Oscraps

Free Email Site suggestions for kids - NSBR

clarabear

clarabear

always chatty at the O!!
So, I want to set up an email for my 8 year old. Not something I had planned on doing but I am doing it for Ethan's grammar for school so that he can write to his grandma and aunt to practice some writing skills and chat with them.

Anyway, I was hoping to get some advice on which free email would be a good one to use. I have a hotmail and yahoo account and prefer yahoo over hotmail as far as junk coming through but would like some advice (Sara) as to what would be the easiest for an 8 year old to use and the most appropriate. I know some of you (Sara) are more tech savvy (Sara) and better at internet saftey (Sara) than some. Thanks guys!!
 
LOL! You are sooo funny!

Yes. I don't know if using your homeschool status you can get Gaggle, but that is an EXCELLENT free email set up for kids. Lots of schools are using it. Some of the kids even got frustrated when they couldn't send their yearbook picture to their friends because the filter said it had "too much skin" LOL!
https://www.gaggle.net/tour4.html

I haven't tried this one yet, but it is a link to how to customize gmail for your kids: http://lifehacker.com/235423/give-your-kids-personalized-gmail-addresses

There are a couple others I found, but don't know a thing about:
http://www.zoobuh.com/
http://www.kidsemail.org/

Let me know if that helps!!
 
:hail:Thanks Sara!! I'll check into that. It sounds right up our alley. I'm so glad you checked this message and thought to reply. I don't know what inspired you to do so. Definitely not my subtle hints. :)
 
:rofl:
Three cheers for Sara!

I never heard of those, i'll have to tuck that info away in case anyone else asks. My kids use gmail but they are older.
 
I think the gmail option is definitely interesting. I bookmarked it for the future!

And really...I mean...what kind of library/tech specialist would I be if I ignored a thread about email and kids? LOL!
 
I could have just sent you a PM but this was just more fun for me and I love to be able to share this info. I have looked into the sites you recommended. Here is what i found...gaggle looks amazing but to get set up with them looks like a PITB for just one kid. The two that you didn't know about I looked into and it is basically set up as two email accounts so that the emails have to go through an adult first to be approved. Of course such a system is not free, so I am working on that part and one of them was significantly less expensive but the systems looked pretty similarly. I haven't checked out gmail yet...but if that is set up at all like the other two systems in any way it would be worth looking into. So, that is what I have found from what you found.
 
Good to know!!! I figured Gaggle might be a hassle, but it is definitely popular around here. :-) Let me know what you end up doing. I'll ask around too and see if anyone else has any other ideas! I was in library land this week...not tech land, so I might hear more next week. :-)
 
Oh Glogster is a huge hit with the kids! And especially in schools too. There is an education version of Glogster that is a bit safer for the kids, so if you are looking with the kiddos, try GlogsterEdu.
 
So, I set Ethan up with Zoobuh. I checked out the Gmail stuff but it was't quite what I wanted and the Kidsemail was about the same as zoobuh but about 3X more expensive. Zoobuh is $12 a year and has a bunch of different settings. I have Ethans set up with the younger kid set up so it is super easy for him to use and he can only get and send emails to the people I set up. If I were to set up an email for Addie in the future I can set it up so that they have their own contacts or also have joint contacts. then I can also set up if they can get images, attachments, videos, etc. I can have bad language censored and I can also set it up so that I can see all emails first and then allow them, but I didn't do that because I selected all the contacts, but I did select to also get a copy of the emails. As he gets older I can turn off some of the filters to give him some more freedom but still be able to monitor what he gets if I wanted to, or not. I can also upgrade his screen to more complicated, grown up version that gives him more options when he gets to that point. Right now he has 4-5 buttons and can't even select more than one person to send to. He does have some smilies but it is very easy.

So, thank you Sara for doing the research that would have overwhelmed me. I really appreciate it and I will let you know if it is still good later. It was really easy to set up...oh, the only issue I had with it is that there was no real way to know you were done with set up and what to do next. Because I am not a complete idiot I figured it out pretty simply, but there was no direction saying what to do next. But he's emailing away now and a happy camper. So thanks.
 
Excellent! That's being tucked away into my files for future reference! I hope it opens up a world of research for you two!
 
That is great Clara- hopefully he won't feel so far away if he can keep in touch that way. You are such a great mom!
 
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