Computing · Stage 4

Servers & Clients

Coding & Systems · networks — a website lives on a server; your device is the client that asks for it

✦ Computing📘 Stage 4 · S4⏱ ~10 min🧒 Ages 8–9★ Free to start

explain servers and clients

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Kavi Asks for a Web Page

Kavi typed a website address and tapped go. "Where does this page even come from?" Kavi wondered. Far away, in a cool room full of humming computers, one big computer kept the whole website safe — that computer is the server. Kavi's tablet — the client — sent out a little message: "Please send me that page!" That message is a request. The server found the page and sent it back — the response — and it zipped across the internet onto Kavi's screen. "So my tablet asks, and the server answers," said Kavi. "The client asks, the server serves!"

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What your child will learn

1Client and serverA website lives on a server — a big computer that keeps web pages and sends them out. Your phone or tablet is the client — it asks the server for a page. Tap each part to hear its job.

2The client asks, the server servesThe two sides have different jobs. The client is the device in your hand that starts things by asking. The server is far away, holds the website, and answers. Tap each card to compare.

3How a page gets to youGetting a web page is a little program — steps in order between the client and the server. Press ▶ Run and watch the request go out and the page come back.

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A peek inside

Kavi opens a website on a tablet. Which one is the client — the tablet, or the big computer far away that keeps the website?

the client is the device that ASKS for the page

Try this at home: The big computer that keeps a website and sends out its pages is called the ____.

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Start the free interactive lesson, or print the handout for screen-free play.

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Part of Computing · Stage 4 · S4 on KAVI Academy — a secular, whole-child learning platform for ages 5–12.