Web Design for Kids Review

Quarter Mile Math
Kids designing their own webpages? The thought never occurred to me!
But, Brian Richardson, founder of Click Drag Solutions believes that with a basic "fundamental understanding of HTML, [kids] can create a functional web page, that's hand-coded, all by themselves!"
Web Designs for Kids (. . . and Curious Grown-Ups!) is a DVD that is about 1 hour and 22 minutes long and consists of seven chapters that result in making your own web page on your C drive.
DVD contents include:
  1. 10 Basic Lines of Code
  2. Sandwiches and Colors
  3. Make Subject Stand Out
  4. Stand Alone Tags
  5. Designing Backgrounds
  6. Fonts and Paragraphs
  7. Pictures
The software necessary is already on your computer - notepad, IE (or Text Edit and Safari with modifications) and Paint.
Kids learn how to color backgrounds, use images as backgrounds, color letters, change fonts, and even make letters dance across the screen. The DVD promotes attention to detail because if something is incorrectly coded, it won't work.
The DVD uses kid friendly language - tags become sandwiches and end tags become stop signs. Brian Richardson talks right to the kids and even includes a few jokes to keep it fun (a tad bit corny, but laughable). He walks you through each step and has you pause the DVD to apply what you have learned. I also had my kids take notes so they could remember later what to do. They each had fun taking turns following the steps on how to type their code, make it look nice and how to save and view as an html.
My kids (ages 9, 10 and 13) were able to work this the DVD to create their own basic web page on my C drive! And this curious grown up made one too. :-)
It did leave me wondering how to get our web pages online for you all to see! That part was not explained in this DVD.
You can see sample websites made by kids. Note: The samples include websites that use concepts not taught in this DVD, such as using CSS to create links. I'm hoping that will be in the next DVD.
Here is one cool thing we learned - go to the top of this screen and Click "View" and then "View Source." All that "gobbly gook" is what we learned about!
Sample of the video:
There is also a Bonus Chapter on File and Folder Management including basic things like how to create a folder, how to save things inside the folder, and how to move files that were not saved in the correct place. This was especially helpful for me - my files are a mess.
Click Drag Solutions is running a summer special for $19.99 + $3.99 shipping. I think the price is worth it as it can be used with multiple kids . . . and curious grown-ups! I have already seen how it is improving my time spent on blogging. I have applied several concepts from the video to edit my html in my layout and posts.
And, I really wanted you to see what I created, so with the help of a good friend, I uploaded it to our website. Up until now, she has done all the web design, but I now have my own page! Visit my web page here to see what I created using the concepts from the DVD. Note: I used some of my blogging experience to create links.
I am very pleased with how it came out and plan to add more to my page as well as write a few articles. I had no desire to learn html coding for websites before, but now I am excited to learn more!
Jordan, my oldest, asked me if this was a curriculum that I am writing a review for and when I said yes, he gave me a thumbs up and said, "Give it a good review then." :-)
We all enjoyed becoming a little more computer literate and this added a neat dimension to our homeschool that I had not thought to add before!
To see what other crew members think of Web Design for Kids (. . . and Curious Grown-Ups!), click here.

4 comments

  1. Custom web designs make you look different and unique.
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  2. The truth of the matter is that there are enough templates on the Net that allow you to create your own website at almost no cost at all.
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