What Is a Website?
A website is a group of pages that share one address on the internet.
Say it like this
For the child
A website is a group of pages that share one address on the internet.
If the internet is all the roads, a website is a house on one of them. The address at the top of the screen tells your browser where to go.
When you visit, your browser asks a server for the page. The server sends it back, and the browser puts the words and pictures on your screen.
Somebody built that website. They chose what goes on each page and what you see first. Nothing arrived by accident.
Anybody can build one. It is a lot like building a fort, except the fort has an address and people can visit it from almost anywhere.
For the grown-up
What is actually going on underneath
Three ideas matter here.
First, a website is a location with an address. It is not the whole internet.
Second, visiting a website is an exchange. A browser asks a server for a page, and the server sends it back.
Third, every page has an author. Somebody chose the words, pictures, order, and purpose. That authorship is worth noticing early because screens can make made things feel as if they simply appeared.
The "you can build one" line matters too. A website is something people make, not weather that happens to a screen.
Do something with it
First ten internet words
Word cards for the vocabulary in this topic area, with the crayon-level meaning on one side.
Open the activityAsk afterward
Four questions that usually go somewhere
- Who decided what goes on the front of your favorite website?
- Why did they put that part first?
- If you built a website, what would be in it?
- What is the difference between the internet and a website?
Words in this one
If they ask what a word means
The books
When an idea turns out to be worth forty pages instead of two, it becomes a book, and the books live next door at DigitalCrayonBooks.com. Here is how the two sites divide the work.