Free Online Summer Activities for Children

Summer is almost here, which means that children are going to be out of school and will have unlimited time to complain to their parents about how bored they are. While many parents try to find activities that will keep their kids occupied, many forget that the internet offers plenty of opportunity to keep a child occupied. Young children today are more computer literate than many adults are, and spend just as much time online. Here are some online summer activities for children that are safe, entertaining, and will help keep the "I'm bored" refrain from being spoken too many times.

Online Games
Great time killers are playing online games. Plenty are entertaining as well as educational. Here are a few that may be of interest. http://www.resources.kaboose.com/games. This website divides its games into two categories, "Funschool" for children ages preschool to eleven year of age, and "Zeeks" for children ages 9-14. The Funschool games include Action Fraction, where kids learn how to use fractions while playing a racing game and Circus Simon, which teaches math sequences by using lions, and bears. The Zeeks games include cards, puzzle, and trivia games. The one thing I did not like about the website was the advertisements that popped up every time you click one from one game to another.

There is also www.squigly'splayhouse.com. They have action games, puzzles, word games, and quizzes.

Crafts
There are plenty of online websites that offer step-by-step instructions for easy to do crafts. Here are a few: www.kinderart.com. They advertise themselves as the largest collection of free online art lessons from kids ages grade 4th- 8th. They offer lessons in architecture, printmaking, crafts and drawing. How it works, is that children or there parents are able to download lesson plans that include, what the child will need, and what they will need to do.