Monday, December 18, 2000		Kids Chat

Making dull subjects fun

Hello & welcome to the weekly kids chat.

Fluppy: Hey guys, why do we meet weekly and not daily?

Cliparti: So that you can spend the week discovering the new sites that you learn about in the previous week.

Windy: And also because all of us have to study the rest of the week and can’t waste our time by chatting with you.

Fluppy: What do you mean? I too have to study and for your kind information even I don’t have time to waste.

Windy: Okay! So if you don’t have much free time, then I think we should not talk of fun or games sites. That’ll lead to wasting of time.

Fluppy: Then what will we talk about?

Windy: Well, some learning or educational sites, I guess. What do you say?

Fluppy: Er.. Well, okay. Yes, why not?

Windy: Good! To begin with I will tell you about a little D’s Math Printer. It is a download that will help you print out math assignment sheets. The skill levels vary from 5 to 50 and you can choose your own level and get a set of problems to solve. As you solve 18 problems, you can proceed to the next sheet. Go to http://members.aol.com/MasterDev/index.html and check it out for yourself.

Cliparti: I know of another download for primary learning. It is good educational exercise for elementary school kids, especially between 6 and 14. It not only covers math, but also spelling, comprehension, geography and even lessons on typing. Fluppy, you will find a variety of games and mind puzzlers. You can also get a marketing experience at the lemonade stand, candy drive and Pizza Place contests. Try it out at http://www.kidwaresoftware.com. It sure is a good download.

Windy: But Cliparti, didn’t you hear Fluppy announce that he had no time to waste. Don’t tell him about any more fun sites. He only needs to know about educational sites.

Fluppy: I never said that. Cliparti don’t you listen to him.

Windy: Why not, Honey. Don’t worry, I will tell you about a wonderful download that helps you do your homework. Its called paramagnus e-work and you will find it at http://www.paramagnus-development.com. It is a useful homework aid for students of almost all levels. It covers subjects like Science, History, Geography and Languages. And has many resources on Chemistry, Physics and Biology. Although paramagnus does not really offer anything original, as the information can be found elsewhere using a standard web browser, but it saves a lot of time usually spent searching the Internet.

Fluppy: So now I know, how your homework is always done on time.

Cliparti: Enough of teasing. Fluppy, I’ll tell you of some good sites which are fun and which for Windy’s information are educational too.

Fluppy: Thanks. See (to Windy), fun sites!

Windy: See (to Fluppy), educational!

Cliparti: See, it’s both. At http://www.factmonster.com you will have a wonderful learning experience. You can learn about the world, its people, science, what’s cool, games and quiz games from here. And further more you will even find an atlas, dictionary and an even an encyclopedia here. So its learning but with lots of fun.

Windy: At http://www.allmath.com you will find all that you ever wanted to know about math. From flash cards to metric converter, math tools, math games, biographies of math wizards, articles and math glossaries. Everything on math is here.

Cliparti: Then I think it must be somewhat similar to "Ask Dr. Math."

Windy: No, its different in the sense that Dr. Math deals with only problems about maths. But this site has a lot of other stuff like articles and biographies of mathematicians.

Cliparti: Yeah, you’re right. Dr. Math deals with questions and answers of all problems of Elementary school level. You will find math’s puzzles, math’s projects, geometry and lots more at http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/drmath.elem.htm. And now to lighten the atmosphere I will tell you of really funny site.

Fluppy: Thanks Cliparti. I was beginning to feel so bored with all these serious sites.

Cliparti: I could see that. Anyway, you can log on to

http://apple-corps.westnet.com/apple-corps.2html.

Fluppy: What is it about? Some sort of information on fruits and vegetable?

Cliparti: No, it is a funny game site that you will surely love. Here you choose a vegetable or fruit and make its face. If you are really fond of the fruit you can make it cute looking and nice smiling types. In case you really detest it you can add all kinds of shrewd features to it and take out your entire grudge against it by making it the most horrible looking face in the world.

Fluppy: But I am not good at drawing.

Cliparti: You don’t have to be. There are various sets of eyes, nose, ears, hats, beards etc. that you can add to the face of your vegetable. With so many permutations see what your vegetable drawing turns out to be.

Windy: I think this is a nice and decent way of telling moms what fruits and veggies we like and what we don’t.

Fluppy: Good idea. Now I can tell my mom what kind of devil I see in brinjal and how mangoes seem like angels to me.

Cliparti: Go ahead and try it. Do remember to tell us next week how she reacted to it.