Now at http://www.goodsitesforkids.com too!
The purpose of this site is to help you, whether you are a teacher, a parent, a homeschooling parent/teacher, or some other interested party who is looking for good sites to help a child’s education. When it comes to finding good sites for education, we try to provide links to the best sites we can find.
This site started out as a way for busy teachers to access good quality, useful internet sites for classroom curriculum use. This site is designed to help:
In the school system where we taught, elementary computer teachers were part time and covered two or three schools during the week. Eventually, the elementary computer positions were eliminated! There was a need for a simply made web page, that even primary kids could use, that would quickly take them to whatever site their teacher directed them.
What we did was to find as many good math and language arts sites as we could and simply list them as links. Later, science, social studies, selected games, and general interest sites were added by teacher request. Still later, it was all organized and alphabetized, as the list grew ever longer.
We wanted to keep the site easy to use but also wished to add other features and sections for a larger audience, such as teachers looking for lesson plans or just for curriculum ideas. Now that the site is "public", we welcome parents and kids at home, including homeschoolers and unschoolers.
Since this site is basically a list of links, we are sensitive to broken links, sites that do not want to be linked to, sites that change so as to lose their value, and new sites that should be listed. We really try to monitor listed sites; however, we are not, nor can we be, responsible for the content of other sites.
Many of the sites listed are interactive and require Flash, Shockwave, or QuickTime to work at their best. Such sites will not work with antique Macs running less than OS 9.2 (itself an antique.) Also, iMacs running less than OSX usually need their (older) Shockwave to be reinstalled periodically. It can't be helped. Our own site looks pretty plain on older Macs, though we do our best. Windows 98 (antique) and XP should have no problems. If you have newer machines running Vista, or the Apple "big cats," great! So far, our site seems to work on all browsers we have tried - Firefox 1.5 - 3 beta, IE 5.5, 6 and 7, and Safari.
We now include sites that let you download software. Downloads posted here must be free for your use, even if some have options to upgrade or subscribe.
Why is the site so simply laid out? You could make it look more professional!
It's made so five year olds with no computer experience at all can use it. If they can use it with no worries, then older students can use it too. Oh, yeah, we actually do computer lab with five year olds! And 17 year olds. And all ages between.
Since this site started, it has featured a small Holidays page, which also has some games. We keep the Holiday section because holidays are so much a part of the elementary school experience. We do not have a games sites listing as such, because the kids already know where all the cool game sites are, their mental list is ever changing based on what their peers think is popular, and it was never our intention to be a games portal.
A Blog in Spite of Itself?
Our long descriptions of sites may have some blog-like characteristics. We've pretty much decided to keep it that way. Lots of sites have lists of links for you, without any description, so you have to guess by title if the site's any good. We try to help you there. We like to help you with descriptions of sites we post.
Also, we are all well aware of many good sites out there that are subscription, so you must pay to access content. We avoid listing pay sites unless they would be the sole source to fill some vital need. So far that hasn't happened.
We're looking for a free search engine that actually works and doesn't lead users far afield. So far, no joy there.
Finnaly acquired rights to .com! So now you can go to goodsitesforkids.com and get the same site as good old goodsitesforkids.org!
We added Guide to Grammar and Writing from Capital Community College, Hartford, Connecticut recently, along with two sites about diagramming sentences. People "of a certain age" remember when everybody had to do this in grade school. It's out of fashion now, to the point where anyone under 40 probably never did this. Like Latin, it's coming back in style in the educational community. Benefits include better understanding sentence structure, better parsing, better writing, and better public speaking.
The following was borrowed from Capital Community College's grammar site:
What Diagramming Teaches Us
When Joseph R. Mallon Jr. bumps up against a complex problem, he thinks back to a lesson he learned in high school from the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.
The Philadelphia-area school's Catholic nuns taught him the art of diagramming a sentence. Once all the parts of speech lined up, Mallon pulled clarity from the chaos. It's a process he uses today to tackle tough issues as chief executive and chairman of Measurement Specialties Inc.
"Sit down quietly. Take (the issue) apart into its component parts. Make sure all the components fit together well. They've got to be well chosen, fit together and make sense. There are few (business) problems that can't be solved that way, as dire as it might seem," Mallon said. "Sentence diagramming is one of the best analytical techniques I ever learned."
Investor's Business Daily
17 October 2000
This site gets worked on after work and on weekends. Thoughts? Email us.
(here's some extra site pix - American Brittanies Rule!)
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