The Best Websites Kids Are Safe To Learn And Have Fun

As the summer winds down and parents focus on enjoying every last warm day outdoors with our kids, it’s hard not to think just a bit about the fall, school and days spent mostly indoors. Internet use for children becomes more frequent during the winter months due to school research and indoor boredom. As parents, most of us are cautious about the places our children visit online. Let’s take a look at some kid-safe sites that are both fun, entertaining and educational.  You won’t have to worry about any predators or dirty content when your child is surfing these pages!

PBS Kids is a site most of us are very familiar with. Gracious, my 3-year-old even quotes the url of this one when she hears it after her favorite shows on KRMA! This wonderful resource for kids is bursting at the seems with clips and full episodes of your child’s favorite PBS shows as well as educational games you can feel good they are playing (hey, they’re learning!). They’re is so much here that it’s hard to exhaust all the content and is a great sick-day or weekend treat for elementary school-aged children.

National Geographic Kids is the perfect place for curious mind that can’t get enough about geography and wildlife. They keep it G-rated here and there’s something for every kid here. Games, videos, photos, fun facts and lots more. Your young one will know about the location and climate of countries like Mongolia and Madagascar in no time (not to mention fun facts about the animals who live there).

Jelly Telly if perfect for your kids if biblical understanding and knowledge is something you want your kids to learn, then this is a site you have got to check out. Run by the folks at Focus on the Family, it’s about as fun as you can get and loaded with biblical theology, hilarious (but reverent) videos and games. You may recognize the creator (Phil Vischer) as the same man who started the popular Veggie Tales series. JellyTelly is hands down my favorite Bible site for kids.

Nick Jr is a great place for the preschoolers to play. Similar to what PBS Kids offers, the content here is based on the cartoons offered by the corresponding channel. Preschoolers will love learning with Dora here and interacting with the Wonder Pets. Each show has its own page so your little one can navigate to their favorites and have a great time learning (and probably singing) with their favorite characters!

FunBrain is appropriately-named and not quite as well known as some of the sites we’ve highlighted. The folks here focus on getting that spoon full of sugar in with the medicine so kids will have fun while learning. There are loads of educational games here that let kids practice and learn everything from math to reading in various games (including an arcade room). The site has something for kids from kindergarten – 8th grade.

Seussville is a homage to all things Dr Seuss. While some of the site is like a glorified store, the best places for kids to “play” are the “Video” and “Games and Activities” sections. Young minds will love playing the reading games (some of which are more educational than others) and watching clips from the classic Dr Seuss cartoons. While it’s not the most content-rich site of the list here, kids will enjoy playing games based on some of their favorite Seuss books.

I’d love to hear what your favorite kid-friendly sites are. Let me know in the comments below!

Stay tuned next week when we’ll discuss internet safety tips as far as keeping kids away from pornography and predators on the web.

Hannah is an educator, mom to three wonderful children ages 3 and younger and proud wife of an Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran. She is the founder of MyAppinions.com. My Appinions is a site where she posts reviews of iOS apps of all kinds but with a heavy emphasis on ones with educational and practical value. You can find her on Twitter @MyAppinions and Instagram as Banjonomad.

Author: hannah