Welcome to the New Year and a brand new WebWatch column. As an internet journalist, my MacBook is virtually attached to my right arm (and my baby daughter to my left) at all times, so I’m delighted to be regularly sharing with you my pick of the best of the web: the fun, the informative, and the simply obscure! I’m happy to include your recommendations too: please email them to the address below.

As The New Stork Times goes to press, most of Switzerland – including my patch, Geneva  – is covered in a thick, fluffy layer of snow. Beautiful to look at, but not so practical for getting out and about with children. So this WebWatch is dedicated to websites that will entertain the entire family inside your home while we wait for the onset of Spring.

Have you ever fancied making Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building or a London taxi cab out of paper? At [www.papertoys.com] there are hundreds of free designs for all ages and skills. All you need is a printer. This little website is a gem that will keep adults and children alike occupied for hours.

Be a mad professor at [www.crackingideas.com], where animated plasticine favourites Wallace and Gromit will help you fulfil your potential as an inventor. You can download activity packs, which are specifically designed to encourage creativity and innovation to help you come up with your own unique Cracking Idea, enter competitions, play games and take part in a monthly Eureka Challenge.

You’ve probably heard of virtual worlds such as the website Second Life… Well [www.moshimonsters.com] is an educational virtual world for kids, where (with parental approval) they adopt a monster and look after it by solving puzzle games, which earn their monster virtual rewards called Rox. Kids can then spend Rox on virtual items such as food, furniture and other treats for their pet monster. As their monster grows, it can visit new locations in Monstro City. Monster owners can also make friends with other owners around the world via the message boards. A beautifully designed site that encourages lateral thinking and problem solving.
A similar website is [www.clubpenguin.com]. Owned by Disney, it operates along the same lines using penguins instead of monsters.

Are you an aspiring artist, photographer or writer? At [www.Lulu.com] you can turn your original work into marketable creations. Publish your own novel or cookbook, make a calendar out of family pics or turn wedding or travel photos into a sleek coffee-table photo book. What’s more you can even sell your creations on Lulu with an 80/20 revenue split – maybe an incentive for older kids to earn some pocket money.

Speaking of pocket money, these dark winter months are an ideal time to teach your children the invaluable skills of home maintenance - aka cleaning. [Www.flylady.net] is a charming website riddled with top tips, humour and inspiring testimonials on getting your house tip-top tidy. Video guides, a section on cleaning for kids, and the all-important 5 Minute Room Rescue. Invaluable Spring cleaning support.

Babies and toddlers love nursery rhymes all year round, but it can be difficult to remember the songs of our youth. At [www.rhymes.org.uk] you’ll find a plethora of old favourites alongside lyrics and a history of their origins. For example, did you know that [Ring a Ring o Rosies] is about the 17th century Bubonic Plague, [Humpty Dumpty] was a cannon in the English Civil War or [Pop Goes The Weasel] is based on London’s cockney rhyming slang?

It’s difficult to know when is the right time to get children interested in news, and the best way to do it: opening their minds to current affairs while shielding them from more gruesome stories. Unsurprisingly, the BBC leads the way at [http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews]. The award-winning website is aimed at children from 6 - 12, and is updated daily. In addition to child-orientated news stories (including sports, showbiz, animals, pictures etc) from around the globe there are games, quizzes, votes and the opportunity for kids to be journalists and contribute their own news stories. There’s even a sensitive section called ‘It’s Ok To Be Upset By The News’… it might be worth us all having a read of that!

I hope there’s something in this month’s selection that appeals to you and your families, and that you get through the rest of the winter without suffering too much cabin fever. Remember ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing’, so make sure you switch off your computers, don your thermals and get outside for at least one rollicking snowball fight!
g.farrell@TheStork.ch