April 2002     Vol.3 Issue 4

During focus groups with kids who used our Young Saint Louis.com website on a consistent basis, we asked for ideas on how to make the website better for them.

One of their suggestions was to include more activities that allowed kids' participation.

During a focus group with adults whose kids were regular website users, parents said they enjoyed opportunities to do things together with their kids. That's the idea behind the customized lesson plans where parents help their kids develop their reading proficiency.

With those two ideas in mind, we've added a Math Puzzler contest each month. We intend this to be a continuing monthly feature.

The idea is to let kids enter a contest while they have fun in their exploration of math. We've also kicked in some small incentives--in the form of Borders' book certificates--to make the feature even more fun. (We put submitted entries that have all correct answers into a hat and award three $10 book certificates each month.)

If you look at the Math Puzzlers, you'll find that they are quite challenging, especially for the younger kids in our target audience of 8 to 13 years of age. That's where you--as adults--come in.

We encourage parents--or older brothers and sisters and friends--to help youngsters to figure out the correct answers. If it takes a family or group effort to get the answers, that's fine with us.

We encourage all adults to participate with their children in making the Math Puzzler a regular all-family activity.

While you're doing that, you also might like to join your kids on our crossword and other word puzzles in our Fun and Games section. There are no prizes for those activities.

Young Saint Louis.com expects to add other kids-content features in the months ahead.

If you have any individual suggestions or even story ideas, send them to us by using the pre-addressed e-mail forms available in the Your Turn section of the website.

The Editors