CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: FUN AND EDUCATIONAL INTERNET SITES FOR CHILDREN'S DAY OFF (COLUMN 131)

Sometimes it's hard to find things for your kids to do when they exclaim: "I'm bored." The Internet may offer some solutions for parents and kid activities on lazy afternoons or even a surprise snow day in March.

The Internet is never at a loss for things to do. Let's take a look at a few spots we found for kids. Weekly Reader, a longtime favorite of schoolchildren, has entered the Cyberworld.

www.weeklyreader.com

Joni: You get to pick your road: Parent, teacher or kid. My daughter suggests we try Planet Cool.

Peggy: We have an expert adviser today, thanks to the snow. Joni and her daughter, Rebecca, are writing from home. We're researching our column via the Internet. Isn't technology great?

Joni: Weekly Reader online is full of coloring book pages and even a trivia quiz in preparation for Earth Day in April. I like this week's quiz: What's your favorite Girl Scout cookie. Thin mints, of course.

Peggy: I added my vote for peanut butter sandwich, although it's running poorly in this race. Weekly Reader offers lots of quizzes and contests. And you can win stuff.

Joni: Check out the mystery sound and photo contests. They're organized by grade.

Peggy: I listened to the mystery sound, and it sounded like a door closing to me.

Joni: We think it was an ax hitting some wood. It's certainly a stumper. If you are the curious kind, there's a great Internet site for you called "How stuff works."

www.howstuffworks.com

Peggy: You can learn how all kinds of stuff works, stuff like airplanes, guitars, telephones, tape recorders, water towers. You get the picture.

Joni: I want to find out how those UPC bar codes work. How do they pack all that information in a series of lines? It's under the miscellaneous section.

Peggy: My goodness, they do a fine job explaining in detail how those UPC codes work. They even explain how to add and divide those numbers to come up with a specific product. Then the store computer assigns the price. Pretty complicated.

Joni: It's amazing. Rebecca, of course, wants to read how a toilet works. Potty humor anyone?

Peggy: Toilets are essential in my book. And when they don't work properly, the whole house is in a turmoil.

Joni: Hey, toilets are really technologically advanced, according to this site. It takes a lot of working parts for everything to work right.

Peggy: The nice folks at HowStuffWorks have included a search mechanism to find topics in a hurry.

Joni: If you have more questions about life or the universe, perhaps Dr. Universe can help. This is the smartest cat I've ever seen.

www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse

Peggy: If you've got a question, Dr. Universe has an answer. The site is brought to us by Washington State University at Pullman, Wash.

Joni: There's a featured question of the day and a place to ask your own questions. Today's question has to do with birds and why so many hang out together. Interesting.

Peggy: Dr. Universe also explains why I get a headache when I eat ice cream too fast, and he gives me some advice. Eat slower. Good advice.

Joni: I learned more about genetics when a kid asked the question: Why are my eyes blue? This is a great site for curious minds. Where else shall we go today?

Peggy: Let's look for some games online at

www.funbrain.com

Joni: The site is divided into age categories: 6 and under, 7 to 10, 11 to 14 and 15 and up. You can find the games by subject.

Peggy: OK. The games are educational. They test your skills on everything from math and spelling to global knowledge. But that doesn't mean they can't be fun.

Joni: Let's check out math baseball. Hey, Rebecca is a regular Mark McGwire on simple addition. Hitting math home runs is fun. I won't tell her she's learning too.

Peggy: If these questions are too easy, you can advance to algebra and more complicated mathematical equations.

Joni: Perhaps I'll try my hand at Grammar Gorillas with all parts of speech. This takes me back to high school English.

Peggy: For parents, Funbrain will monitor children's progress and send you e-mail about how they are doing. Sounds like a virtual report card. So how's your grammar, Joni?

Joni: Pretty good. This is a game I can win.

Peggy: I know another baseball game that you might like. It's at the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is a San Francisco museum of science, art and human perception. It is online, too, with hundreds of interactive exhibits.

www.exploratorium.edu

Joni: I liked the section about the rain forest. We listened to the frogs croaking with the help of RealAudio. It was neat.

Peggy: Let's look at Sport! Science. You can learn the science of baseball, hockey or cycling, among other things.

Joni: You need Shockwave, but you can find out if you can hit a 90 mph fastball or you can see what makes a home run.

Peggy: To hit that fastball, you must be able to click your mouse in less than 2 seconds. Now, I'm pretty good with a mouse, but this is challenging.

Joni: It took me several times to get a hit. It also took a few minutes for it to load on my slower connection at home. I like the baseball background noises.

Peggy: Hitting a home run requires calculating the angle of the pitch, the power of the swing and the type of pitch. I took a powerful swing at a fastball and hit it 425 feet. Look out Big Mac, I'm on my way.

Joni: I've always been interested in science, and there are plenty of science-based sites on the Internet for kids. One for budding Sherlock Holmeses is called Evidence: The True Witness. It's a site about forensic science.

library.advanced.org/17049/gather

Joni: A girl has been kidnapped. You watch some opening video and then you can interview the suspects and examine the scene of the crime. You must listen closely and read the clues through conversation. At this site, you also learn more about fingerprints, ballistics, DNA and more.

Peggy: When you sign in, you enter a user name and password. If you return to the game, you start up where you left off. That's handy. The video segments seem to be acted by college students or maybe high school students. Or maybe I'm just old.

Joni: No, I think it is students making good use of the Internet -- to teach other young minds. What's your favorite children's site? E-mail us at click@semissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

~Peggy Scott and Joni Adams are members of the Southeast Missourian online staff.