SchoolFinder users can now find local resources from our partner, Care.com, while learning more about their child’s school.

Care.com is the leading online provider of trusted child caregivers and tutors.  The site makes the usually intimidating process of finding child care easy for parents by including extensive information on both babysitters and nannies, such as experience, availability, reviews from other parents, and personal introductions.  Also, Care.com’s extensive tutor profiles include tutor’s education, experience, and subject specialties.  Parents can browse all of the options in their area and find the best match for their family as a Care.com member.

Many parents come to SchoolFinder to learn about their child’s school or schools in their neighborhood or city. We hope that by providing local Care.com babysitters, nannies, tutors, and special needs providers within SchoolFinder will provide a valuable resource to our users.  We are thrilled to recommend the high quality of Care.com members to our Education.com community!

Get started today by finding your local school.

October will soon be here, and I’m so excited about the fall and winter holidays! The social butterfly in me loves all the parties and bonding, festive decorating and abundant kindness this time of year.

Another reason for that ‘night-before-Christmas’ feeling in my stomach: our family is hosting monthly activities parties, and I can’t wait for them to begin!

• In October: we’re throwing a Halloween-themed party. We’ll set up a spooky beverage bar, serve scary snacks, play a monstrous game of bingo and produce a shadow puppet show. (We may also squeeze a little housewarming in there too, because even with fun, this momma’s a multi-tasker!)

• In November: we’ll host hands-on, educational activities centered around exploring nature and science, learning about Native Americans, and giving thanks.

• In December: it’ll be a family-style birthday bash (for yours truly and other December babies). We may make a dance map to practice language skills (and put a snap in our step), whip up tie-dyed tissue paper, or create snowy salt paintings.

Among the many goodies our holiday party guests will enjoy is an opportunity to win prizes in Education.com’s Activities Photo Contest. By uploading their activities pics as contest entries, they’ll have a shot at winning: children’s guitars from BerkeleyWind.com; Kenny Loggins’ new family CD, “All Join In”; and the grand prize package of a $500 gift certificate to Shutterfly and a $250 cash prize from Education.com!

I wish I could win that grand prize package. Cash is always handy, of course, and I’d use the Shutterfly gift certificate to produce some photo memory books as special keepsakes for our family members near and far. Browsing Shutterfly’s offering, I might also pick up some thank you cards, create a 2010 calendar, or surprise our daughter with a CenterStage Poster of her and the Jonas brothers. As an Education.com employee, though, I’m ineligible to win prizes in the contest, so will have to appreciate the prizes vicariously. I will enjoy doing the activity projects with our daughter, and will upload our photos to help other families understand each activity better as well.

At our holiday parties this year, it may not be the fruit punch, treats or attire they’ll be talking about. Instead, it’ll be the countdown to winning and active flash bulbs that’ll have ‘em abuzz. To all of the activities party paparazzi everywhere: may your happy holidays also be sprinkled with the prizes and fun of the Activities Photo Contest!

As I’ve posted before, I’m having a little bit of a hard time saying goodbye to summer.  Thank goodness, my job here at Education.com has put a little “happily” in the ever after of summer.  As you hopefully know, this summer we held our first ever Summer Activities Challenge.  In this summer long contest, we challenged families to do at least 20 different Education.com activities together.  Those who completed the Challenge earned a personalized Certificate of Achievement and were entered to win one of 100 LEGO Creator Mini Sets or a new Dell Latitude 2100 Netbook.

We were SO excited about the results!  We had over 2,000 families join us in the challenge.  Many of them wrote to us to tell us about their experiences and said things like:

• My grandkids and I have had more fun doing projects from your site.  They are 4, 2 1/2 and 2 years old.  The ideas I got from you brought so much fun for us, helped the kids learn so many things and brought us all closer.  Thank You So Much!  It made our summer!
• I just wanted you to know I was so pleased I came across your web-site this was so great-I had to work this summer but it gave us a chance to do things together that did not take a lot of time for the most part and even my 19 year old got into the act and helped her brother.  I have you bookmarked can not wait for next summers’ activities GREAT JOB!
• Many thanks for all the summer fun. I’ve been telling all my friends about your great site.
• I enjoy your [Summer Activities Challenge ] e-mails so much.  I use your ideas many times each week.  They come in handy when we get tired of playing and need something new to do.  Keep up the good work.  Very much appreciated.
• We had a terrific and active summer thanks to Education.com’s Summer Activity Challenge!!!

And now I have the GREAT honor of announcing the grand prize winner of this year’s Summer Activities Challenge - Tamara Schoch!  Congratulations Tamara!  We hope you and your family enjoy the new laptop…and don’t forget to add Education.com to your ‘favorites’ list! ;-)   Congratulations too to the 100 families who won Lego sets and to ALL families who participated, avoided the summer slide, and had fun learning together.  We can’t wait to see you all again for next year’s Summer Challenge!  And stay tuned to our site - a new Activities Photo Contest will be announced soon!

Kat

It’s not the season of summer I miss exactly.

Ice Cream for Lunch...again. I love summer.

 It’s “Summer-Me” -the mom I am all summer - that I’m sad to see go.  Summer-Me is fun and laid back.  She stays snuggled in bed for a long time in the morning with munchkins excited to tell her every second of last night’s dreams.  She allows ice cream for dinner, camping in the living room, and staying in PJs all day.  Summer-Me cares not about bedtimes or schedules or even exactly how many times a day her children’s teeth get brushed.

Summer campout in the living room - on a (gasp) weeknight!

But Summer-Me is gone now and in her place is a more structured and stressed mommy called…oh, I don’t know…”School-Year-Me.” (See? Even her name isn’t as pleasant as “Summer-Me”).  Anyway, School-Year-Me looks down her nose at morning snuggle sessions and can say “Hurry! We’re Late!” fifty times in the amount of time it takes a four year old to remember a dream out loud.  School-Year-Me is a slave to her iPhone calendar with its multiple entries every afternoon for soccer practice, cub-scout meetings, PTA events, and homework time.  School-Year-Me counts vegetable servings and minutes until bedtime.  And she knows exactly how many times a day her children’s teeth get brushed.

So, I’m going to allow myself a few minutes to sit here and mourn the loss of Summer-Me but then, I’ve got to get moving…my iPhone says we’ve got gymnastics this afternoon and those spelling words aren’t gonna learn themselves for Whiz’s test tomorrow’s.

Happy Fall! 

Kat

Fall ushers is an important time for juniors and seniors in high school who are preparing for college applications, and it is also an exciting moment for newly admitted and returning college students to begin the new academic year on college campuses across the United States. With recent budget cuts, many high schools have been forced to let school counselors go, forcing many high school students online to get advice on topics, such as writing college essays and getting letters of recommendation. In addition, many college students struggle to navigate a larger campus with stricter academic requirements than they are accostomed to in high school. We have partnered with John Wiley & Sons, Inc, a top education publisher, to bring high school students, college students, the most practical tips and advice for navigating the transition to college. See here for a complete collection of articles from John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

High school students may be interested in articles on why the college admission process has become so competitive, what colleges look for in an applicant, and choosing a college once you have been admitted.

College students will likely benefit from articles on everything from Organizing Your Study Space, Participating in Extracurricular Activities, and Managing Academic Pressures at College.

There is even information for students who are seeking an alternative to the traditional four-year college, including community college.

We hope that students and parents find this information helpful. Typically, this content is available only on the bookshelf of your local bookstore, so please let us know if you would like to see more of this kind of information!

We’re excited to announce that you now have yet another way to access reliable local school data. In addition to our SchoolFinder Application, our web service API, and customizable local school widgets, you can now access local school profiles through the recently published Local Market Explorer Wordpress plug-in!

The Local Market Explorer plug-in is another way that Education.com is seeking to break down information barriers that have made it difficult or expensive to access to comprehensive information about school performance. We launched our school syndication platform last fall and since that time, we’ve received a welcome response from our partners in the real estate and on-line media sectors. With detailed information on local schools from Education.com side by side with compelling category information from Zillow, Walkscore, Yelp, and Flickr at their fingertips, the Local Market Explorer makes it even easier for local websites to quickly incorporate information that not too long ago was all but inaccessible. It’s great to see.

So how does it work?

• Install
  • You can download the Local Market Explorer plugin here in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
• Activate and Customize
  • You’ll need separate API keys for all the APIs, except for Education.com. The links to the API signup pages are accessible via the settings menu of the plugin.
  • The Yelp, Walk Score, Market Activity, and About/Flickr modules can be turned on or off.
• Display
  • Once installed, point the URL in your browser location bar to one that matches the format of <http://www.yourblog.com/local/city/state>. For example, to load the module for Palo Alto, you’ll want to point your browser to or link to <http://www.yourblog.com/local/paloalto/ca>.

We’d like to extend special thanks to the developers who built the plug-in, Andrew Mattie and Jonathan Mabe, Drew at Zillow for leading the vision behind the plug-in, and our friends at Walkscore for their work in helping to create one of the easiest platforms for real estate professionals and local experts to provide detailed community information to their clients and visitors.

We’re looking forward to continuing to build innovation in the category.  Let us know how you like the most recent addition to our syndication platform and follow us on Twitter @schoolfinder for the latest and greatest updates.

The Local Schools widget has become a popular free tool for real estate sites and blogs to showcase local school information. We’ve received positive feedback on how easy the widget is to customize and install. The recent enhancements were made in order to further meet our user’s needs around free school data.

So what’s new and improved on the widget?

Now, you can showcase schools near an exact address. Simply input the street address and city or zip and the closest schools to the address will be shown in the widget, both in the map and list view. Now real estate sites can implement the widget to showcase nearby schools for specific properties.

Another great new feature is the ability to browse the widget map past the default location. For example, if a widget is created for the zip code 94603, the user can browse past the schools that lie within the zip code to see schools in surrounding zip codes or cities.

Lastly, our widget has an updated look and feel- we’ve updated the look but kept all of the customization options available, such as color choice, size options, and custom title so it can be visually integrated onto other sites.

Don’t worry, we’ve kept our other key features, such as the ability to create a widget for a zip, city, entire county, or a specific school district. That way you can create a widget for the exact area you serve.

Our local school data tools are free and popular with sites and blogs in a variety of industries, including real estate, local media, and school districts.  We hope to continue to see the popularity of the widget grow and are really excited to showcase the new and improved widget at the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco this week! Feel free to contact us with any questions on widget use at api-support@education.com.

Education.com is excited to announce a new partnership with PrepSportswear.com, a leading provider of custom school and team apparel.  School apparel and gear is now easy to find, customize, and afford.  SchoolFinder school profiles include individual school gear stores, where you can customize your school’s t-shirts, sweatshirts, jerseys, or any other spirit gear.  Put your name on the item, include your school mascot, and make it your own! I can’t wait to get a new Stevenson Patriots sweatshirt from my old high school… or get my niece excited about her new school with some school gear of her own.

Head back to school with spirit! Just in time for back to school savings, find your school and get your gear today!

It’s been just over a month since we kicked off our first annual Summer Activities Challenge and I’m so excited about all the progress families have made so far!  We have over 1,300 families participating and 43 families have finished (and are therefore entered to win a Dell Latitude 2100 Netbook or one of 100 Lego Creator Mini Sets).  Here are some of my favorite stories so far from the Challenge:

• One mom let us know her daughter’s day camp is participating in the Challenge together - and check out the awesome 4th of July streamers they made!

A summer day camp works together on the Challenge!

• A soldier told us she’s participating in the Challenge with her kids even though she’s currently deployed far from home.   She prints out and mails activities she thinks her kids will like, they complete the activities with the dad and grandma, and then they talk about their experiences doing the activities when she calls home.
• My kids got so excited about the duct tape wallets they made that they’ve now moved on to more elaborate creations.  Last week I went on a fancy night out on the town and Whiz made me an oh-so-elegant duct tape evening bag to carry.  (photo to come!)
• Another mom let us know that she was having so much fun doing the Challenge with her five year old daughter that she posted a note about it in her Mom’s Club newsletter and now a bunch of those moms are doing the Challenge together.

To help parents make sense of all the information (and misinformation) on childhood immunizations and vaccinations, Education.com has collaborated with Dr. Wayne Yankus, a practicing pediatrician in New Jersey and past president of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to bring together articles to address parent’s most pressing questions about children’s vaccines. Dr. Meg Fisher, Vice President Elect of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Dr. Paul Offit, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Alan Weller, and others contributed parent-friendly articles for this Special Edition. You can find it here.

The Special Edition includes articles that provide an overview of what vaccines are, how they work, as well as information on individual vaccines, immunization schedules, rumors associated with vaccines, and requirements for kindergarten entry in each state. For parents who prefer to get their information in audio, we have also provided a number of audiocasts from the American Academy of Pediatrics covering topics, such as the impact of giving several vaccines at once to a child, and the danger of the flu.

Our goal with this special edition is to provide the much needed information and guidance for parents of children and teens on understanding the role of vaccinations in their child’s life.