10 Best Websites for Kids

We?ve scoured the Web to find the most popular, fun, educational, productive?and safe?sites around.

When I was researching this article, I asked my kids what their favorite sites were. My daughter told me she liked www.girlsgogames.com, which is a free online game site for girls.

So lo and behold, I went to the website, started poking around, clicked on “Adventure” and voila… up came a selection for “Kissing Games.” I clicked on that, and then options for “Speed Dating,” “Kissing During Work,” and the enigmatic “Oriental Kissing Game” came up. To make matters worse, a lot of the games are in Japanese, so I have no idea what they are actually saying. Needless to say, I couldn’t believe what my nine-year-old had access to.

The moral of the story being that parental vigilance is a must when children are using the Internet to entertain and educate themselves. In this article, we’ve scoured the Web to find the most popular, fun, educational, productive—and safe—sites around. While it’s ultimately up to parents to individually decide what is and isn’t appropriate for their sprouts to see, if your kids are interested in sniffing around online, as a starting point they can’t go wrong with these age-appropriate online destinations.

Yahoo! Kids (kids.yahoo.com)

Just like adults like to log onto Yahoo! every morning to get the latest news, check email, and generally warm up to daily Internet offerings, your children can also use Yahoo!’s Kids counterpart as a sort of Internet home base. It has a plethora of games of all kinds, music, movies, jokes, sports, horoscopes, e-cards, and even a StudyZone that has information on animals, reference materials (e.g. a dictionary and encyclopedia), and more.

If you want to check up on your kids’ activities, go to the Parents section, which provides movie reviews for kids from a parent’s perspective, advice on online safety, and much more. Of course, the best feature of Yahoo! Kids is its child-friendly search engine, which only pulls up appropriate links. Your kids will find so much to do and learn on Yahoo! Kids that they won’t need to go anywhere else.

National Geographic Kids (kids.nationalgeographic.com)

When I was a kid, it was always a special occasion when the yellow-framed National Geographic magazine would arrive in the mail, and my parents treated these tomes as reference material, earning a spot on the bookshelf just below the encyclopedias. Now, kids have online access to a lot of this same great educational material, which allows them to keep apprised of things happening around the world. Yes, there are the requisite games to keep kids interested, but the People and Places section, Animals, Activities, Stories, and other educational links are where the good stuff is. This is a learning site up there with the best of them, and you’re kids won’t even know they’re boosting their IQ while browsing it.

Funology (funology.com)

Jokes (“Why did the cow cross the road? To get to the udder side.”); boredom busters like arts and crafts projects; games; magic tricks; wacky facts; and more make up this universe of pure childish fun. While the site is largely entertainment-based, it does have some interesting educational stuff thrown in for good measure. Check out the Weird Science section to find fun experiments to do with your kids that teach them about physics, chemistry, biology, weather, and more. There are also several kid-friendly recipes to get them involved in the kitchen. You can even search Funology’s content by age and type of activity to find content tailored to your child’s interests.

Funbrain (funbrain.com)

A hybrid educational/entertainment site, Funbrain disguises learning through fun, interactive games like Grammar Gorillas and Math Baseball. You’ll also find Web books and comics, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid (nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award) and Amelia Writes Again. Your tots can read blogs from children in their age group with similar interests, and the site links words to dictionary definitions for learning on the fly. Aids for teachers and parents, like homework supplements and quizzes, are also available. If you want to build your child’s brainpower, send them to Funbrain.

Webkinz (webkinz.com)

While there are a lot of great free sites out there to keep your kids interested, there are also some very entertaining, and therefore attractive, commercial sites that are worth checking out. The Webkinz universe, for example, requires purchasing a stuffed Webkinz animal toy, which will be tagged with a secret code to unlock the online world. My son received a Webkinz bat for Halloween, so I got to explore this online universe firsthand. Yes, this is a commercial site, meaning your kids are exposed to some advertisements—some thinly veiled as games or fun activities. But there is also a lot here to interest them—all of which is fairly constructive. They can browse through Webkinz News to find out the latest happenings in their online world, read stories, and more. But the biggest draw here is the games. Have your child click Things to Do and go to the Arcade. There, they can play games related to their Webkinz pets, earn KinzCash, and buy things for their toys, like food. They can even make a little room for their Webkinz and decorate it with furniture purchased through earned KinzCash. Your children will have one year from the time of purchase to enjoy their online world.

Imbee (imbee.com)

While there is much controversy surrounding children and social networking sites such as MySpace.com, there are relatively safe social networking sites for kids that have popped up as an alternative, limiting the amount of personal information exposed, as well. Imbee is one of these sites. Parents must approve the account before children can start networking (you also have to prove your own identity by putting down a credit card that will be charged, and refunded, $1). When you do, your child will be able to publish their own pages using Spotbuilder, choose an avatar, create and share trading cards, check out music and videos, create photo albums, blog, and generally build a network of friends. While this all may sound a bit scary, you can monitor your child’s activities with ease. We especially recommend this site for tweens who are starting to feel the magnetic pull of social networking sites.

Whyville (whyville.net)

Whyville is also a social networking site, but it is geared to a slightly younger set than Imbee. Whyville is presented as an online world that requires your child to manage money, eat properly, and helps educate kids on online safety. A filter automatically removes and reports the use of foul language and sends red flags to site moderators for other words that may lead to inappropriate chatting. In fact, before kids can even participate, they must pass a test to get their “chat license.” It’s actually very difficult to pass. Kids can design their face, earn “clams” by playing games, start their own business, write for the town newspaper and more. Whyville is a great and safe way to get your kid acclimated to online networking sites and teach them some basic Internet codes of behavior to boot.

United Nations Cyberschoolbus (www.un.org/pubs/cyberschoolbus/)

Okay, so you may not find your child actively asking you to go to this site, but once they peep it, the more socially- and politically-conscious kid will have lots to discover. Sponsored by the United Nations and available in six different languages, the site features more “aware” subjects, such as peace, arms, poverty, discrimination, and what your child can do to help. Of course, you can also find the requisite games and quizzes, but they are far more educational than others: For example, your child can play flag tag, which will test your knowledge of the world’s flags.

Club Penguin (clubpenguin.com)

This Disney-owned site is not the most educational one on the Web, but it is fun, friendly, and safe. You basically create a penguin alter ego and build an online universe around it. You can chat with other penguins, and parents have the option to limit their child’s responses to a set of predetermined answers in Ultimate Safe Chat mode. Standard Safe Chat gives users more freedom, but is monitored and filtered so that no personal information is allowed to be exchanged. There are loads of fun games, and kids can submit artwork, comics, create an igloo, and more.

PBS Kids (pbskids.org)

How can you go wrong with a website from PBS? The award-winning online stopover features activities and games from your child’s favorite PBS shows, including guest appearances by Barney, Curious George, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Kids can also discover music and color online. That being said, this is definitely a site for younger children, so beware – your 13-year-old will be bored to tears.