Educational Web Sites for Kids to Beat Break Boredom

When winter break begins, students may find they suddenly have a lot of free time on their hands!  It might be a good opportunity to try some fun web sites.  But there is so much out there, it may be hard to know where to start.  The ones listed here have been suggested by a few George Watts parents and teachers.  If you have any to add to the list or any you think are just awful, let us know!

READING and WRITING

• George Watts Media Center – Use the school’s fun, graphical on-line catalog to find a book to check out when you go back to school!
• Alphabet Action from LearningPlanet.com – Practice with letter sounds.
• Berenstain Bears Storytime from PBSKids.org – Interactive reading and story telling.
• Between The Lions from PBSKids.org
  
• Destination Success – Reviews math and reading concepts through game-like tasks.  Like Tumblebooks, Destination Success requires a login and password, which is available to all students through a license purchased by Durham Public Schools. Teachers assign tasks to students online, so talk to your teacher about your child’s assignments, as well as the username and password – or pull out the Dec 15 Peaceful Times (it’s printed there).
• Dr. Seuss
• Education Place – Reading activities.  You select your grade level – 1 to 6.
• Fact or Opinion – Quiz.
• Get Ready to Read – Pre-reading skills.
• Grow Your Own Story from BBC kids – Interactive story writing game.
• Literacy Center – Activities to practice letter sounds, letter recognition, shapes, colors, numbers, phonics.
• Poetry Splatter from Reading Is Fundamental -  Fun activity to write your own poem (a little like Mad Libs), tiered by age group.
• Scholastsic.com/kids – Everything about books.
• Starfall.com – Lots of reading activities for pre-K to 2nd grade.
• Stories and Rhymes from BBC kids – For younger kids.
• Thinkfinity.org – Games and activities, maps, book lists, and homework help.
  
• TumbleBooks.com – Reading practice with a variety of picture books, rated by grade level.  Durham Public Schools has purchased a license to allow all students at our school to use this site.  Talk to your child’s teacher to get the school’s username and password – or pull out the Dec 15 Peaceful Times (it’s printed there).

SCIENCE

• Science activities and quizzes from BBC Kids – For ages 5 to 11.
• Science games from SoftSchools.com – Tons of games for all ages.

MATH

• Coin Values – Game for practicing adding coin values.
• Count Us In – Game to help children understand basic number concepts.
• Destination Success – Reviews math and reading concepts through game-like tasks.  Like Tumblebooks, Destination Success requires a login and password, which is available to all students through a license purchased by Durham Public Schools. Teachers assign tasks to students online, so talk to your teacher about your child’s assignments, as well as the username and password – or pull out the Dec 15 Peaceful Times (it’s printed there).
• Math Playground
• Money Program – Game for practicing adding coin values.
• Number Gym – Fun math activities.
• Pattern Blocks – Build graphical patterns with colors and shapes.
• Numeracy Skills – Lots of games to practice a variety of math skills.
• Primary Games (K-2)
• Robot Calculator - Help the robot solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems.  You choose easy, medium, or hard.
• Roman Numerals Matching Game
• Starship Math from BBC Kids – Lots of fun math games.

SOCIAL STUDIES

• The Democracy Project: Be President for a Day! – from PBSKids.org – Activities and information about elections.
• GeoNet from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s eduplace.com- Great map games!
• Outline Maps from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s eduplace.com – For printing, coloring, cutting, or whatever you like to do with maps.
• Sounds of Africa from the National Museum of African Art – “From the rhythms of Benin to the wedding music of Ethiopia to the traditional Zulu music of South Africa to the parade music of Senegal, you’ll never know what you’ll hear next!”
• World Atlas.com – Great resource to print maps.
• NC Wise Owl has lots of information about our state.

GAMES, VIDEOS, PRINTABLES, ETC.

• Funbrain.com has lots of educational games.
• Jumpstart.com is a 3D, adventure game-like that helps kids practice math, reading, and critical thinking.
• Learn4good.com/kids has lots of games.
• PBSKids.org has games, videos, music and printables based on PBSKids shows. Geared toward the younger kids.