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Get Your Brain Ready For School
After the long summer break, you can start sharpening your students’ minds and erasing that “summer fog” by exploring some favorite brain-bending websites and activity recommendations from the staff and volunteers of Lakeview Academy. These sites are listed here as a resource for families. Please note: Lakeview Academy does not control, is not responsible for, nor specifically endorses these sites or their content.
Language Arts
http://www.iknowthat.com This K-6 site is wonderful! The site provides fun language arts activities. There is no fee for basic usage. A $34.95 yearly subscription will provide an ad-free environment and progress reports.
http://www.spellbee.org This site provides an online, interactive, multiplayer spelling bee geared for students in grades 2-8. This site is entirely free. To play, students log on to the site, pick a nickname, and get matched with a partner -- whether in the same classroom or across the world. The two players are simultaneously shown a different list of words. They are then prompted to select words, one at a time, for their partners to spell. Each player listens to an audio recording of a sentence while reading the same sentence (with the word missing) on the screen. The player then types in the correct spelling of the missing word. Ten rounds complete a game. This site was created by Brandeis University.
http://www.learningplanet.com This site provides language arts games for students in grades K-8. Many games are free; some games require a $39.95 yearly membership fee.
http://www.nwanews.com/nie/educators/PDFs/SecondaryLanguageArtsActivities.pdf
This website gives 40 ways to use the newspaper to improve language arts skills.
www.readwritethink.org This website has many activities and resources designed to improve language arts skills. Click on the calendar icon to see an activity for almost everyday of the month.
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/lss/lang/teach.html This website offers many language arts activities such as an online newspaper boy and language-specific links.
www.bookadventure.com Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 7,000 recommended titles, take multiple choice quizzes on the books they've read, and earn points and prizes for their literary successes. Book Adventure was created by and is maintained by Sylvan Learning.)
http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1886.html Use these journal starters to get writing in a journal after reading a book.
To increase fluency, download and print readers’ theaters to perform as a family; http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm or http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html
http://pbskids.org/lions/ Between the Lions. A PBS kids' show that helps kids learn to read. Includes songs, stories, and games.
Read aloud 20 minutes daily (The Read Aloud Handbook by Trelease and How to Get Your Child to Love Reading by Codell are good sources for titles); Have older children read silently for an additional 20 minutes daily (see the middle school section of our website for the English reading list.)
For younger grades review letters and letter blends.
Take a field trip to a different library than the one you usually visit: Draper, South Jordan and downtown Salt Lake City are three that are fun to see.
Math
http://www.coolmath4kids.com This free site has fun learning games for students in grades 3-6. Topics covered include addition, subtraction, long division, and fractions.
http://www.aaamath.com This is a free site that reviews basic math skills. Students are able to select their grade (K-8).
http://www.iknowthat.com This K-6 site is wonderful! The site provides fun math activities (try Leon's Math Movies!) There is no fee for basic usage. A $34.95 yearly subscription will provide an ad-free environment and progress reports.
http://www.learningplanet.com This site provides math games for students in grades K-8. Many games are free; some games require a $39.95 yearly membership fee.
www.scweb4free.com/middleschoolmathgames.htm This is a site has middle school math games. The games help students to review topics such as fractions, rounding, order of operations, and more.
www.mathsisfun.com This site has a variety of resources. There are links to practice your times tables, make worksheets to work on (there are also answer keys on the site), and there are some games that make you think but are fun.
http://www.mathplayground.com/index.html Math games, word problems, flashcards, problem solving puzzles.
http://www.aplusmath.com/Games/index.html Flashcards, games, printable worksheets, homework helper.
http://www.funbrain.com/math/ Helps refresh basic math facts through games.
http://www.gamequarium.com/math.htm Games to help refresh basic math facts.
Cook some favorite family recipes and have your student half or double the amounts needed for the ingredients. (Try ¾ for upper elementary students.)
Make flash cards for timed races of math facts.
Have younger children count as far as possible. Car rides are a great time to do this.
Science
The state has a wonderful science website designed around the state standards. There are many links to activities that can be done at home that are directly related to the curriculum. http://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/sci/ The Elementary section has Sci-ber Text links for each grade 3-6. The Secondary section also has Sci-ber Text links for 7th & 8th grade and Earth Systems as well as experiments for biology, chemistry and physics. The middle school science teacher, Lorrie Cook, invites parents and students (of elementary AND middle school age) to write her about their experiences with the activities. You can reach her at lcook@lakeview-academy.com.
http://nationalzoo.siedu/Animals/WebCams/ Smithsonian National Zoo Web Cams. You can click on an animal, read about that animal and view the animals in real time at the zoo via a web cam set up in their cages.
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/kids/index.html U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services kids corner with lots of interesting information about endangered species.
http://www.nps.gov/webrangers/ National Parks web site for kids. Kids can solve mysteries and puzzles, play games, take part in stories, and gather secret words.
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/home/index.html NASA for kids. Games, activities, stories, news and information for parents and kids.
Social Studies
http://www.lewis-clark.org/ Discovering Lewis and Clark.
http://www.greatestplaces.org/ Geography: Exploring the world’s greatest places.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/index.html National Geographic Kids Web site. It has a ton of stuff including links to the GeoBee challenge. Games, activities, stories, maps, homework help, coloring book, creature features, etc.
http://www.geographia.com/ Great geography web site.
http://www.uspto.gov/go/kids/ United States Patent and Trademark Office web site for kids. Teaches kids about inventions and patents. Also has a link to helping kids learn the importance of avoiding piracy.
http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/kids/kids.html FactFinder Kids' Corner. A web site put together by the US Census department. Fun and interesting facts about different states and the information the census can help you find.
http://www.usdoj.gov/kidspage/ Justice for kids. A web site put together by the US Department of Justice to help kids learn about the courts, the FBI, other law enforcement agencies. Area is divided into two age groups to target different children's interest and ability levels.
http://clerkkids.house.gov/ A kids' web site about the house of representatives. It teaches kids about congress, how laws are made, lets kids take a field trip through congressional hill, see what statues their state has contributed, plus lots of fun activities and games.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/index.html Presidents of the United States. A site all about the different presidents of the United States.
Spanish
http://stepstar.esd101.net/k12/ps/activities.htm This site has fun games using common words, such as breakfast words and family words.
http://www.sipuebla.com/spanish-guide.htm This site is really good for translations. You can find any words you want in Spanish.
www.spanishisfun.org This is a great link for fun beginning Spanish learners, which all my students are! For now this one gets the Spanish teacher’s highest rating.
General
Education Web Sites and Activities Covering Multiple Subjects
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html Has games, stories, and activities for about any subject you could think of. Also includes a monthly calendar of educational activities that you could do daily if you wanted to.
http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/start.htm Encyclopedia Smithsonian. Encyclopedia Smithsonian helps answer frequently asked questions about the Smithsonian with links to resources on subjects from Art to Zoology.
http://members.learningplanet.com/directory/detail.asp?contentid=185 Learning Planet. You can choose from the following categories and find many different activities to help practice and reinforce each. Games and activities for every category. 123's, ABC's, Geography, History, Language Arts, Math, Phonics, Reading, Science, Shape, Color, Spelling, Time/Money, etc. You click on the subject in which you are interested.
http://www.gamequarium.com/ Gamequarium can be divided into three areas. Gamequarium (Grades 3-6), Readquarium (Grades PreK-6), and Gamequarium Junior (PreK-2). The site also contains games and activities for every subject area: Math, Science, Language Arts, Spanish, Keyboarding, Holidays, Popular cartoon characters including Dora the Explorer and Blues Clues, etc. Almost any subject you could think of. Received a nod from a teacher's association as best web site for teachers, parents, and students.
http://www.funbrain.com/ Fun brain web site. Math games, reading games, arcade games, web books, and a featured online story book.
http://encarta.msn.com/home.aspx Excellent online encyclopedia. Also contains an atlas, a dictionary, a thesaurus, online educational resources and activities, and homework help including ideas on how to start writing a paper. Help for kids in every area of study including Spanish, science, and math.
Visit the state curriculum page http://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/ , where you can find many links and resources for almost all subjects and grade levels, including UEN K-2 Student Interactives (preschoolers may enjoy this page as well). http://www.uen.org/k-2interactives/index.shtml
http://www.factmonster.com/ General reference site. Has information about everything.
Plan your own family fieldtrips. The following are just a few local places that have interactive activities for students (there are others):
Hutchings museum http://www.hutchingsmuseum.org/
Living Planet Aquarium http://www.thelivingplanet.com/
Gale History Musuem of South Jordan 10400 S. approx. 1600 W. BYU Bean Museum http://mlbean.byu.edu/
U of U Museum of Natural History http://www.umnh.utah.edu/
Clark Planetarium http://www.clarkplanetarium.org/
Red Butte Gardens http://www.redbuttegarden.org/
Hogle Zoo http://www.hoglezoo.org/
This is the Place Heritage Park http://www.thisistheplace.org/
Timpanogos Cave http://www.nps.gov/tica/
Bingo is a great way of making a game of math or reading activities.
Parent Resources
http://www.edgov/pubs/parents/internet/index.html Parents' guide to the internet. This one is just for parents, but is a handbook put out by the National Department of Education to help parents learn about the internet, how it can be useful to their children, and how to keep their kids safe while using the internet.
http://www.ed.gov/students/prep/college/thinkcollege/early/edlite-tcehome.html
Think College Early. A web site by the Department of Education geared toward middle schoolers and their parents to help them start thinking about college and careers early so they can plan for the future.
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