Shelley Howells: Time to edit the homework favourites

COMMENT

We're only days away from the kids going back to school. Sure, many curse the day on account of the traffic explosion. But those of us who have been in close quarters with kids for weeks on end are counting the hours.

In this house, we're feeling virtuous: the stationery has been bought, sticky paper applied to the books (the table, the floor, the body). The pencils are sharpened, clothes named and last year's sandwich has been scraped from the bottom of the school bag. We've even had a spring-clean of the homework "favourites" on the computer, keeping only the most useful.

Perennial favourite is the low-tech, rather ugly site Enchanted Learning, which has great info on many topics, from anatomy and animals to web tips for kids. The basic fact-sheets and printouts are perfect for primary-school level homework projects - they stick to the facts so there's no information-overload, and the simple graphics are black-and-white printer friendly for cheapos like me.

The Why? Files, takes a look behind present (US) headlines and explains the science behind the news.

For example, with President Bush's push into space, the site asks, "Humans v robots: who's best in space?"

For information about countries, there is the CIA World Factbook, but we find the BBC News Country Profiles less overwhelming.

Although there are many good search engines for children, like KidsClick!, the 8-year-old prefers grown-up Google to using what he calls "kiddy" search engines.

So, for general searches, we use the Google directory's "Kids and Teens" section, selecting the "search only within kids and teens" option that (so far) limits the scope of the search to (mostly) useful sites and (so far) doesn't deliver porn.

At times, it seems like every half-decent homework site is US-based, but there is plenty of top Kiwi content once you start digging.

The Ministry of Education's NZ Maths site is really useful.

It's aimed at teachers but patient parents, willing to plough through the screeds of information and lessons, can find lots of useful homework stuff, as well as excellent links (with reviews and ratings) to other NZ curriculum-appropriate maths sites.

Wicked is a wicked kiwi educational site for kids (primary and intermediate) that is part of Te Kete Ipurangi - The Online Learning Centre, a bilingual educational portal for teachers (and keen, hands-on parents).

Wicked has lots of shockwave/flash interactive games and activities, based around all core subjects, that are so entertaining kids don't notice they're learning as they play.

Educational publishers Sunshine Online have fun projects and games for kids, and Learning Media has good online school-related activities (eg: understanding the Sun and shadows for kids 5-7 years; cartoon writing 8-10 years) and an online English-Maori dictionary.

Kids' TV local hero Suzy Cato's web site for her show Suzy's World has brilliant fact-sheets on all sorts of science topics, from aerodynamics to yachts, in easy-to understand language, with the facts, simple experiments and jokes on each topic.

There are more Kiwi educational links on Educational Links New Zealand.

While Junior's online doing the homework, someone - perchance mum - is in the kitchen trying to improvise dinner for four from a limp lettuce, three carrots and something unidentifiable from the back of the freezer.

New web site menumade could have Head Chef demanding computer time, as it may hold the solution to that last-minute-dinner dilemma. Created by Auckland mums Rachel Brill-Holland and Catherine Wheeler (a dietitian), the site aims to take the stress out of planning, shopping and cooking family dinners.

For $39 for 12 weeks (you can get a week's free trial if you register), subscribers can log on to get a week's worth of nutritionally balanced dinner menus.

Once customised according to taste and family size, the system produces a complete shopping list for that week's meals (they figure that the money saved on no-waste shopping will pay for the subscription), as well as step-by-step preparation instructions.

With no-brainer cooking instructions, even the kids can whip up dinner: an excellent hands-on educational experience for children, and feet-up experience for mums.

* Email Shelley Howells