Here are a few new things from Google Assistant to help with back-to-school season

Because students will be physically attending school for the first time in over a year, it can be difficult and stressful for both parents and their children. Learning new habits, making sure they safely arrive at school, and more – Assistant is here to help. Google is releasing new and exciting features for family smart displays that will help parents and their children with these new or returning processes.

In order to help kids build good habits and be to school on time, Assistant’s Family Bell feature is getting a major upgrade. Once set up, a new checklist will appear on your Nest Hub or other smart display with important morning habits your children can build like getting dressed, making their bed, brushing their teeth, and packing their backpack. It’s a nice way to give them a bit of motivation bright and early and these will be fully customizable too.

Oh, and with Family Bell working on smartphones later this month, you as a parent will also be able to take this with you! Once complete, they will only need to tap on each one to mark it off. Then, they will be met with a pleasant achievement sound and celebratory animation! Checklists will soon work for bedtime too.

With your Google Family Group set up, you can also ask Assistant “Hey Google, where’s my family?” to make sure that they made it to school safely or to soccer practice, for example. Not only that, but throughout the day, you can take advantage of Family Broadcasts to send messages to them periodically. These broadcasts will be sent not only to smart home devices but also to phones once the aforementioned mobile support rolls out.

The English Schoolhouse is also partnering with Google to bring new diverse teaching tools and stories to Hubs over the next few weeks. Saying “Hey Google, teach my family something new”, will pull up all sorts of exciting and educational content to liven up your smart display outside of school hours. There’s also a new Guess the Drawing game for kids that is just a request away.

Smart displays aren’t the only way that Google is helping to educate students and families – Search is getting a new interactive periodic table of elements that can be accessed via phones, tablets, Chromebooks, and other laptops or desktops as well right through the Chrome browser. It includes AR 3D models of atoms that you can zoom into and see how many electrons, protons, and neutrons make it up. If only I had things like this when I was a kid.

Once your children arrive back at home to tell you all about their day (as my son is sure to do later today), the learning doesn’t need to end there. Google is building on its partnership with Pottermore with new storytime content from the Harry Potter universe. Once it’s released, just say “Hey Google, tell me a Fantastic Beasts Story”. While you listen, an interactive world map of the Wizarding World will appear on your Nest Hub to increase immersion.

Lastly, anyone taking Spanish class or any other foreign language can take advantage of Google Assistant’s ‘Live Translation’ feature baked directly into Google Search. It helps you to recall specific words or phrases that you’ve saved to your dictionary at your request. Google has done a lot to help parents, teachers and students transition back into the physical school environment and even to help those who will remain in a virtual classroom. I can’t wait to see what it comes up with next, and how families utilize these tools to ease their way back into a normal lifestyle.