Hi Kids,
Here are some web sites that we think you will enjoy!
Remember to get your parents permission first when you visit a new website. You and you parents can see a preview of the sites by clicking on the images (they will enlarge for a closer look).
If you have a web site that you would like to tell us about (or complain about), email us at
Please remember!
Computers are fun to use but so is playing with your friends and family! Work with your parents to set a limit on your PC time and get outside, to a gym or playing field or playground and GET ACTIVE!
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PBSKids is a wonderful site featuring your child's favorite shows via games, projects and more. Safety, Education and Parental Involvement are the cornerstone of PBS programming and of their web site. There are even a links to a parents support and a teachers website. The worse that could happen is you might end up donating to this worthy network.
www.PBSKids.org gets a Level 1 rating.
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Uncle Sam has developed a very respectable site for kids with links to other trustworthy resource. For Arts to help with homework, the are topics sure to attract many members of your family, regardless of age. We visited the Space page and found a link to a video about the first moon landing on the Smithsonian Institute website. Click on computers and you can bring up an Adobe PDF file on be a safe "Cyber Surfer".
A great site for kids.......and you parents might enjoy it too!
www.Kids.gov gets a Level 1 rating.
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NASA has two great fun/educational sites for kids (with wonderful links for parents and teachers), one looking "outward" and the other "inward".
NASA.gov brings you to the main information site for this organization. In the left side menu you will see links for kids, educators and more! The "For Kids" site has games, activities, even a SAFE kids club. You can tell the bent of the site when you notice that even the side panels are educational! The "looking outward" themes and information were air and space oriented. Clicking on games gave us a listing of featured games but also included specials that appeared in the animated top field. In this case, it lead us to a Solar System Exploration theme page. The Activities page showed a range of projects ranging from making a gingerbread robot to doing easy to follow and safe science experiments. No advertising, no sales page, no chat room!
Kids.earth.nasa.gov For Kids only site is more about "looking inward" at our planet with wonderful pages involving you with the people, land, water, air and natural hazards of our Earth. It has a fun and educational Games page and a page of educational links. This is a great place to have fun and pick out some great school projects as well. Again, no advertising, no sales page, no chat room!
A great site for kids AND parents!
www.NASA.gov "For Kids Only" and http://kids.earth.nasa.gov both get Level 1 ratings!
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Animal Planet has a fun site that, through its links, has something for everyone in the family. The main page has a great pet picture presentation with a listing of home pet guides covering dogs, cats, reptiles, fish and more!
The shopping page has some good items on the Health & Fitness and the Telescopes pages but gets a bit more frivolous on the Toy & Games and Electronics, Gadget & Travel pages.
The main links include quite a variety of avenues from Discovery.com, The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel along with Discovery Travel. You can learn about popular beaches but also about Las Vegas and other resorts which may be topics kids can do without.
The main page is definitely a keeper and the site pretty safe overall with no "chat room" concept readily apparent.
www.Animal.Discovery.com gets a Level 2 rating.
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Kids.Yahoo.com is the new address for the popular Yahoolagins site. We have actually had this site recommended by teachers because of its age-specific homework help section and educational pages.
There does not seem to be a shopping section but the whole site has a lot of advertising of yahoo-supported media, breakfast cereals and the like. There are various games and activities for play and a page for sending e-cards for many occasions. The card designs and messages are preset with only the destination email address being required, making the concept pretty safe.
Kids.Yahoo.com earns a level 2 rating.
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Horses are just one of the animals that are popular around our house. But watching over what your child encounters on the web when searching horse-theme sites can get tricky. Here are two sites, one was just at the border between Level 1 and Level 2 and the second barely rated high enough to make a Level 3!
SaddleClubTV.com is a site that supports a rather charming, kid-oriented TV program filmed in Australia, The Saddle Club. This program is aired on public TV which gives it an extra air of respectability. The stories surround 3 twelve year old girls who encounter tween topics (first crushes, cliques, etc) and then retreat to the safe havens of their horses backs to recount it all.
There are games and various interactions with the characters of the story. The Level 2 rating is caused by an e-card capabiltiy that is fairly safe. The senders email is not on the e-card, only the receivers, so two way contact can not be directly achieved. The cards are cute but the message content is unrestricted.
If you enter the About Us area you are warned that you are entering sites that may handle financial transactions, but you will find they are kid-safe fare (donating to public TV, etc).
www.saddleclubtv.com/ gets a Level 2 rating (and probably deserves a level 1).
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Horses4kids.com is a good example of a fairly safe site that has links that lead to less-appropriate sites (in terms of children).
The Home page presents a kid-friendly site, with safe site-related games and coloring book. However, the games and links areas can quickly take your child to other sites. Though most of these sites were game-oriented, there tends to be a lot more advertising and those links had their own links! We suspect that the advertising on the Games page might be somewhat "cookie" driven (see the main Wired Cub page for an explanation of this!) and so the ads were more mature depending on what computer we used.
There is a forum page which allows some level of free communication. It is meant to be horse-lover oriented but we are not sure to what extent it is monitored by the sites managers.
http://horses4kids.com/ barely had a Level 3 but is reasonably acceptable providing your child understands the limits you have set on web surfing.
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Webkinz is quickly turning into the new Beany babies craze with 6 to 12 year olds flocking to get the Webkinz and Li'lkinz stuffed animals and then rushing to the interactive site! My daughter and her friends are among the flock and I rushed to find out the details when I heard they were able to chat with other members!
Nuts and Bolts: When you purchase one of the stuffed animals, it comes with a tag showing an access code. With said code you can go to the web site Adoption Center and register as a member. You sign up a user name and password and a name for your pet.
Once enrolled, you are able to do activities with the pet's image on the site, such as dressing, feeding and playing with it. There is a W Shop where you can buy what you wish for your pet using Knizcash. This is imaginary currency you win by playing one of the many games on the site (some educational, some not). There is a series of meters at the bottom that indicate your pet's level of happiness, health and hunger! This motivates you to interact with the pet and to play the games to earn kinzcash for food, clothes, toys, etc.
You can also play games on line with other members. You visit a virtual game room where the pet-images of other members currently on-site can be seen. You contact the other member using pre-scripted messages (Would you like to play this game?) and proceed to play the game.
There are catalog and store locator links but no purchasing can be done on line.
KinzChat and KinzChat Plus allows you to chat with other members. KinzChat only allows prescripted messages while KinzChat Plus allows open messaging. However, the KinzChat Plus account can only be set up by a parent and the words and phrases used in the communication must conform to a Webkinz "dictionary", i.e., unacceptable words and phrases are shown in red and must be changed for the email to be sent. The Parent will get an email when the child tries to log into KinzChat Plus requesting permission and you can even block this utility completely.
Overall, the site is well monitored with guides (usually a matronly chicken) to help you complete the activities in an easy and web-safe manner. There is a very good Parental Control page and a Tour presentation to give you an overview of the site. Parents should definitely be involved in the registration to make sure user names are appropriate.
www.Webkinz.go.com earned a Level 3 rating.
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Disney's web site gives you that Boy, things sure have changed since I was a kid feeling, but it is also a very jam-packed site covering almost every aspect of the Disney media experience.
The Home page has short video clips of the current Disney film (in this case My Friends Tigger & Pooh) and an array of links including an age-sorted Disney for you menu.
The Movie page highlights another film and had links specifically targeted at current Disney film information from promos to release dates to background.
The TV page leads you into Disney's newest empire, the Disney Channels and their range of shows (some cartoon, some animation, some actually have real actors!) for age groups of perhaps 8 or older (less Pooh, more teen and 'tween characters). It included a current, renewing program schedule and a series of sneak peaks. The movie promos still popped up here as well.
When you click on the Shopping link, there is a warning to kids that the upcoming page may have ads for Disney products or services. One presumes they mean other than the media products advertised elsewhere. The shopping page has everything from toys to clothing to media, each with a Disney theme of course.
The Mobile page presents a limited use cell phone concept where the contacts are specified and locked in by the parents. You can buy additional ring tones and phone loaded games but the idea is to have a mutual link for your whole family that is controlled by the parents. Not a bad concept and one that is gaining popularity.
The Characters page presents links for you to "visit" many of the old-time and current media characters created by Disney. Games and other fun.
The For You page repeated the age-specific links from the main page listing preschool, for girls, for boys, kids & teens, up to family entertainment.
The XD page gave us a moment'ss pause as it includes a chat room concept. You begin by setting up a user name by which you will then be known in this "community" and the program allows you to then communicate with other members, email style. Returning to our mantra that a site with nothing to lose will have poor security and vice versa; we suspect this message stream must be pretty well monitored. Disney would be damaged greatly if any of their endeavors were judged unsafe for children!
Bottom line, a very full and complete entertainment site for many age groups that also has the enticement of promotions and the concern of a chat room. Safe for most any child with a parent doing some monitoring and having the will power to say no to impulse buying.
www.Home.Disney.go.com earned a Level 3 rating, plus an extra hug for my personal favorite, Tigger.
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Nickelodeon Has developed it's own "personality" as the next generation of TV cartoon shows for kids. From "slime" to the Kids Choice Awards, to movies and music, it is challenging Disney by this and incursions into theme parks.
Nick.com has links to information about all of its shows and events but also provides shopping and a monitored chat (blab) room.
The shopping area notifies those that enter that parental involvement is required.
Nick would have a lot to lose if their chat room was used by a child predator so it is monitored and is really more of a Q&A format with no direct contact between the users.
www.Nick.com gets a Level 3 rating.
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