Educational Websites to Use with Children
Reading Help
Starfall
Starfall is an excellent website with fun, interactive games and lots of other activities “to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL,ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.” It’s widely considered one of the best.
RIF’s Reading Planet
Offers interactive reading-based games, activities, and age-appropriate book suggestions for children to enjoy.
http://www.rif.org/kids/readingplanet/gamestation.htm
PBS Kids and Word Games
This is one of the many fun activities the PBS Kids website has to offer to children. When you’ve finished with some word games look around the website for more.
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/games/#word
Also check out Word Quest http://pbskids.org/wordquest/#/login
Vocabulary andSpellingCity
Children can enter their spelling and vocabulary words on-line and have this website make their homework into fun games.
Fun Brain
This site provides fun word games like Mad Libs as well as on-line books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid. There are other great math and learning games here too.
Sprout On-line
For the preschool set, there’s Sprout on-line. It has lots of games and activities that children 5 and under will enjoy.
Reading Rockets
This site provides lots of reading help for parents, mentors, and teachers. It has a section entitled “Helping Struggling Readers” that is particularly helpful for anyone with reluctant readers or children who seem to be slower to catch on.
http://www.readingrockets.org/helping
Alphabet Printable Activities
Just as its title suggests, this website is full of great, printable alphabet activities for young children.
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/alphabetp1.htm
ColorínColorado
Readingtips in English and Spanish for parents to use with children from birth through the third grade. Bilingual.
http://www.colorincolorado.org/guides/readingtips
Thinkfinity
This is one of the most comprehensive on-line resources for adult and family literacy in theU.S. Bilingual.
http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/spanish/
FloridaCenterfor Reading Research
This website is a goldmine of literacy activities for adults to use with children. Developed for teachers, it has activities broken out by age and developmental skill sets.
Parts of Speech
Offers Powerpoints for adults and interactive activities for children about the parts of speech and math.
http://www.languagearts.pppst.com/partsofspeech.html
Word Girl Synonym Toast
Offers a fun game allowing children to find synonyms for words and challenge their friends when they’ve finished.
http://www.scholastic.com/wordgirl/synonym_toast.htm
Grammar Glossary
An on-line resource for definitions of some of those tricky grammar concepts for grades K-6.
http://www.harcourtschool.com/glossary/grammar/index_pt.html
Fact Monster
Find fun facts about most subjects and quizzes and games.
Math Help
Math Playground
This site calls itself “an action-packed site for elementary and middle school students.” Here students can practice math skills, play logic games and have fun with math.
http://www.mathplayground.com/
Math Cats
This website has lots of interesting math activities for children of all ages.
http://www.mathcats.com/index.html#contents
Roz’s Math-a-Rama
A fun and interactive site created by Houghton Mifflin Math with lots of grade-specific activities for children K-6.
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/
Cool Math
This site calls itself “an amusement park for math and more.” It has games for young children in kindergarten through high school.
Hot Math
This site has solutions to tough math concepts for older students. It explains textbook homework problems with step-by-step answers.
Science Help
Science Storybooks
This site uses animated storybooks to “help teach science in a fun and entertaining manner.”
http://www.msnucleus.org/membership/guide/storybooks.html
Try Science
This site provides interactive science “adventures,” experiments, field trips, and live cameras located at various science centers in theU.S.
http://www.tryscience.org/whatstryscience.html
Home Work Spot
Offers help with homework in subjects ranging from science fair projects to math, history, chemistry, and English class.
Local Interest
Memphis Loves Kids
This website is a great way to find out what kinds of local kid-friendly events are happening inMemphis. They also have an email list you can sign up for to find out more about upcoming events.
http://www.memphisloveskids.com
ArtsMemphis
A website devoted to listing upcoming art-related (and often free) events from music to theater to speech & debate and art exhibitions; this is a parents’ one-stop for fun and educational art experiences.
Children’s Museum of Memphis
This website does not include interactive games for children, but it does include up-to-date scheduling and lots of other great printable activities.
Parenting Help
Parenting from Boys Town
This website provides parents with helpful strategies to raise healthy, well-adjusted young people. Subjects range from motor skills to social skills, medical and school issues to age-appropriate behaviors.
PBS Parents
PBS has been in the business of educating while entertaining children since before the invention of Sesame Street! This website is a go-to resource for parents that also has a great Q&A section.
Common Sense Media
This website has a wealth of information on selecting age-appropriate media for your child. It includes parents’ and children’s reviews of movies and books and has a unique rating system to show what types of adult issues might be located in the media your children are selecting.
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/
Ready At Five
This website is full of great activities to insure your child’s school success. The website contains activity calendars and other resources in both English and Spanish.
Disney’s Family Fun
This website contains printable, Disney-related activities and lots of other “family fun” activities from recipes to weekend getaways, to how to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Family Education
This website gives parents resources beginning with pregnancy all the way through their child’s 18thbirthday. It contains parenting blogs, a toy finder, printable activities, and fun quizzes for parents to take about parenting.
http://www.familyeducation.com
Screen Your 4 Year Old’s Pre-Reading Skills
This test allows you to track your baby’s reading progress by taking the same test twice throughout the year.
http://school.familyeducation.com/reading/early-learning/46528.html
Resource Guide for Young Artists
A comprehensive guide for fostering your emerging young artist's talents and imagination.
http://www.phonemarketing.org/resource-guide-for-young-artists
