Fun & Educational Resources

While I do send my oldest two kids to public school, I also work hard to teach them things at home, hoping to build on the lessons they learn at school and making sure that they don't forget too much during school vacations. Here are some great pages I've come across online that can help your kids pick up new skills and practice what they've learned.

Arts & Crafts

• Nature Dragonfly Craft: Make these pretty dragonflies from things you collect outside!
• Recycled Tin Can Wind Socks: Turn some of your recyclables into pretty crafts to hang in your backyard with this activity.
• Mixed-Media Collage: Collages can be made with all sorts of things, from magazines to junk mail, and adding paint makes them even more interesting to look at.
• Folded Paper Bracelets: This fun paper craft makes pretty jewelry for your kids to share with their friends!
• Abstract Window Art: Make colorful window art that looks especially beautiful on a sunny day.

Math

• Great American Math Challenge Multiplication Competition: See if your state and school district can rise to the top!
• For Me, For You, For Later: Use this Sesame Street activity guide to help your kids learn about money and how to budget it.
• Worm Sandwiches Game: Worm sandwiches? Ick! Kids like gross stuff sometimes, though, and my school-age kids like this game that helps them learn about fractions.
• Talking Math With Kids: I love this site because it's got a ton of good ideas for how to incorporate math into everyday life, pointing out mathematical concepts and getting kids to work their brains.
• 17 Children's Books About Math: This page has some great recommendations of books to read with your kids that teach them about math as well as boost their literacy and pre-literacy skills.

Science

• Day at the Beach With Curious George: Kids can experiment with sand, water, and different containers to build a cool-looking and sturdy sand castle in this game.
• Astronomy for Kids: Almost every kid loves outer space, and this page is a great jumping-off point for you and your kids to explore different concepts related to astronomy.
• 50 Easy Science Experiments for Kids Using Household Stuff: The best thing about science is that there are all sorts of cool experiments you can do at home to entertain your kids while teaching them about how our world works.
• Melting Elsa's Frozen Hands: Try this experiment with your kids to show them how salt works to melt ice.
• Best Science YouTube Channels: Sure, you should limit kids' screen time, but that doesn't mean that it can't have educational value. Here are some great YouTube channels to watch with your kids that can teach them all about science.

Social Studies

• 10 Facts About the Vikings: Some kids find history boring, but there's nothing boring about the Vikings!
• Historical Topics Children Should Know About That They May Not Learn in School: When I was in school, it seemed like social studies classes never got any farther than World War II: It was always late May or June by the time we'd made our way through history from ancient times or the American Revolution, and anything past 1945 never got covered. It's even worse nowadays; history isn't getting any shorter, after all. This page covers some important topics that your kids might not get to in school, from the space race to the Cold War.
• Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government: This site has lots of resources about how our government works for a variety of age levels.
• Who Were the Ancient Greeks? Kids can get a good grounding in a popular ancient history topic with information from the BBC.
• The Middle Ages: Almost every kid likes to learn about medieval history, even if the knights of old didn't really get to fight dragons.

Language Arts

• Summer Reading Lists: This guide from the New York Public Library includes recommended summer reading for every age, from babies on up!
• Authors and Illustrators Online: If your child has a favorite author, this guide can help you find out more about them. You might even be able to contact them online to tell them how much you love their books, which is a fun writing activity.
• "What I've Read" Chart: Kids can use this printable chart to keep track of the books they read, noting what they liked or didn't like about each one.
• Different Types of Poems: Poetry can take a lot of different forms, and many of these can be fun to write.
• Easy Spelling Puzzle Game: Work on spelling skills with this fun game.

Keyboarding

• Keyboard Climber: In this game, kids can help a monkey climb out of a cave by typing the right letters.
• Key-Man: Your kids might be too young to remember Pac-Man, but they can play something like it with this typing game.
• Type Type Revolution: This fun dancing-themed game can help kids improve their typing speed while they work toward a high score.
• The Typing of the Ghosts: Here's another good game for kids who know the basics of typing but need to get better and faster at it.
• Alpha Munchies: Shoot the aliens before they can take your lunch! This game has multiple difficulty levels, so it's good for younger kids as well as more advanced typists.