ClassBrain.com is an educational website that sports several awards. It covers material material suited for grades preschool through high school. There is also a parents and educators section. I went through the site and was generally not impressed. Here is my review of ClassBrains.com.
| ClassBrain Kids | Rating  |
This is divided up into several sections. There is a Preschool to Kindergarten level and there is a grades 1 through 3 level. I looked at both sections carefully. The preschool section is not terribly impressive. PBS Kids is a better choice.
I was very disappointed with the number of broken links in the grades 1 through 3 section. I am not sure if the website was having problems on the days I visited. One of the three math links works. The games are satisfactory, nothing to write home about. Overall, I am not impressed.
| CB Teens | Rating  |
There are a lot of really good websites for teens that have great educational content as well as entertainment. CB Teens is not one of those websites. I turned the website over to my 14 and 16 year old sons and they were completely unimpressed. Some of the information is useful, however teaching teens to research the Library of Congress website or the National Archives website is time better spent.
| Parents and Teachers | Rating |
The parent and teachers section has six separate areas; reading room which is mostly book reviews, teaching tools which is a combination of lesson plans and other material, money which has some articles on money management and a few other glib articles like why women need 57 pairs of black pants, school matters which has back to school lists and backpack information and finally a grab bag which takes you to random website. It brought me to the holidays section where there was an informative article on Abraham Lincoln.
BrightHub has better content, higher quality lesson plans and offers more to parents and educators than ClassBrain.com does.
| Reports and Projects | Rating |
This section has seven different sections. The first section, State Reports says it has all of the information you need to get an A+ on your state report. That may be true but at $1.95 per page of downloadable information you are better off using their list of topics and going out to any states homepage. You can get the information for free from any state or from the US Census Bureau. Not need to pay for this. Personally, I was rather taken aback that the information in the state reports and mission reports charge for the information.
The other categories do not charge. The Freedom files and Kids Freedom Files are all about the 9-11 attacks and patriotism. The biography section is good and has fairly decent information that can be accessed for free.
| Fun and Games | Rating  |
An acceptable collection of games, some are more educational than others. Nothing was outstanding. PBS kids and Discovery.com offer a lot more than ClassBrain.
| Creative Cranium | Rating |
A part of the website that charges for the worksheets, games and puzzles. It contains links from other areas of the website.
| Ask ClassBrain | Rating |
This part of the website is where questions are posed to ClassBrain.com and then they are answered online. Questions include which US State borders only one other state? The answer is Maine.
Conclusion
Overall, I was unimpressed. ClassBrain.com is overhyped and there is better content available for free. Properly sorted bookmarks in your browser will allow you to keep a list of far superior websites for parents, educators and children.
