Life Is Short: August 2011

	Activities4KIDS
	American Library Association-Great Websites for Kids The ALA has a comprehensive list of kid sites that have been reviewed in order to be added.

	Common Sense Media Website Reviews A Non-profit started by a father/lawyer who want to ensure a way for parents to know what sites are appropriate for kids, depending on their age, etc...
	Kids Net Australia Great directory site of Kids websites. Includes a Dictonary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia area.

	Kids Yahoo Search This is the kids area of Yahoo.
	Kidsclick.org A great site that lists safe, kid appropriate websites that were added by librarians.

	Kidsites.org This site has a nice list of sites that are specifically for preschoolers.
	Linkopedia.com This site has a good list of kid appropriate sites.

Space Kids
Directory of websites for kids about Space.

Internet Safety

Netsmartz.org
This site is put together by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Boys & Girls Clubs of America and it has invaluable information for parents about keeping your kids safe online and off. I would highly recommend visiting and bookmarking this website.

Educational and Learning Sites

Science and Nature Activities and Experiments for Preschoolers - tons of great ideas to get your young children interested in science and nature. Learning can be fun!

	American Museum of Natural History kids site Education and games about Science and Natural History.
	Brain Pop Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies and English movies, comic strips, activity pages and school homework help for kids.

	FunBrain Online educational games for kids of all ages.
	Hearth Song This site is a great place to find unique and interesting kids toys and activities- that are perfect for birthdays and the Holidays. Price range is mid to high prices.

	Kid Info- Directory of Homework and Parent/Teacher Resource Sites If you are looking for a list of websites for your child or for educational resources for you (a parent) or teacher-check out this top lists of websites for kids and parents.
	Lil' Fingers Storybook Lil' Fingers Storybooks -- Animated Storybooks for toddlers. Animated stories contain large text and big buttons for little fingers!

Art

	Art Projects for Kids Wonderful site to find fun art projects that kids can do easily. Created and maintained by a Kids Art teacher.
	National Gallery of Art- kids area Fun art games and activities to engage your child with art.

PBS Kids- Parents Area- Creativity Exercises
Neat things to do online to help kids be more creative.

Culture

Kids Web Japan
Explore Japan on a kids level and find interesting things to do, see and learn about.

Environment

Environmental Kids Club
All areas about Environment for kids to learn about and play games. Teacher area.

Foreign Language

Chillola.com
A wonderful site for kids learning foreign languages with basic words for Shapes, Colors, Alphabet etc.

General Learning

	ABCya Fun educational learning games and activities for preschool kids.
	Alphabet Action Learning Planet's section for learning the Alphabet. Great preschool online resource.

	Education.com This is a great overall site filled with Educational activities, worksheets and articles on Education.
	Sesame Street Young children can learn about letters, counting, thinking, science, music, art, culture and getting along with others.

History

Ben's Guide to U.S. Government
Fun and educational site for kids to learn about history and the U.S.

Math

	Math Playground Action packed math site for elementary and middle school students featuring math games, math word problems, math worksheets, logic puzzles, and math videos.
	PBS Kids Early Math Games Great information and fun resources to help your child build his/her early math skills at PBS Kids parents section.

Money

US Mint kids section
Games and informative videos about the US Mint and money in the United States.

Music

	NY Philharmonic Kids a wonderful and fun Kids site all about Music. Composing, instruments, games and more.
	Play Music Provides information about musical instruments, composers, and musicians. With Shockwave plug-in, visitors can also play interactive musical games.

San Francisco Synphony Kids Site
Fun and educational kids site all about Music!

Nature and Animals

	Animal Planet Games and interactive features for kids at Animal Planet.
	Dino Dictionary Profiles of over 300 known Dinosaurs, fun games.

	Kids Go Wild- Wildlife Conservation Society Check out this site to learn more about lots of animals. Fun facts, information and things to do. Great site for kids.
	Kids Planet Facts, games, a teacher's section,information on saving endangered species. Fact sheets on over 50 species of Animals.

	National Geographic Kids site Great site for kids with games and information about animals and nature at National Geographic Kids.
	National Wildlife Federation Fun facts and games about wildlife and their environment on a kids level. Home of Ranger Rick.

Reading

	Free Children Stories A wonderful site of free stories for children by Daniel Errico. Some flash, flip the page stories and fun rhyming stories.
	Giggle Poetry Children's poetry by Meadowbrook Press. Lots of funny poems, poetry contests and more! Ideas for educators on teaching poetry in fun and interesting ways.

	International Childrens Digital Library Wealth of online stories for children in many different languages.
	Kid Soup Preschool and Kindergarten online Resource.

	Kindersay Educational site for kids to learn letters, words and signing.
	PBS Kids Reading Language Section Great information and fun activities for kids learning letters, sounds, and to read.

	Reading Rockets A wonderful site devoted to Teaching kids to Read and helping those struggling to Read.
	Starfall A free website to teach children to read. Perfect for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Contains exciting interactive books and phonics games.

	StoryPlace Spanish & English versions. Listen to interactive children's stories, play with on-line activities, print out take-home activities.
	Tumble Books This is a fun site for kids, parents and teachers to utilize for Reading. Hundreds of animated books for Kids with audio.

	Word Girl PBS site that encourages kids to learn words and get them ready for reading.
	Ziggity Zoom Online beginner stories for children to be read with, or without, audio. Original stories and illustrations by Sharon Pierce McCullough.

Science

	FOSSweb Outstanding Science site for kids, parents and teachers.
	http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/quick/quick.html Science Activities and Experiments for kids. I especially liked making nature and dinosaur fossils with my kids. The recipe is very easy and found atclick for fossil directions

	Inner body- Human Anatomy Online Do you have a child that wants to be a doctor- check out the different systems of the body- skeletal, digestive, nervous and more. A site geared at kids over 7 or 8- lots of big words and drawing of each body system.
	Kids Astronomy Powerful and fun resource for kids, exploring astronomy and other space related topics. Play games, learn through interactive applications, and much more.

	Kids Discover Natural and Social Science magazine for kids 7-12.
	Ology American Museum of Natural History site for kids. Learn a lot about astronomy, paleontology, and the definitions of other "ologies" on this site.

	pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci Science experiments and activities for kids at PBS Kids.
	Science Explorer- Home or School Experiments for Kids Make science experiments with household items- find out how to make a volcano, sun clock, balloon blow up, chopper, and tons more.

	science.preschoolrock.com Science and nature activities and experiments for preschoolers. Tons of great ideas to get your children interested in science and nature. Learning can be fun!
	The Magic School Bus Fun facts, games and science information for kids and teachers.

Weather Channel Kids' Site
Information and games about the weather.

Family Activities and Crafts

		http://www.bakeanddo.co.uk A fun cooking website for children packed with easy and delicious recipes as well as plenty of fun arts & crafts activities. Written by children for children. All of the recipes have easy to follow instructions and all are tried and tested by children before being included. The site also contains plenty of fun arts & crafts activies to keep children occupied. Competitions encourage children to try their own recipes out and to submit the results for the chance to win some great prizes. This is a great way to encourage children to learn to cook and to take an active interest in food.
	Crayola A fun site for kids, parents and teachers with lots of coloring pages and craft ideas.

	Familyfun.com Family Fun has great ideas for parents for arts, crafts, cakes, and holidays.
	First Palette Great creative site for kids crafts and family activities.

	Kaboose.com This site has lots of parenting information and activities for kids and families.
	Looledo Creative Kids Crafts and Science Projects from Recycled objects.

	Mamma Felice Italian website featuring fun family crafts and activities.
	Parents.com This magazine and website has lots of great parenting information, ideas for kids activities, reviews and birthday party ideas.

Spatulatta
Spatulatta teaches children to cook with free step-by-step videos, encourages children to eat more vegetables and fruit, and makes the link between farm and table.

Cooking for Kids

Cupcake Kid Cafe
A fun site all about Cooking, run by 7 year old Rachel who features fun recipes, videos and cooking games for Kids.

French Sites for Kids

Le Petit Velo Rouge
A fun French site for kids with Coloring, Games and more.

Fun and Entertainment

Kids 7 and up

	American Girl A real online fun place for girls. Create e-cards, do fun activities, post your photo and play games.
	Barbie Fun activities, crafts and other online fun all revolving around Barbie.

	clubpenguin.com Virtual playworld
	Disney Princesses Games and videos for all little princess lovers. Official Disney Princess site.

	Fox Kids A site with shows for kids and games based on the shows.
	Funology.com This site is about the Science of Having Fun- it is educational and fun- it has a few games, jokes, brain busters and more.

	Go Girls Only A fun site sponsored by the Girl Scouts of America. Fun and games for girls.
	Kerpoof- Draw, Make a Picture, Write a Story or Make a Card A site for kids 4 or 5 and up. They can make a card, picture, draw or create a story. This site was recently purchased by Disney.

	Kid Videos- by kids, for kids This is a monitored site that allows kids to create and post videos and watch other videos by kids. Each video is reviewed to ensure it is appropriate to kids.
	Kids' Candian Broadcasting Site This Site has lots of games and activities based on tv shows that run on this Canadian Broadcasting station.

	Lego Fun kids site with games, comics and movies.
	Little Director- kids can animate their drawings Neat site where kids can make movies and shae with friends. Sign-up may be required.

	NASA Kids Club Fun and games for kids 7 and up.
	nick.com

	PBS Kids-News Flash Five Kids News This site is designed to give kids (7 and up) a place to go and learn about what is happening around the world in the news with the appropriate amount of content for kids and the broadcasters are virtual kids (animated). It is a neat site to go to with your older kids.
	Playmobile Variety of online games and 3D catalogue.

	Poptropica Poptropica, a virtual world for kids to travel, play games, compete in head-to-head competition, and communicate safely. Kids can also read books, comics and more.
	Primary Games Fun site for teachers, parents, and kids featuring free educational games, coloring pages, interactive e-books.

	Seussville A site by Random House that has games and printables from the Dr. Seuss books.
	Seussville Seussville Games. Here are lots of games for you to play. To keep you entertained all day!

	Up To Ten Educational and Fun games and activities for children aged up to ten years old.
	webkinz.com Virtual playworld for kids. In order to play you have to have purchased a webkinz stuffed animal. Although many kids younger than 7 may go to this site, I believe it is most appropriate for kids older than 6 and that can read the information.

Woogi World
Online virtual world for young children.

Preschooler-6

	Boowa & Kwala Wonderful and fun Kids site. Children's music plus great illustrated stories. A preschool activity center with over 800 games for kids aged up to six. English or French.
	Candyland Coloring pages and fun activities related to Candyland.

		Cincopatas A fun site for preschoolers with lots of different types of online activities.
	Gofrette A fun and games site for the younger set. In French or English. Based on a favorite tv character, Gofrette.

	Jump Start JumpStart is a series of educational games produced by Knowledge Adventure. The series is distributed as Jump Ahead in the United Kingdom.
	Kid Soup Preschool and Kindergarten online Resource. membership subscription.

	kidmango.com New!
	My Little Pony This is a cute site geared to little girls who love My Little Pony. Features games and activities for preschool kids.

	nickjr.com
	noggin.com

	Painting games Coloring online and Coloring pages.
	PanWapa A Sesame Workshop site for fun and education for young children.

	pbskids.org
	Peep & thr Big Wide World Play science games and activities with Peep.

	Poisson Rouge Online activities for Preschool children.
	RayLit Fun learning with educational games, videos & activities for kids.

		Sesame Street Educational site featuring Sesame Street characters in videos and games to play.
	Speakaboo A fun site for Reading with lots of books to choose from, read by celebrities.

	sproutonline.com
	The Color All coloring website for kids with original graphics to color. Lots of themes.

	The Mouse Club Free games, activities, stories and puzzles for Kids 4 - 10.
	Thomas & Friends This site offers a number of favorite characters for children to interact with through games and fun activities. The star, of course, is Thomas the Train.

	WebTots Online toddler games, kids games, puzzles, drawing, colouring, music with sound recorder.
		\Ziggity Zoom Fun preschool games for kids. Educational games that combine fun with concepts of color, language and numbers.

Grandparent Resources

	Grandparents Digest A site for grandparents and their grandkids for fun crafts, recipes and things to do. A fun family site.
	Granny Look If you are a grandparent looking for information about things to do with your grandkids this site is a good resource.

Health and Nutrition

	Healthy Children, Healthy Choices information from the CDC Information for parents about healthy eating for your family provided by the Centers of Disease Control's government site.
	Kidshealth.org Good site for kids health information.

Health and Medical

	Ask Dr. Sears- kids health topics Good resource with articles on many kids' health topics by the well-known family of pediatricians and published authors.
	Dr Greene- Pediatrician- website about kids' health topics Good resource about kids health topics by a Pediatrician.

Nutrition

	Food Facts- Find out What Ingredients are in your Food www.foodfacts.com is a site that gives you nutritional information for hundreds of food products and food items at restaurants. Use this site to find out what you are really eating.
	Healthy Children, Healthy Choices

Portion Distortion-slideshow
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute-Obesity Education Initiative offers a informative slide show about portion sizes and eating right.

Natural & Organic Living

Kiwi Magazine
Excellent Kids magazine and online magazine devoted to natural and organic living for families.

Parenting

Mommie 911
A site just for moms that offers parenting information, health and nutritional information for their children and great product reviews.

Baby

	Curious Baby A site devoted to new moms, pregnant moms and everything about Baby. Recipes, Health, Shopping, Product Reviews.
	justthefactsbaby.com Site for parents about top topics facing new parents about baby.

Going Green

Growing Up Green
Discovering modern Eco options for Kids.

Mom Blogs

	HeckofaBunch6.com
	Homemade Mamma Fun Family site in Italian and English. Crafts, food and fun projects.

	Leap into Art A fun family site about art, food and fun.
	TechSavvyMama.com

www.TheDirtyShirt.com

Parenting Magazines Online

	Cookie Magazine A family magazine for parents with style.
	iVillage Daily expert advice for parents.

	Parenthood From birth to school age, a great resource for parents with articles on health, nutrition and parenting styles.
	Parenting A magazine devoted to all aspects of parenting.

	Parents An online parenting magazine for parents on the go.
	Todays Parent A good parent resource magazine for kids. In print and online.

Travel

Best Kid Friendly Travel
A site devoted to fun places to travel to with kids. Discount and specials info.

Safety

	AllerMates Allergy education site and Allergy awareness products.
	Consumer Products Safety Commission Parents this site has product safety and recall information at the Consumer Products Safety Commission website. For the toy safety page click here.

	Kids be Safe Online Site This site is run by a mom/grand mom who has devoted her time to informing parents about being safe online and keeping your kids safe. It is a good resources for parents to use and read up on website safety.
	National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Good site for parents with information about car safety and car seat safety guidelines at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Smokey Bear Kids
Games, Facts and Fun surrounding the idea of Fire Safety.

Shopping

	Happy Sacks Reusable Sandwich Bags This company offers a reusable sandwich bag option and snack bags for you or your child's lunches.
	Oompa.com A great site with kids toys and gifts.

	Piggy Paint Non-toxic Nail Polish for little girls.
	Posh Tots Exquisite childrens furniture, decor and bedding.

	Saf baby #1 Resource for safe products for babies.
	The Silly Wagon Check out this hip, cool, stylish site for boutique style kids clothes, shirts for mom, toys and some home decor products for your child's room. www.thesillywagon.com

	TheSarutGroup.com A great site for unique and fun, whimsical gifts.
	Walmart.com Earth Friendly and Organic Products Walmart offers hundreds to thousands of Earth-Friendly and Organic Products for your baby, child and home. Whether you ever enter a Walmart or not you can order tons of affordable orgaic and Earth-Friendly products from Walmart.com/earth. I recommend checking it out. They even offer Reusable Diaper Covers and Biodegradable Diaper Liners.

Art

Stubby Pencil Studio
Eco products for Creative kids. All types of art supplies for kids plus more.

Baby Gifts and Products

	Kate Quinn Organics This site offers organic kids, toddler, mom's clothing and bedding and bath items.
	SkipHop.com A site with neat and trendy Baby gifts and products.

Children's Clothing & Accessories

	Baby Petunia Kids, Clothing, Bedding and Decor for ages from newborn to 12 years.
	Kid Bean Earth-friendly, labor-friendly vegan products for your kids and the entire family. Cotton organic Pajamas.

		Kids Wear Fun kids tee shirts for all ages and sizes. Cool kids T shirts for all occasions. Boys Tee Shirts, Girls Tee Shirts, Tuxedo Tee Shirts.
	Trendy Togs Trendy clothes for kids from exciting clothing designers just for kids.

Children's Room Decor & Furniture

Land of Nod
Shop the Land of Nod for high quality kids furniture; including kids bedroom furniture, playroom furniture, kids bedding and everything for your nursery.

Toys and Games

	Maukilo European and American made children's toys.
	Moolka Wonderful creative childrens toys, many from European companies.

Smarter.com- Toy Shopping
Shop Smarter.com for a wide selection of toys for babies & kids from top online stores. Find scooters, learning toys, games & much more for low prices.

Teacher Resources

Sites that offer outstanding resources to both teachers and parents that are homeschooling.

		Early Learning HQ Early learning resource site for teachers and parents. Free printables.
	ESL Printables Teacher and parent resources for learning the English language.

	HomeSchool Central Resource site for Homeschooling parents.
	Internet 4 Classrooms Resources for teachers of all grades to use in the classroom and for parents to use at home.

Teaching Ideas
Teaching Ideas and Resources for all subject categories.

Where to GO & What to DO

Kids Linked
Find Family Activities and Events in your neighborhood. A great parenting resource for things to do with the kids.

New York City

	Mommy Poppins Get more out of NY with the Kids. This is a terrific site that highlights all the events, museums and fun things for kids to do in New York.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Employment Workshops by Brighter Future E-Counseling

These are the recommended relationship books that can be found on Amazon:

List of kids directories and search sites