Inform my kid without scarring her psyche

August 30, 2012 9:49 AM

Wanted: daily news source for upper elementary student.

Miss Culp is entering 4th grade and will have current-events homework this year. Her teacher's approach is to give the class a topic at the beginning of the week, on which they have to find and present an article.

My first thought was to upgrade our newspaper subscription from Sunday-only to daily. Then I considered today's front page, above the fold story about child porn charges (that goes on to describe the videos involved), and the screaming lead headline a few weeks ago about a father murdering his three elementary-age daughters. I don't want to bubblewrap her against the horrors of the world, but I also don't want to cause too much trauma. Plus, I leave for work long before she goes to school, so there is not the chance to read and discuss the morning paper with her.

So, anyone have a good reliable daily news source aimed at kids? Kiddoki looks perfect, but is still in the Kickstarter stage. A previous Ask mentioned some good UK and Australian sites, but something US-based would be nice. She's 9 and reads at about a 9th-grade level, if that helps. Thanks!

posted by Flannery Culp to education (7 answers total)

Time for Kids is well curated, as is Science News for Kids.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:56 AM on August 30, 2012

Oh, and Student News Net.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2012

Our household mainstays ... Nick News. Time for Kids (Time is for kids except for war stories, IMO), NGO kids (may be blocked by Murdoc blocker widgets).

I also send them to simple wikipedia.
posted by tilde at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2012

One thing that I remember from high school is Channel One, the origanization where Anderson Cooper first cut his teeth in journalism. It's a daily video show and website with news that's geared towards tweens and teens.

You can also get her a subscription to a kids news magazine subscription. Scholastic has several depending on grade level. For example, for high schoolers, they have The New York Times Upfront magazine.
posted by inturnaround at 9:59 AM on August 30, 2012

When I was in 4th and 5th grade we had a month each year where we received USA Today every day for a month, and did our current events stuff that way. It's not the world's greatest paper, but maybe that would work for you?
posted by thecaddy at 11:04 AM on August 30, 2012

My 8th grader gets current events quizzes, and I was thinking about this last night. What about the daily NYT email of headlines & two-sentence summaries that links to full stories online? You can sign up here: https://myaccount.nytimes.com/register

There's also Google News, but it includes a heap of Entertainment & Sports gossip/drama/rubbish which I think they already get enough of.

And the great Christian Science Monitor has daily headline emails, too: http://www.pages03.net/christiansciencemonitor/Registration/
posted by wenestvedt at 11:23 AM on August 30, 2012

She's 9 and reads at about a 9th-grade level, if that helps.

If she's 9 and already reads at a 9th grade level, you should just let her read the regular papers online. (Who needs paper? Broadsheets are too big anyway.) They are most certainly not written above a 9th grade level, and if she's that gifted she won't care for the simplified stuff of kid-directed news.

Open the New York Times in Google Chrome's incognito window, you won't hit the paywall.

When I was in 5th/6th grade and we had current events assignments, articles were drawn from the mainstream media. I was in a gifted class, and I don't think everyone was so far ahead they were reading high school texts.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 1:02 PM on August 30, 2012