Historyforkids.org – History for Kids

Kidipede – History for Kids presents ancient history in a fun and engaging way. 

It’s chock full of interesting bits of information on world history, including an explanation of what the ancient Greeks ate, how the early Chinese culture dressed, architecture, art and more.  Please note that the references provided at the end of each article link to Amazon.com.  The site is maintained by a professor at Portland State University.

This site was created by a college class and is now maintained by a university professor. It covers history before 1500 in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and it tries to do it in such a way that will interest kids.

Unfortunately, it reads like it was created by a committee, as indeed it was. The writing is uneven; some of it is written at college level while other articles contain mere sentence fragments. Here’s an example:

“In northern India, people ate mainly wheat, baked into flat bread and cooked into porridge. But in southern India, people mainly ate rice. So those were the two main things that people grew.”

Another example: “Many different kinds of plants also grew wild. There were bananas, and mangoes, and pomegranates. India was also known for its spices, especially cinnamon. And tea also grew in India.”

Organization of the site is by region: China, India, West Asia, Greece, Egypt, Africa, Germany, and Rome. There are also two other “Regions,” Islam and Middle Ages.

Each section contains articles written on the region’s history, environment, religion, clothing, economy, games, literature, science, and more. The section on “Rome” also offers links to Roman recipes, but few are anything kids would be able to make.

The best part of the site is the historical craft projects. Try making your own “chain mail” out of pipe cleaners, or constructing your very own compass.

Books for further study are suggested as well, with links to purchase the items at Amazon.com.

Much of the information in this site is good, although the lack of cohesive writing style and uneven presentation achieve low marks.

The many, many moving ads are too distracting and should be pared back.

Macintosh users: Use Firefox, as this site doesn’t work well with Safari.