – Kids just love jokes. So of course we need to give them a break from the educational stuff once in a while to let them read over some hilarious jokes. Encouraging your children to read the jokes and try to memorize them is always helpful for reading development.
Educational Website for kids in grades K-8
Funbrain.com
Price: Free!
www.funbrain.com
This is another educational website that is used by both teachers and students. This site actually is useful for kids in grades K-8, so it is a bit more universal. You’ll notice that this site is also very colorful and eye catching. The last thing kids want to spend time on are boring monochromatic sites, it just doesn’t interest them. Some of my personal favorite features of this educational site include:
Math Games – This part of the site will take you to a game board where you chose your gender and grade level. The challenge is to get through all 25 games. If you lose a game in the middle of the game board, it will give you a password to use when you return. This is key so that kids don’t have to replay every single game, just be sure they write it down! In this game your kids will be able to practice their math skills while playing a game that is fun and engaging.
Reading – Click on the reading section and then on “mad libs”. The game will prompt you to choose verbs, nouns or adjectives to create a hilarious mad lib. When you are finished choosing your words, it will pop out a printable mad lib. Print it out and ask your child to read it. Of course this promotes reading skills and helps kids recognize the difference between nouns, verbs and adjective. This part of the site is also very colorful and animated.
Educational Website for Kids in Grades 4-7
Discovery Kids
Price: Free!
http://kids.discovery.com/
This site is not my favorite out of them all because it is part of the discovery channel so it includes TV listing information. However, it is useful in some ways because it is highly engaging and also can be used for middle school age kids. It is hard to find appealing games and interesting sites for this age group. Here are some of my favorite parts of these sites:
Chomp – This is an excellent game with a fun theme that requires you to make your way through a temple. This game helps kids with work recognition and patterns, spatial concepts, math & deduction skills.
Yucky – It is not a secret that kids like gross things. Well, click on this part of the site and you will be led to barfing, belching and blackheads. You can choose to play games in this area or you can simply read facts about all things yucky. Although disgusting, it does teach kids about science and that includes human biology.
These are three of my favorite free educational websites, which I plan to use in my classroom this fall. Kids are engrained in technology so it doesn’t hurt to use technology to help enhance basic skills.
