Valorie Delp recently wrote about Homeschooling for Free and gave us links to many great resources. I am always on the lookout for great websites that will allow homeschoolers to educate their children for free. I have even dedicated this forum to free educational resources. Feel free to participate.
Today I discovered Sciencenewsforkids.org. Science News For Kids “is a new Web site devoted to science news for children of ages 9 to 14.” The goal of the developers is to offer science information to kids in a news format and to get them talking about it.
While perusing the website I noticed that Science News for Kids offers interesting stories on current scientific debates. It is written at a level that is comfortable for kids to read without being too simplistic or dummied down. At the end of each story, kids are given the opportunity to comment blog-style, encouraging intelligent dialogue on science. The website asks if you have parent’s permission to post your comment and requires an email. (It does not however make the child prove that they have permission to post.)
I asked my 12-year-old son to take a look at the site and he said the website was “very informative”. He feels he would definitely use the website without being forced to do so.
Science News for Kids also has fun and interactive games to keep website visitors coming back for more. You can visit the puzzle zone where you have to give a solution to a real life problem. The gamezone offers Slime Volleyball, Soduku, Chomp, and more. SciFiZone encourages imagination and research. Science Fair Zone spotlights students who have done awesome projects. Finally, the lab zone and teacher zone great project and discussion ideas you can use to teach your students.
Science News for Kids is a subsidiary of Science news, which is an award-winning weekly news magazine that covers all fields of science and has more than 1 million readers. Science news is also available (in part) online as Science News Online.