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Fun Activities for Summer Break

By Elizabeth Wasserman

After four days of downpours earlier this summer, Jacqui Greene, a mother of two, was relieved to have a distraction for her daughters since the neighborhood pool was closed. A friend told her 8-year-old daughter, Samantha, about a web site where kids could safely play with each other: Club Penguin. In this cyber world, children become penguins and they can play games, use emotion icons and chat with other penguins using a pre-screened assortment of phrases.

"My children are very interested in being on the computer," says Greene, an educator who lives in Northern Virginia, "and so I wanted to try to find some fun and safe alternatives for them to spend their summer days, when they're not outside." Greene says she and her daughters sometimes log on to different computers in their house and chat back-and-forth with each other through Club Penguin -- just for fun. "I'm on the site all the time watching," Greene says. "And it's perfectly safe."

If your family is like the Greenes, then there are just a few more weeks of summer vacation left. And if your younger children are starting to climb the walls, there are some fun activities you can do online to beat the heat and even get their minds ready for going back to school. Some parents might worry that too much time spent engaged in sedentary activities in front of the TV or computer is unhealthy for their children. However, with a little balance with their outdoor fun, some structured computer time could allow your children to explore the world, have fun, and learn a little in the process.

Explore the options
To make sure your children get the most out of the online playtime, do some exploring on your own first. "The Internet is so large at this point, it's helpful when parents do their homework before they sit down with computer instead of just scrambling to different sites with their kids," advises Jinny Gudmundsen, editor of Computing With Kids Magazine and a family computer columnist with USA Today.

Gudmundsen tests sites with children or school groups before making any recommendations. Her current favorite is The Fin, Fur and Feather Bureau of Investigation, a National Geographic Society funded site for kids ages 8 to 13. The site introduces your kids to places and cultures around the world while honing their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills to fight crime online. "It's one of the most clever children's sites I've ever seen," Gudmundsen says.

Find sites that peek your kids' interests
In addition to safe online communities or games, no matter what your kids are interested in offline, there is probably a site online that fits the bill, too. Here are just some of the activities you can do together along with popular sites to explore:

• Travel the world Your children can learn about geography, history, different cultures, and languages by visiting a variety of sites. They can take daily quizzes on the National Geographic Geography Bee site to see if they know facts such as which state has a climate suitable for growing citrus fruits (Answer: California or Maine). Some foreign countries have kid-friendly sites about their history and culture, such as the United Kingdom (Britian USA "4 Kids" web site), where your child can learn the British terms for sausages (bangers) and cookies (biscuits).

Or in order to help your child understand about societal issues, such as the plight of world hunger, Gudmundsen recommends sites like the United Nations at Food Force. The site has simulation games, in which your child can play an aide worker trying to solve real issues -- such as getting food to displaced people caught in a civil war -- in fictitious settings.

• Plan a science fair Lots of sites offer free science experiments that you can do in your own home. Find out the answers to some burning questions your kids have at Science Made Simple, such as: Why do leaves change color in the fall? Or the Science Guy offers recipes for how to turn a clean glass jar and a balloon into a barometer. Cool Science for Curious Kids, sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, let's your little ones explore dust particles and plants without a microscope.
• Play with toys Many toy and entertainment companies have captivating web sites with games your kids can play with their characters or products. The Lego web site, for example, has games like Lego Star Wars. Or Build-A-Bear allows the younger set to play games using animated teddy bears. PBS also has a site (PBS Kids) that features games with some of the characters on PBS cartoons, such as the math-oriented CyberChase or animated books from Between the Lions.

Gudmundsen points out that there are a growing number of high quality for-pay sites, such as Disney's Preschool Time. At $49.95 for the year, the site updates games and activities every two weeks, featuring some of Disney's best-loved characters, such as Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse.

• Become an artist Forget the Play-Doh. The Internet provides a virtual art museum of mediums and techniques to tutor the budding artist. There are drop-and-drag portraits of George Washington and caricature tutorials at the Moore College of Art and Design.

You can also try to solve an art-related mystery that exposes the ready reader to Raphael and Van Gogh at A. Pintura Art Detective, which is run by Educational Web Adventures. Even better, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery of Buffalo, N.Y. has a site in both Spanish and English featuring games for your children ages 4 to 12, with games based on Winslow Homer and cubist Juan Gris.

• Get smarter For your kids who are actually missing school, they can brush up on multiplication or division at A+Math, which features timed games that are a far cry from flash cards. Brain Teasers also posts weekly word problems for grades 3 through 8. For history lessons, check out the Library of Congress has a Columbus exhibit. Also, the Annenberg Media offers a site on why civilizations have collapsed.

Has one of your kids been saving up her allowance all summer? Business 101 can be had at the Hot Shot Business web site, a Disney site that allows the entrepreneurial to do simulations of developing a business plan for a candy store, a pet spa, or skateboard factory.

With your family vacations or summer camps well underway -- along with all these fun and educational sites to explore -- summer will be over before you know it. And when the bell rings this fall, your kids might just wow their teachers with all their new-found knowledge.