How to Keep Your Kiddos Happy on the Coldest of Winter Days

Winter is here and you know what that means. In our house anyway, it has meant bitter cold days, blowing snow, ice storms and so many out of school snow days that the school district doesn't know what it's going to do when it comes to finishing the school year much less the summer school schedule. And that's not all, just because my kids aren't in school doesn't mean that I don't have to find something to keep them entertained with. Since they've seen Harry Potter a gazillion times, read all the Spiderwick Chronicles front to back and it's too darn dangerous to try to go sledding, I have been forced to find some entertainment via internet.

I've compiled a listing of some of the sites that I have used for kids as young as my preschool nieces thru 6 th graders at home. They are a few fun websites that just might save you sanity when trying to wrap those last minute gifts, or bake those holiday goodies! By the way, all of these sites have been tested by my two sons and numerous other kiddos have been dubbed "too cool!"

This is a site with many links for early reader fun. There are a lot of additional links here as well. Great site to begin with for kids!

Here is another site just for fun...bears in a pyramid react to your cursor and tumble over and over again....lots of fun for everyone after all who doesn't like to see animation? trust me on this one folks, the kids love it!

And this site for kids from pre-readers through 2nd grade with grade appropriate activities galore such as reading, writing, journaling, arts related activities and much more. It is also possible to purchase journals and books from this site if you are interested in pencil and paper work. I find the pencil and paper activities available for purchase a great extra item to have around the house for those times when there is a snow day and you don't want the kids watching TV all day long. If your child even does a few pages of these a day, you will see a difference in no time.

This site has reading games for kids from ages pre-K through grade 6. This site has references, teacher& parent pages, and freeware/shareware also have links on this page! Some great resources for readers of all ages. I find this site so helpful that I often suggest it to baby sitters to use in their baby sitting bags for activities for the kids and of course, they would be great trip activities as well too.

This is great website for more kids online games...it also has an area where you can join ( for a small fee) to access even more worksheets and learning tools though with all the stuff that is available for free, I can't imagine wanting to pay for more! These are but a few of the great websites out there which will keep your kids (and mine!) busy while the snow falls down all around us. As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too many activities in the background or in your goodie bag for those cold snow stay at home days! Check out these sites and have a folder ready, I promise you won't be sorry!

Good luck this winter, stay warm and have fun!