Website Review: Kids Health

KIDS HEALTH is an outstanding, informational website for kids, teens, parents, and educators.

This award-winning website is sponsored by the non-profit health organization The Nemours Foundation and contains limited ads. It’s available in both English and Spanish versions.

The Parent section contains information and advice for parents on topics including general health, growth, infections, diseases, pregnancy, nutrition, behavior, school, first aid, and other topics.

The Kids section is aimed at children including topics related to How the Body Works, Puberty & Growing Up, Staying Healthy, Recipes & Cooking, Staying Safe, Health Problem, Illnesses & Injuries, Health Problems of Grown Ups, People, Places & Things That Help, and Feelings. There are also areas containing Q&A, movies, quizzes, games, and a medical dictionary for kids. Most of the pages include attractive visuals and interactive elements to engage users. The reading level and focus are appropriate for elementary and middle grades.

The Teens area stresses topics of interest to young adults including Body, Mind, Sexual Health, Food & Fitness, Disease & Conditions, Infections, School & Jobs, Drugs & Alcohol, Staying Safe, and Recipes. In addition, the Q&A page focuses on FAQs. The “hot topics” pages feature issues of particular interest such as Lyme Disease, Depression, and Volunteering.

The Educator section provides health-related lesson plans across grade and subject areas including discussion questions, activities, handouts, and quizzes.

Librarians will appreciate the many informational reading pages that can easily be tied to the Common Core standards. Some of the pages contain a LISTEN button that reads the page aloud. This is particularly useful for reluctant readers and those with reading challenges.

To keep up-to-date on website updates, be sure to subscribe to the free, weekly newsletter.

Both mobile and desktop versions of the website are available. The mobile version works well with handheld-devices and tablets.

To learn more, go to http://kidshealth.org/.

To access the teacher section, go to http://classroom.kidshealth.org/.