Kids Astronomy

kidsatronomy.com/index.htm

Aesthetically, this website is not very attractive. There does not appear to be a specific color scheme, more like random, bright colors thrown together on a whim. However, the bright background colors make the text easy to see. The typeface is a sans-serif font, easy to read and distinguish letters. On some pages, there is a distinguishable space theme, evident from the starry background.

Content-wise, there is a plethora for children to choose from. The site includes, the sun, the planets, their moons, asteroids, and comets, as well as deep space, space exploration, and observation. This site may be oriented towards older children, as the amount of information for each celestial body is lengthy. In addition, it discusses such topics like black holes, quasars, and nebulae. However, younger children can benefit from other features of the site. There are a few interactive flash animations on the site that may also benefit those that are visual learners. Also, on a few pages, there are links that lead one to a song about the topic of the page.

The website provides a page dedicated to space observation. It helps children interested in observing the sky by provided a star map, data about the phases of the moon that one can see on that particular night (for example, the moon at 00:02:13 on the night of 14 April 2011 is waxing gibbous and 77% visible), and other information.

On this website, there are also astronomy and outer space games. These games include crossword puzzles, hangman, a quiz, and a word search, but there are also noneducational space games. On the same page there are also coloring activities-pages can be printed out or colored on the computer like with MS Paint. There are also "make your own" games with planets or a solar system.

I think this site is a good site for more advanced children. Younger children or less advanced children may have fun playing the activities provided on the games page, but may become frustrated with the length of text in the information section for the planets.

By Melissa