Good morning all,

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three (!) years since I last blogged about kbears.com, a terrific, free, colorful and highly animated resource site for elementary students. I recently heard from the site owners via email, and checked it out again … it has grown substantially since the last time I saw it! (Check your speakers before you visit the site though – the moment you arrive, the audio starts, in a big way!)

This Flash-powered site is LOADED with content and very easily navigable for even the youngest learners. What it lacks in depth (for example, there are only 100 animals included in their database) it makes up for in terms of ease of use and presentation. Here’s an example – their page for Alligators (one of the two animals they list as starting with the letter “A”):

The information is good, though the writing level is probably higher than 1st or 2nd grade, it’s still easily navigable thanks to the thoughtful user interface. This site would make a great webquest for early learners, teaching them to locate information visually.

There are several sections on this site, and I can’t review them all, but they are all high quality. Here’s one on biomes:

Again, there are sites with more detail for research purposes in upper elementary, but those sites are not good for our youngest learners. KBears.com completely rocks though for students in Kindergarten through third grade, in my view.

The Knowledge Bear folks also have a teacher resource site called http://www.kbteachers.com/ (subscription required) and a free parent resource site: http://www.kbparents.com/. The teacher site does allow for a three-day free trial but a PayPal account is required. http://www.kbteachers.com/ features a large amount of original content they themselves have created, not links to other things you can find on the web. Here’s a screen shot:

Pricing seems reasonable at $29 for the full year but I haven’t been through enough of the content to compare it in quantity and quality to perennial favorites like EnchantedLearning.com. In any case, that free three-day trial should be enough time for anyone to check out the service!

Hope this helps!

-kj-