Khan Academy: Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos and a personalized learning dashboard for kindergartners through high school and beyond. With this app, your child can brush up on subjects and skills before he heads back to school or as he hits roadblocks throughout the school year. Kids are not the only ones who can benefit from this app — it also serves as a great refresher for parents before they help their kids with their homework.
Evernote: Grocery lists, carpool lists, school-supply lists, homework lists, contact lists ... back to school brings a flurry of new lists and to-do's. Evernote is a busy parent's solution for managing these lists and crossing off the never-ending to-do's. Add this organizing wonder to your list of must-download apps.
Life360: Wondering where everyone is? With this app, you can view your family members on a map, communicate with them and receive alerts when your loved ones arrive at home, school, work or any other specified location. Your child may not like it, but with this app, you will have one less thing to worry about.
Cozi: This all-in-one family organizational tool will help you “manage the chaos of everyday life.” With Cozi, you can keep track of everyone's schedules, appointments and activities in one place. This app will help you save time managing schedules so that you have more time to figure out how to get everyone where they need to go.
Packing lunches
Noosa Yoghurt: Looking for something delicious to stick into lunchboxes this year? Noosa's great taste and flavor combinations, along with the fact that it's produced in small batches on a family farm, make this unlike any other yogurt on the market today. Made with all-natural whole milk, fresh-fruit purees and honey, it's also all-natural, gluten-free and probiotic, so it's good for the whole family. It comes in compact lunchbox-size and grown-up sizes in distinctive flavors such as Cranberry Apple, Pumpkin, Honey and Strawberry Rhubarb, as well as more traditional ones like vanilla and blueberry. Find a store at noosayoghurt.com.
Simply 7: Another easy lunchbox ingredient is chips. No, not all are very healthy, but Simply 7's are. Chips come in quinoa, lentil and hummus (unusual sounding but incredibly tasty) and are vegetarian, non-GMO, kosher, gluten-free and have up to 50 percent less fat than regular potato chips. Flavors include sea salt, spicy chili pepper, roasted red peppers, creamy dill, jalapeno, BBQ, cheddar and bruschetta. It is available at many large and small retailers. Locate a store locator at simply7snacks.com.
Chooze: These bags and coordinated lunchboxes are really durable (meaning that they can stand up to being used by adults) and come in great patterns. They also have padded straps (those packs will get heavier as the year progresses), plenty of pockets and pouches, and zippers that stay zipped and don't catch, As an added bonus, they're reversible — just turn the bag inside out and you've got a whole new look without having to buy a new pack. $25 to $44 at choozeshoes.com
Dorm insurance protects property for college students
What's commonly referred to as “dorm insurance” is technically a personal-property protection plan designed for college students to cover the contents they bring from home. It can be purchased to cover a student living in a dorm, in an off-campus apartment that's not owned by the university or even studying abroad. It typically covers theft, fire, flooding and even accidental damage to items including laptops, musical instruments, smartphones and textbooks. It covers the items whether the incident occurs in the dorm room or elsewhere on campus.
While the contents of a student's dormitory room may be covered by the parents' homeowner's insurance, those policies may require a heftier deductible. Student insurance policies typically cover from $2,000 to $10,000 of property with deductibles of $25, $50 or $100.
A variety of companies sell this type of insurance. National Student Services, for instance, charges $79 for an annual policy that covers up to $2,000 of property at replacement value with a deductible of $25. Liability insurance can be added for a separate fee.
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