A happy place for kids of all ages

The Education Place website is easy to navigate.

Eduplace.com is primarily for kids from pre-kindergarten to Grade 8 (ages approximately from 4-13 years) and their teachers and parents. The website includes reading and language, arts, maths, science, social studies, intervention, professional development, activities, Edugames, monthly themes and textbook support.

It's a website owned and operated by the conglomerate Houghton Mifflin Company (HMC), a US-based book publishing company that began in 1832. By 1908 it had an education publishing division and sales leaped 500 percent. Today it also owns three standardised test assessment divisions.

Since a major school textbook publisher owns the site, don't be surprised if there are subtle attempts to sell you a few books along the way.

The page allows the various themes available to readers of Grade 6.

It has a complete list of online leveled books, which includes Irene Fountas graded reading that contains categories such as: title, type (fiction, etc.), guided reading level, skills covered, content area connections, and a hotlink to teacher resources.

The skills exercises used in a Level A book include skills to deepen word knowledge, and to ferret out the main idea and details; and higher level books practice skills, e.g., to categorise and classify, to improve fluency, to compare and contrast themes, to analyse reading, and to monitor and classify.

It also has online support for HMC's Maths Expressions.

In the Reading section, you'll find eWord Games, eGlossaries and Weekly Reader articles, with support. Once you click on the Reading section icon, you are sent to a webpage featuring colourful animal characters running to their next class. They prompt you to choose a grade from 1 to 6.

I was feeling percipient, so I clicked Grade 6. After a few seconds the screen refreshed itself to a vibrant page, very suited to children in adornments and presentation. The title page read: "Grade 6; Theme 1: Courage; Hatchet; Passage to Freedom; Climb or die; The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle." Hatchet / Passage to Freedom / Climb or Die - sound pretty exciting to me!

Theme 4, in contrast, was about discovering ancient cultures, the lost temple of the Aztecs, the Great Wall, and the royal kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhay. The royal kingdoms book was written by writing team Patricia and Fredrick McKissack.

Life among the Aztecs, Chinese and medieval Africans all in one theme: No room for boredom there. If don't readily recall the details of the Songhay Empire doesn't ring a bell, be not abashed. It was a vast African Empire that achieved its apex in 1500 AD largely as a result of Arab trade. The seat of government was at the City of Gao on the Niger River, close to today's Timbuktu, in east central Africa. The illustrations by the talented Rob Wood are captivating and stimulating enough to propel the young reader to the end of the story.

The Monthly Themes change - you guessed it - monthly and contain many activities associated with the theme. This month the theme is "Safety". The prompts for a writing activity are: playing sports, riding a bike, and crossing the street - all of which require students to apply safety rules. A click on the "Activity" icon takes kids to a list of related activities such as "stop, drop, and roll", which are what you should do if you catch yourself on fire. A good tip to know.

A click on the Internet Resources icon takes you to a list of helpful websites, all related to safety, such as First Aid & Safety, at http://www.sce.com/kids/ .

The site also contains brainteasers and other mental gymnastics, including number rhymes, similar to this one: "It's a simple task. So we made this rhyme. Find the missing numbers, and have a good time! 0, 6, 24, 60, 120, 210,__ ,__ , __ ." If you want to know the answer you'll have to solve the rhyme yourself or visit the following webpage next week: http://www.eduplace.com/math/brain/ . Click on the "Grades 7-11" picture and enjoy.

Click ahoy!