Kids' Corner

Resources for Teachers and Parents

World is yours ...

"In natural science, Nature has given us a world and we just have to discover its laws.

In computers, we can stuff laws into it and create a world." - Alan Kay

Visit the Computer History Museum if you need to research anything about computers. Here is the Exhibits page and go through the Timeline of Computer History.

Software (Free :)

• • Scratch. Create and share your own stories, games, music, and art. Teach yourself. It is visual programming. You can just drag and drop blocks to build interesting programs. Try the 'Getting Started' guide in the help pages of this software (always look for 'Help' in the menu of any software). If you want structured lessons go to LearnScratch.org.

Text Books (Free :)

"By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple of hundred books.

I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because

I had already been exposed to other points of view.

School is basically about one point of view --

the one the teacher has or the textbooks have.

They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle."

- Alan Kay

• • NCERT Textbooks: textbooks of all subjects published by NCERT for classes I to XII in Hindi, English and Urdu.

  • FlexBooks: Textbook materials for K-12

  • WebBooks: Grade 10 - 12, Everything Maths, Everything Science.

General Books (Free :)

"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

-Alan Kay

• • Arvind Gupta Toys - Books and Toys.

  • Connexions - Build your own books or read the ones made by others.

  • WikiBooks - Open-content textbooks and more in a lot of languages. You may want to start on the WikiJunior page rather than the main WikiBooks page.

Experiment Virtually (Free to some extent)

• A Virtual Chemistry Laboratory

• Exploratorium

  • Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum.

• Learning Science

  • Hands-on activities for Biology, Medicine, Health and Humanities.

  • Games and simulations based on Nobel Prize awarded achievements. Full list that includes a 'Read More' link about each subject.

Book shelf (not free; get someone to buy/rent these for you)

• • Panchatantra.

  • Thinking Physics, Lewis Carroll Epstein

  • Understanding Chemistry, C.N. R. Rao

  • Physics Can be Fun; Physics for Entertainment; and other Y. Perelman books. Check ArvindGuptaToys link above to see if one of these is available on-line.

Who is Alan Kay?

Here is his reading list for you.