The Early Show

Cool Educational Web Sites For Kids

January 30, 2008 / 9:18 AM EST / CBS

Parents concerned that their kids spend too much time on home computers socializing and playing games, take note: There are plenty of hip, interactive Web sites that are great places for learning, enriching kids' minds even as they provide a fun time!

Wired.com Senior Editor Nicholas Thompson picked a few to showcase on The Early Show Wednesday.

He pointed out that kids spend about three hours a day in-front of screens, whether they're TV or computer screens. But, they just watch TV. They can interact via Web sites.

Thompson's choices:

KIDS.NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM

This site has great games, and great videos. It's the best place to learn about nature and animals. You're pulled in by the weirdness but, along the way, you learn to appreciate the natural world and you get a sense of how vast and complicated it is.

Some stuff I like:

Video: Watch videos of fainting goats, snail zombies and hairy sea cucumbers. (The jumping spider video is especially awesome; if a human could jump like that, I'd be able to jump 300 feet!)

Creature Features: Search for your favorite animal and find out fun facts; check out where it lives, watch video, or send e-cards.

Wacky Stories: Read about rattlesnake rustling or an alarm clock that sounds with the smell of sizzling bacon.

I'm also into the dinosaur cave game: You wander around with a flashlight, avoiding spiders and picking up dinosaur bones. When you get a bone, you learn something about the dinosaur. It's totally addictive.

KIDS.DISCOVERY.COM

This one probably has the best games. It's like going to an arcade, except you learn something in each game. Instead of crashing cars, you're zapping bugs and learning about them at the same time. It also has online puzzles (literally!: You manipulate the pieces with your mouse)

Some stuff I like:

Zap-a-Ghost: The haunted version of "Duck Hunt," basically, but it looks a lot cooler.

Wild, Wild Match

Who stinks? (a quiz)

Bindi the Jungle girl puzzle

NASA.GOV/AUDIENCE/FORKIDS

It really teaches you about space and indulges people fascinated by it. I don't think it's going to pull in a ton of people who don't already want to grow up to be astronauts, but most kids want to grow up to be astronauts to begin with!

Some things I like:

NASA spin-off: Hunt for items in the garage that are spin-offs of NASA inventions.

Addition blast-off: Choose the right combination of numbers to launch a rocket.

Go to the head of the solar system: Help the comet get to the sun by selecting the planet that matches its description. Pick a planet. Click on Mars and find out all there is to know about it.

Find it fast: Search for homework help on this huge list of topics.

BRAINPOP.COM

This is probably the purest educational one. It's good for use in a classroom, but it's not something that kids are going to be playing at home on the weekend. There are movies that explain things such as how bridges work and how solar power works.

FUNOLOGY.COM

This one has the least interactive stuff, but it does show you how to do crazy experiments, and who doesn't like that? One of the best ways to learn is to actually do something exciting yourself.

Some good ones:

Physics: Make a balloon "inhale" a bottle.

Weather: Create a cyclone in a bottle or make "London fog"

Optical tricks: Yes, you can see through your hand.

Challenge!: Can you send your bottle rocket across the yard?

Thompson did an experiment from the site, called "Dancing Raisins":
1. Pour clear carbonated soda water into a clear glass.
2. Drop four or five raisins into the glass.
3. After about a minute, you will observe raisins moving up and down in the glass. Watch how the bubbles control the movements of the raisins!

FREERICE.COM

This site is simple, but it's genius. You learn vocabulary and do something good for the world. The rice is paid for by the ads that run at the bottom of the page as you take the vocabulary quizzes. It's totally addictive. There's something about feeling like you're working for a good cause that makes you want to press on. People would never play it if it were just a vocab game.