Educational Website List

There’s something about the phrase “top educational websites for children” that makes my stomach feel ill. It may be because I imagine parents plopping their children in front of a PC and only allowing them to play games that involve solving math problems or answering science questions. The torture! However, I was from a generation where even though I was an “A” student, when I returned home I’d immediately race to the computer and fire up the game Ultima for an evening of medieval adventure. With that said, I do feel that today parents have a far greater selection of fun games or sites that are also educational and won’t bore your poor kid to death.

A Brief List of The Top Educational Websites For Children

In order to produce a quality list, I started at KidSites, which is sort of the “Google” of children’s websites. The folks there accept submissions of sites and then offer the Internet community a directory of the “best kid sites on the web.” However, the directory is huge, so I’ve decided to produce a list of only the top educational websites for children that are so much fun that even though they are considered educational sites, your child won’t even know it. I’ve selected the best site from each educational category.

#1: The Best Kids Art Website – Metro Museum of Art
Many of the sites at KidSites can be amateurish or boring, so it can take some searching to find that special gem of a site. In the Arts category, my own personal favorite comes from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

#2: Top Science Website – NASA
As always, you’ll find the best designed websites from larger organizations with the funding to hire people who can produce the best web applications for kids. The same <a href="http://www.essaywriter.co.uk/services.aspx">essay</a> must hold true for NASA, because they appear to take their mission of educating the public very seriously. NASA offers the “NASA Kids’ Club,” an interactive section of the NASA website where kids can learn about space and what it’s like to be an astronaut.

#3: Top Website About Nature and Animals
Sure, this is obviously another category under “science,” but if you’re a “Green” family, or you’re really into animals, it’s an important one. The world is filled with an endless array of natural wonders and stunning places for kids to learn about, and it makes sense that National Geographic would be the entity that would offer the best nature site for kids with National Geographic Kids.

#4: Top Website for Early Childhood Development
The best site for this category didn’t come directly from KidSites, but instead I had to drill down into PBS.org, which provides a number of submissions to KidSites. One of the best areas of PBS for kids is PBS Kids Go! for older kids, although PBS also offers “PBS Kids” for younger children. Both websites certainly prove that PBS is still king of the hill when it comes to providing content for children that’s both entertaining and educational.

#5: Top Website To Teach Children About Music
The last category that is important to cover, I needed to search other than the KidSites website, and I’m glad I did. By far, the folks who know the most about music are those who run the major symphony orchestras from around the country. So, it makes sense that the best educational website within this category comes from the San Francisco Symphony, with their impressive website SFS Kids – Fun With Music.