Fun Links
Here’s a starter set of fun places to go online. What are your favorites? Send them to me, and I may post them here with a shout-out to you!
This latest addition — crammed with links to so many fun, riddling, puzzling sites — was brought to my attention thanks to Liz. A shout-out to her and all you Girl Scouts of Green and White Mountains! Keep going with those awesome virtual activities. And here’s to your meeting in person again soon!
File this website under “Important Link” and help save the world.
Math. If you love it or even if you need help with it, here’s a site with lots of links from addition through algebra. Ignore that it’s talking to parents and click around!
Speaking of math and a related subject, money management, scroll down to a multitude of sites here. Thanks to Juliette and Tyler (and their dad) for the head’s up!
Puzzles, puzzles, more puzzles! And did I mention, PUZZLES!?! Huge shout-out to Peyton (and her mom Bridget) for connecting us to this website.
Like art? Create your own and explore other fun activities here (from the Tate in London) or here (from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC).
All sorts of fun facts and answers. From animals to autos to history, money and science. How Stuff Works comes from the people who bring you the Discovery Channel.
Want to put your brain through a workout? Or maybe just give it something to do for a minute. Check out a great place for puzzles, brainteasers, optical illusions, riddles, games and more!
Videos, games, animals, exotic places! And you just might learn something even if you don’t want to. From National Geographic, but especially for kids.
Can’t find your Etch-A-Sketch? Don’t have one? Your brother/sister/friend won’t share? Don’t even know what it is? No problem. Use this one.
Interested in music? Listen, play, perform, conduct, and compose your own music thanks to the San Francisco Symphony.
Some really cool optical illusions brought to my attention by a volunteer peer mentor from Pathway to Empowerment: How many legs does this elephant have? Plus 50 illusions and many games here.
This link, with brain games and riddles to play in the car, was sent to me by Courtney and her group of students. Check it out.
I know. The top of this website is talking directly to parents, but the fun comes when you skip down to all the links: toys you can make, science experiments, website building, and engineering projects. Thanks to Katie Kress for this!
Go Tangram crazy! This website is a very unlikely source, not only for tangrams, but for lots of other puzzle links as well. Thanks for finding and recommending this, Dakota!
Brainteasers, brains, and hours of fun stuff (really!) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Quizzes, coding, tips, and fun facts from the world’s leading illustrated reference publisher. So much to explore here!
Writing a report on anything from Ancient Mesopotamia to Artists to Economics to Animals? Start here. There also are some links that will quack you up.
Need homework help? Or maybe you just want to sit back with a game of Hangman. Or see who was born on this day. We’ve got you covered.
Thanks to Jenny and her mom Sandy for recommending a site that you can sink your teeth into. Pun intended.
Homework Excuse
If you’re here, it’s either because:
- You’re curious.
- You’ve been here before and you wanted to come back.
- You typed in the wrong address or clicked on the wrong link.
- You’re working on an assignment and need information … or you hope a ready-made report will magically appear on this page because your assignment is due tomorrow or you really, really don’t want to do any homework because there’s this awesome videogame/website/TV show/sporting event you need to check out. Or there’s something related to friends/food/family/fish/France/freezers you need to do. Or something like that.
In response to 1-4 above …
- Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it gives birth to ideas.
- Welcome back … tell your friends.
- Sorry. Better luck next time.
- I could write your report or paper for you, but seriously? I already graduated from your grade. And, no, I still won’t do it even if it’s due at 8:00 tomorrow morning and it’s almost midnight. Yes, I know how desperate you are. I was desperate way too many nights before my papers were due. (The worst? It was Saturday afternoon and I still had three novels to read and four 5-page papers to write for Monday morning.) But because I am a nice person, I won’t leave you totally dangling. You can copy and paste the letter below, fill in the blanks, print it out, then turn it in. Good chance you’ll still get an F, but you might make your teacher smile. And maybe you’ll get permission to turn in something late.
Weird, Strange and Fun Facts
I love these! Send me more!
If an average adult could jump as many times his or her height as can a flea, that person could easily touch the tip of the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Alexander Graham Bell not only invented the telephone, he was also one of the founders of the National Geographic Society, the group that brings us the magazine and the National Geographic channel.
If you were a cricket, wearing pants might be like wearing earmuffs. A cricket’s ears are located just below their front-leg knees.
Three colors have no common English rhymes: orange, silver, and purple.
Ever wonder why Hershey’s calls its candy Kisses when they don’t look like lips? It’s believed they were given that name because either the machine that made them appeared to be kissing the conveyor belt or it made a kissing noise as each candy was deposited there.
Kangaroos can, only rarely, walk or jump backwards, but hummingbirds often fly backwards (and they are the only birds that can).
How many times do you blink each day? If you’re average, you’ll do it about 17,000 times.
Typewriter is the longest common English word you can make using only one row of a keyboard. The longest word you can type (using standard typing method) with your left hand? Stewardesses. The longest with your right? Lollipop.
Cats have 32 muscles in each ear which allow them to move their ears from front to back, 180 degrees.
If you spelled out the numbers in order – starting one, two, three, and so on – you’d need to go one past nine hundred ninety-nine before you wrote the letter “a.”
According to Guinness, the World’s Record people, the longest cucumber ever grown was about the same height as the average 6 1/2 year-old-boy or 47 inches.