Guest Author - Susan Thompson

Like it or not, the World Wide Web is not going away, and if we want our kids to be safe on the web, we need to teach them to use it properly. For that reason, I have spent the last few weeks researching some websites that can entertain and educate your kids.

http://kids.yahoo.com – This site is great for kids who can navigate the computer on their own. The site has categories such as music, movies, games, homework help and much more. The site originally known as Yahooligans, and is a division of yahoo for kids. Kids can search for just about anything and you do not have to worry that the site content will be X rated. It was the only site I allowed my kids on when they were young.

http://www.cogcon.com/gamegoo/gooeyhome.html - Game Goo is a site full of educational games for the two to six year old age groups. Games teach opposites, matching, alphabet, some reading, and following directions. A parent would have to access the site for the child, but you should find that the young ones will have hours of fun and learning on this site.

http://www.billybear4kids.com – Mostly a site for the five and up crowd, many of the activities do require adult supervision. The site offers e cards, e story books; clip art and has some games. Though it is a cute site, you will want to have a pop up blocker on.

www.kbears.com – An educational website for young school age kids. The site is animated and instructions are given by the animal characters on the site. There are games, and informational links such as animals, countries, dinosaurs, space, and submarines.

I did find a site that had pretty much everything one could want for young children it was called www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html. The downside to this site is in order to get the full benefit of the site, you must subscribe and that costs $20.00 for one year. It may be worth it to some, but I think there is a wealth of free fun and information on the web.

Of course, every character and kids television channel has their own website. I did check out a few and they all seem to have the same things on them. There was only one I didn’t really care for, and that was the Teletubbies website. There were no instructions as to what to do on the site.

Let me just say a quick word about the Facebook and Myspace sites. I suggest that parents keep an eye on their school age kids when they are using the computer, and ban the younger kids from having accounts on these sites. These sites were made for adults and older teens. I know parents of school age children who didn’t even know their kids had accounts on Myspace, but they did, with pictures and everything. Most kids are more computer savvy than their parents give them credit for.

That said why don’t you check out some of the sites listed above and have some computer fun with your kids.