1. Free back-to-school pages:
   This site  has crafts and activities for the kids to do. They can print out coloring pages, make a foam purse, decorate their binders and notebooks and for the grown-ups, there's even instructions on how to make tote bags. Lots more!
   
   
2. Help for difference science projects and themes.
   
   
3. Sesame Street Workshop
   For the preschoolers, their favorite Sesame Street characters can be printed out and colored.
   
   
4. Constitution
   Send in for a free copy of the Constitution.
   
   
5. Mr. Monkey Adventures
   Just a fun kid spot!
   
   
6. Internet Security: Zone Alarm Firewall
   If you're considering obtaining firewall protection, Zone Alarm offers a great firewall program, with absolutely no cost. You can, however, purchase an upgraded copy.
   
   
7. PC Pitstop
   Interested in tweaks and help to make your computer run faster and better? Try PC Pitstop!
   
   
8. iFilm
   This site has many categories of short films. Funny, dramatic, space age. Requires Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or Quicktime for most films.
   
   
9. Bill's Games
   Another gaming site featuring puzzles, card games, word games and board games.
   
   
10. Candystand
    This site has dozens of great Flash and Shockwave games for the whole family, provided you don't mind a lot of blatant product advertising. Our editor is particularly fond of the Cool Darts, and Billiards games. You can even play Billiards against your friends online, and its completely free, no need to sign up or join anything.
    
    
11. Nabisco World
    This is a partner-site to Candystand, so there is the advertising throughout for Nabisco products, however there are a lot of things for people of all ages to do on this site as well. The Mah Jongg game, in the Snackwells' Resort area of the site, is very cool. It has soothing Japanese music playing in the background as you play this ancient game. Plenty of games to keep the younger kids entertained too.
    
    
12. Clever Media's Fox Force Five Pinball
    Looking for quiet? You won't find it here! ;-) If you are looking for a very realistic Shockwave Pinball Machine however, this is one of the best on the net! Totally awesome, (the paddles sound like electric guitar riffs!) and completely free. Clever Media also has 4 sites full of Shockwave and Flash games, even some that webmasters can put on their own sites to use for free. (check out this COOL Virtual Piano - it really works!)
    

Our Editor would like to add these sites for you to check out also.

• World Map of Live WebCams
  This is a webcam-index site where you can visit different webcams all over the world. Our little gang played a game with it that was a total riot! Our fearless leader, Robin, visited different places all over the world using a program called Cam Catcher. She then captured images from different cities, and sent us the captured pics and we had to guess what country it looked like the picture was from. Lots of fun, and educational too!
  
  
• Cam Catcher
  Cam Catcher is a freeware program that lets you have a list of your favorite web cams and you can view them all without having to have any web Browsers open. Once you save the URL's to your fave Cams into the program, you can spy on each webcam easily. Download it from the above link.
  

  Editor's Notes and instructions about Cam Catcher:
  I wanted to tell you, I have been playing with the Cam Catcher program, and it is pretty cool!

  It was a little bit hard to figure out at first, until I realized that a lot of cams are best viewed first in Netscape, it makes finding their actual cam's URL easier. (Not all cams work in IE)

  I started off in Netscape looking at various cams I liked, (from the World Map page) and you just have to view the "page source" or right click on the cam image itself to "copy the image location" (Cam URL) (*You can save a bunch of URLs to a Notepad document and then add them all in to Cam Catcher all at once later, if you prefer.)

  Then open "Cam Catcher", select "Add WebCam" from the first drop-down menu, a second box will pop up where you will paste (or type) in that URL you just copied, into the "Full URL to Webcam picture" field, type in a name in the Webcam Name field, and if you know how often the cam updates it's image, you can type in it's "refresh Rate" here too, then hit the "Save Cam" button. Thats' it! Repeat these same steps to add more webcams.

  You can save as many locations into it as you want and then to view, just find the cam you want from the drop down menu and hit the "Spy on Cam" button. I have twenty or so saved in mine aready and it works well.

  BUT PLEASE NOTE: Some cams won't be able to be saved. I haven't had luck with a couple of the server-push ( controllable) cams, nor the types that run with a java applet powering it, but for the most part, its good freeware! (I have tested this program out on 3 PC's, the slowest one being a Pentium 1, 200mhz with only 48mb RAM, and it worked on all of them just fine.)

  One small warning though, it has been known to occasionally freeze up my computer the odd time. Nothing major there, Windows crashes all the time anyways! ;-)

  And if anyone would like a list of Cam URLs to copy and paste into the program so you have something to view right away until you can collect some that you want yourself, I'd be happy to send my list of URLs I have set up in my Cam Catcher to anyone who is interested. (write to: editor@gurlzgazette.s5.com and please put "Cam Catcher URLs" in the subject line, thanks) Have fun! :-)

  (5 Star rating! - Editor)
  
  

• Neopets
  Remember NanoPets and Tamagachi's? This site offers free virtual pets that live in your computer. They are adorable! Check them out! Our Editor has a couple of cute little pets that she found here, and has a great deal of fun with them...and no mess to clean up!

  This site is cool in that it really does teach kids the responsibily of caring for a pet, you do have to go and "feed" them Neo-Food, and they can get Neo-Illnesses which require you to go find the correct Neo-meds to cure them. It helps kids understand about money,and teaches money management skills by letting you have a "Neopoints Bank Account", (Neopoints being the official currency of Neopia,) and you can earn interest on your neopoints, make withdrawals and deposits, open your own Neo-Shop to earn Neopoints selling Neo-Items of all varieties to other good citizens of Neopia. You can also Auction your items for neopoints.

  You can buy your pet its food etc. if you have enough neopoints, but if you don't, you can get free Neo-Items at the Money Tree on the site, sometimes grabbing items worth a lot of Neopoints, but you learn that its not good to be greedy, for if you linger there too long, your pet may get a Neo-illness or another Neopet might try and steal some of your items away from you!

  There are also a lot of games to be played on the site. (Bear in mind that amongst them are included BlackJack and Poker, so if you are opposed to your kids learning how to play "gambling type" games, you should monitor their online activities) You can even learn about how Stock Markets work by investing in the Neopian Stock Market, an excellent way to earn more Neopoints!

  It may seem silly to the grown-ups out there, but trust me, kids are loving this site! ...And so am I... I'm actually becoming a fairly successful merchant in Neopia! :-)

  The site is completely FREE to join and play. No real money required. Parents should discourage their kids from signing up for the various offers which will give you free neopoints, however, unless you want a lot of junk-email. Always a good idea to talk to your kids about not giving out personal information on the internet, or have them ask you before they sign up for any offers.
  (A tip: Get an email address SPECIFICALLY for junk emails and use this when you sign up for any offers. That way you can go in once a month and dump out the junk mail without it coming to your home addy and bogging down your inbox there.)
  (4 Star rating. - Editor)

"Sterling Moon is my favorite specialty coffee!" David E. Brown,
[Billy Joel's former lead guitarist for 11 years] Gloucester, MA

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