Top Educational Websites for Kids

Technology is pretty amazing!  There are lots of wonderful ways to help our child practice the skills they are learning in school.  Often times with some of these great educational sites our children don't even know that they are learning at the same time!

It's also a great way to motivate kids to do their homework,

have them do their reading and math first and for a reward they can play an educational game...tricky!

A friend of mine asked me for some recommendations on some other educational websites,

so you know me, I went crazy and found a bunch.

I spent many hours digging through cyberspace to find and test out the following educational game sites.  I spent about an hour a site digging and finding the best parts. Also I have spent time teaching grades K-6 so I have used my knowledge to determine the validity the games on these great sites.

Just bookmark this page, and every time you want to use a new site you can come here to find it quickly.

1. Starfall.com 

This site has lots of great language arts games. It takes a fun game like this snowman game and has words that it helps your child sound out. There are lots of seasonal games as well as early reading, phonics, as well as reading practice for 1st and 2nd graders.

2. PBSkids.org  

Hello! Don't you just love this site! There is SO much on here.  Your child can pick his/her favorite show and play a bunch of learning games for that show.  Right now M. loves playing the Curious George games, although the T.V. show is a little young for her, the games are right on her level. (I wish I would have known more about this site when I was a teacher, there are very specific games you could play and coordinate with the theme you are learning.) The game shown is called Present Time, you choose a gift, go to the store, decorate the wrapping paper, and give it away, it's great!  We also love the SuperWhy Spelling games, they are too difficult for her to do on her own, but they are well done and give lots of helps and rewards.

3. ABCya.com

Here's a wonderful site c/o one of my readers! This site is great because it's split up into grades K-5 so there's no guess work there! I spent a lot of time on this site trying to find the best games to tell you about.  I think my favorite K game would be the Pirate Marble game which is great for learning addition, and connect the dots. For 1st grade it would be the foul shot where you can practice math facts to earn basketballs to shoot a foul shot, the math can go up to a 4th or 5th grade level. There are also telling time games and learning coin games as well. For 2nd grade my favorite would be the fun typing game here too! 3rd grade fave would be Pop the Words which letters fall and you can make words out of them to pop the letters. My 4th grade fave is division drag race which you race others in dividing numbers and go faster when you answer them correctly.  My 5th grade fave is the U.S. Map and World Map puzzles.  There are also fun seasonal and holiday games for each grade level when you scroll to the bottom of each grade levels page.  Too much info?? Sorry, this site was just really fun to explore!

4. Cookie.com

Well after I posted this list on Monday I found an phenomenal site on Wednesday!  I can't believe I've never been to this site.  It has hundreds of educational games, for literacy, math and science.  It also has learning videos on subjects like the plant life cycle, frog life cycle, the 5 senses, and more with review games you can play afterward. It has lesson plans, tons of free printable worksheets, arts and crafts coloring pages, and a cute blog.  What a great resource!  My only complaint would be that the games are all narrated with a robotic voice, but other than that it's golden!

5. Scholastic.com

Wo this is another great site.  It has games from books like The Magic School Bus (which is oozing with science fun!), Clifford, WordGirl and more.  This site is has games for kids ages 3-7 and another section for kids ages 8-12.
Fun fun fun!

6. Funschool.com

There is also a lot to this site as well. Pictured here are the ABC games which are for practicing letter recognition. There are also lots of other harder games that are also educational. Check it out it's a pretty good site.


7. Sheppardsoftware.com

Thanks to Jane and the Jitterbugs for telling me about this site! I am so excited about it! This site has lots of learning games for kids of ALL ages.  It's very tutorial centered which is good for learning a new concept. I also love the Kids Corner which you can explore lots of science centered ideas, such as the Four Seasons (as shown in the picture).  You can paint using movable parts like rain clouds which are actually raining!  Fun fun fun site!

8. NationalGeographic.com

I know I'm crazy but I keep finding more and more sites! This site has a bunch of games that are all science related.  They are all pretty fun.  Some of them like Animal Jam require an e-mail address and some personal info about your child, just FYI. They also have a bunch of geography games, adventure games,  action games, puzzles and quizzes, games for young children, and all of the games really are science related.  They also have science experiments, videos, and interactive information about animals and countries. The more I kept digging, the more I found that was well done and educational. I thought this was a pretty cool site, and had tons of educational value!

9. Highlightskids.com

Here's another new great site that I found.  I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt!  Highlights is a classic magazine that has been around for years. They are very well known for their hidden puzzles in their magazines. On their site for kids they have stories that you can have read to you and tons of games, their specialty is hidden picture games which you can click and the hidden image appears.  This is another great site if you are learning a theme for the week and you would like to practice newly learned skills.


10. Funbrain.com

There are reading games on here as well as fun simple counting games. There also some difficult reading and math games on the main game page. There is a lot to choose from on this site.


11. Qubo.com

This site has a bunch of educational games that are also quite fun for kids. It has games for Babar, Jane and the Dragon, Zoola Patrol (great science games), and Vitamix.

12. Shnoozles.com 

Shnoozles has lots of fun and simple preschool games, this main page would be fun for kids to navigate on.

13. Jayzeebear.com

This site is a little old school but it is still really fun for preschoolers.

14.Weatherchannel.com

This has some puzzles, word searches, and mazes for older children. It seems like they stop putting money into this site, because it has an add for Clouding with a Chance of Meatballs in 2009. But it is an alright resource.

15. KidsKnowIt.com
This site has some good science and nature games.

16. Switchzoo.com
This site has some fun animal games that you can switch animals around to look silly.

17. Exploratorium.com
This site has some fun games that explore expressions, proportions, and emotions.

18. Juliasrainbowcorner.com  This site is is also a little old school but it has some fun games for young children.

Well I hope that gives you some new ideas! 
Do you know about a cool and educational website for kids?
Let me know and I'll add it to this growing list!
P.S. I'm not endorsed in any way by any of these websites.

Valentine's Day Preschool Fun

Miss Sweetie had a great time decorating Valentines for her friends yesterday.

When we were little my Grandma let us come over,

she would open up a very old tin

full of old fashion Valentine making treasures.

Now every time I see doilies, it feels special...

I think my favorite one of M.'s Valentines was to the only little boy in her class.

My favorite part is: you're just the greatest guy ever.

What a nice vote of confidence.

When preschool got started it was a free for all,

with everyone passing out their Valentines.

Check out this one, isn't it adorable?

We learned about the letter Vv

And I found some heart shaped cereal.

We used confessions of a homeschooler's do a dot Vv page.

We did it first with heart cereal,

And then with candy hearts dipped into paint.

We also used her letter Vv word hunt page as well.

Loved it!

We read The Day It Rained Hearts

By Felicia Bond

Cute, cute story about how Cornelia makes Valentines out of hearts that rained out of the sky.

It is amazing how many Valentine's books have references to the post man, office, or box.

So we made our own post office.

(Just like JDaniel4's Mom)

So so so fun.

They could have been writing letters for days!

We took a break for snack.

I cut Twinkies on a diagonal

and they matched it together to make a heart.

We garnished it with cherry pie filling.

It was so decadent!

I wish I would have had them eat off fine china.

{I really do, it would have made it more of an occasion.}

We went downstairs and did some counting, sorting and graphing.

Graphing was a perfect challenge for these guys.

We used the worksheet found here.

Thanks for Deb for such a nice round up of all things Valentine's!

It made finding things so much easier!



Ladybugs and Leaves

We have loved learning about leaves!

Today we extended our learning.

We finger painted card stock leaves in a baggie.

It was fun and no mess!

The children tried to mix the yellow and red together,

And it turned out really pretty!

We read The Leaf Man By Lois Ehlert.

It is one of my favorite books for fall!

Then I gave the children some dried leaves,

And they made their own leaf people.

We read My "l" book by Moncure

Where a little boy finds things to put into his L sound box.

We made our own sound box and put things in that start with the letter L.

Next we learned about ladybugs

(to go with our letter L week)

And we made a ladybug snack.

Out of an apple, banana, Nutella in a icing bag, and chocolate chips.

With a toothpick to hold it together,

And pipe cleaners for cuteness.

The we reviewed the numbers 0-5 by using our ladybug counters,

Which I made by drawing on foam circles.

Then we worked on one on one correspondence

by putting spots on our ladybugs.

These were from my Kindergarten years,

Which I actually used for teaching addition.

I just bought some black pom-poms for the kids to count with.

We also made a ladybug counting sheet

By using the worksheet found here, and some dot markers.

They had to count out loud while using the dot marker

(FYI. I found this at All a Dollar but their called Bingo Markers.)

We finished up by read reading and acting out

Strega Nona by Tommie dePaola

Which has nothing to do with the letter of the week,

But went with our unit of places in the world and holidays.

(Strega was a witch.)

Apples

It's such a fun season to learn about apples,

And kids love to eat them!

We started our day by singing "Apple Apple a, a, a,"

It is part of our daily routine that teaches great concepts of print, letters, and sounds.

It's fun to see how fast they catch on.

We read Up, Up, Up, It's Apple Picking Time!

We cut open an apple to look at the seeds.

Then we made our own apple tree

We use a paper sack and the kids cut out the green part of their tree and added apples with red paint.

Then the children chose out their favorite kind of apple,

And we graphed it.

(I love this idea, why haven't I done this before?)

Then we peeled our apple,

And ate it!

The kids love to eat their spiral apple!

For our music in motion we sang "Alligator"

With instruments and our alligator piano.