Links
I started doing a search on educational websites with free games, activities, and information. I came across this website and it has a great compilation of those that I am already aware of or that came up in my search. The link below will lead you to a wealth of information on great websites for children on numerous subjects such as math, reading, writing, reference, arts and crafts, science, geography, and educational games.
http://www.homeschool.com/articles/top100-2008/default.asp
Starfall.com is a fun interactive site for emerging and early readers. All of the Starfall books are online and your child is able to click on the characters in the book to make them move.
Fact Monster is a site with information and games on topics such as geography, history, United States, people, sports, science, math and money, and words.
RHL School is a site with a ton of free learning resources/worksheets for subjects such as English, Reading, Research Skills, and Math (Computation and Problem Solving). Geared toward late elementary, middle, and high school grades.
The Resource Room is a site full of ideas, lessons, and articles for multisensory learning for people of all ages. There are even resources specifically for people who have learning difficulties or disabilities.
http://www.resourceroom.net/index.asp
Fun Brain Kids Center has computer games in areas such as math, grammar, and spelling.
http://www.funbrain.com/kidscenter.html
Education World has lesson plans and “writing bugs” which are topics and prompts to get your child or student writing.
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/archives/writing_bugs.shtml
Writing Fix is a site sponsored by the Northern Nevada Writing Project and contains a wealth of information on writing. There are writing prompts, lessons, traits, processes, genres, tools for writing in the classroom and more.
http://writingfix.com/index.htm
AAA Math has math instruction, practice, and games sorted either by grade level or by subject.
LiteracyMatters is a site for parents and teachers to learn and get ideas about literacy topics including reading, writing, social studies, science, math, and others. I’ve attached a second link that directs you to the reading and writing portion in the teacher’s section.
http://www.literacymatters.org/index.htm
http://www.literacymatters.org/content/readandwrite/intro.htm
Vocab Test.com is a site where middle through high schoolers can go to learn and test skills on morphemes, prefixes/suffixes, and SAT vocabulary.
Reading Services Center for Omaha Public Schools has a teacher’s corner with reading strategies for elementary and secondary grade levels, and a parents’ corner with tips on motivating your child to read, a great list of books to read by grade level, and more.
http://www.ops.org/reading/reading_home.htm
Gayle’s Preschool Rainbow is a site for early childhood teachers (but great for parents of preschoolers too!) with theme based activities and words to nursery rhymes, fingerplays, and songs to make learning fun.
http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/index.htm
Scholastic is a children’s publishing company and their site has a section for parents, kids, and teachers. For example suggested book lists for parents, games for kids, and resources for teachers.
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/home.jsp
Donna Young.org is a site dedicated to homeschooling with printable calendars, planners, and worksheets in Art, English, Handwriting, History, Math, Science, Research, Spelling, Grammar, and Vocabulary.
http://donnayoung.org/index.htm
Core Knowledge is really an idea that academic excellence and higher literacy is based upon a shared core curriculum that sets a strong foundation of knowledge grade by grade. CK program is being used in hundreds of schools in this country and the curriculum is also used by homeschoolers. The link takes you directly to CK’s lesson plans and ideas for preschool through eighth grade with links to the Baltimore Curriculum Project and Colorado Lesson Plans and Units as well.
http://www.coreknowledge.org/CK/resrcs/lessons/index.htm
uen (Utah Education Network) site has a list of Fry’s Instant Words list and Dolch Words.
http://www.uen.org/k-2educator/word_lists.shtml
ASL Browser is a great online sign dictionary indexed by each letter of the alphabet.
http://www.commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm
National Geographic Kids site is great for learning more about animals, viewing animal pictures and videos, and even hearing different sounds animals make.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
Healthy Toys.org is a site dedicated to testing toys and children’s products for lead and numerous other chemical toxins. You can search toys by type or by brand. I believe it is best to be an informed consumer but must warn you…the results may shock you.
