For many of us the 17 ^th of August is rushing towards us as we try to prepare ourselves and our kids for the return to another school year. There are many sites offering healthy lunch ideas, tips on how to choose the right backpack for your child, and helpful homework tips. I have listed three sites below that offer a great deal of information in fun and well organized ways.

One of my favorite sites is http://kidshealth.org/. This site is broken into three parts, Parents, Kids and Teens with each section offering advice on health, food, fitness, illness and more. For example in the Kids section you can learn amazing things like why your feet stink or why you have boogers in your nose. The Parenting section has many topics including healthy recipes and advice on how to treat sick kids and the Teen section deals with the very serious topics of drug abuse and depression among other teen topics.

If you would rather receive advice and have conversations in a blog type atmosphere try http://www.schoolfamily.com/back2school. This site has information broken down by grade level, and also offers advice on homework, health, meal planning and more.

One of the most comprehensive sites I have found yet is at http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/going-to-school/back-to-school/back-to-school-tips-for-parents/. This site offers true nuts and bolt information on how to choose a school, transitioning from summer to back-to-school and how to beat the back-to-school blues. In addition the PBS site offers information about PBS shows, child development, how to organize a birthday party, parenting advice, fun interactive games, coloring pages and much more.

I am sure that there are many other great resources out there, and please feel free to share your favorites with me - I can add them to the next newsletter. Hopefully you will find these sites fun and informative.