It's Elementary...
By Gail Junion-Metz -- School Library Journal, 3/1/1997
This month, I'll highlight some of my favorite Web sites for elementary school kids and their librarians and teachers. It was harder than I had thought to find both age-appropriate sites for younger kids and sites for elementary educators. Still, I think I've found some great ones -- some you may know, others that are "buried treasures."
Launching Pads. A Canadian site called Berit's Best Sites for Children is one of my favorites. Using short, simple phrases for beginning readers, it links to some of the best sites and offers kid-friendly annotations and site ratings. Because it has few graphics, it loads quickly on older computers. (I've seen too many young kids getting antsy waiting for graphically intensive pages to be convinced that graphics are a must.) Another favorite, Yahooligans, has both school and fun links and is "kid-safe." Although the index structure is not intuitive for primary-grade children, and the help screens are written for teens and adults, it has lots of great stuff and is constantly updated and enhanced.
My "buried treasure" site is K.E.W.L. (Kids' Excellent Web Links), an unannotated list of sites that will appeal to elementary-age kids (teachers and librarians, too). It mixes school and fun sites and contains an appropriate list of WAV audio files.
Kids' Clubs. It was hard picking a favorite club site, so I'll pick two and declare it a tie. First, Canada's OWLkids Online features Chickadee Net for ages four to eight and Wired Owl for ages eight and up. Check out "Chirp Chuckles" in Chickadee and the "Groan Phone" in Wired Owl. My other favorite is the Kids' After School Clubhouse by Houghton Mifflin. There's lots to do here for kids in third grade and up, including a reading room that features (surprise!) HM books. Two other sections make up for the commercialism. Kids can use "Brain Teasers" to learn to do research or just for fun, while "Fun Stuff" has sections like the hilarious "Wacky Web Tales," suitable for upper elementary kids.
More Great Kids' Sites. Once again, it's a tie between two creative sites, both Canadian. (No, I'm not Canadian, they just create great kids' sites.) Nikolai's Web Site has lots of fun, simple recipes, and kids will love creating their own yucky recipes using a simple Web form. "Story Time" lets kids create their own story or choose plots for interactive stories. The other nifty site is Yes Mag -- Canada's Science Magazine for Kids. Its fun, educational projects for upper elementary kids include the "Leaning Tower of Pasta" and a "Geodesic Club House" made of newspaper.
For the Youngest Surfer. Good sites abound for kids just learning to read or use a keyboard. Two of my favorites are Build a Monster and Kendra's Coloring Book. The first, with hardly any text, teaches kids to use a mouse while creating a not-so-scary monster. The second is an easy-to-use coloring page with simple pictures that update pretty quickly with a 28.8 modem.
Finally. . . for Grownups. The creators of Web Sites And Resources for Teachers are Vicki and Richard Sharp, professors of elementary education at California State at Northridge. The site contains a huge number of annotated links to school subjects, lesson plans, children's sites, and ESL/bilingual sites. Another good site (Canadian, yet again) is Jonathan Ross' Educational Hot Links, which offers more than 400 links to elementary-school teacher resources. The "New Links" section can help you keep on top of the newest Web resources.
Web Addresses
- Berit's Best Sites
http://www.cochran.com/theosite/Ksites.html - Yahooligans
http://www.yahooligans.com/ - K.E.W.L.
http://www.cybercomm.net/~teach/page.html - OWLkids Online
http://www.owl.on.ca - Kids'After School Clubhouse
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/ - Nikolai's Web Site
http://www.nikolai.com - Yes Mag
http://www.islandnet.com/~yesmag/ - Build a Monster
http://www.rahul.net/renoir/monster/monster.html - Kendra's Coloring Book
http://www.gcg.com/misc/colorbook/ - Web Sites & Resources for Teachers
http://www.csun.edu/~vceed009/ - Educational Hot Links
http://www.ucalgary.ca/%7Ejross/Links.html
