| Summer APPS and Websites that are Engaging and Fun! | |
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DISCOVERY EDUCATION STREAMING: ALL GRADE LEVELS, MULTIPLE RESOURCES FOR SCIENCE, HISTORY, LITERATURE AND MATH!
DISCOVERY EDUCATION STREAMING is a free service for all students at Lincoln Unified. To access Discovery Education, students will need to login with their email and password. This service gives students access to an enormous amount of topics about which they are curious. They can view videos, songs, audio files, readings and images! Most of these images are downloadable and can be used with their Google Apps for Education. Let them watch, read, explore and create this summer in order to keep those learning muscles active!! | |
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START WITH A BOOK: AGES K-5, FREE THEMED PROJECTS
Start with a Book is a website is dedicated to themed summer adventures that involve reading, active projects and on-line learning. Students can explore themes within categories of interest: from bugs to planets, from heroes to music! Appropriate for children K-5, this site has plenty of DIY projects that will keep kids busy all summer long! | |
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NEWSELA: AGES 5-12, FREE CURRENT EVENTS AND TOPICAL ARTICLES
NEWSELA is dedicated to bringing interesting and relevant topics to students' attention. Topics range from science to culture, from politics to youth-related activities. This site also has two helpful tools: you can change the reading level of articles to adjust to the reader AND there are articles in Spanish! Used by educators for years now, NEWSELA is a great way to let kids explore important topics that are of interest to them throughout the summer. Think of it as a newspaper dedicated to them! | |
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EPIC! : For kids up to age 12, On-line library
EPIC! is an on-line library of 1,000's of books available for all children up to age 12. It offers kids just what they want during the summer: CHOICE! This app allows students to read as many books as they would like. They have built-in incentives to keep kids reading and it automatically keeps a reading log to track their reading history. For $5 a month (first month is free) students can read an unlimited amount of books on multiple devices and each membership gets you up to 4 accounts (for other family members)!
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COOL MATH GAMES: AGES 4-12, MATH & LOGIC GAMES ON-LINE
COOL MATH GAMES is a wonderful site filled with games that test math skills and present logical problems to solve. Players can search by math skill, type of game or strategy involved. It even features classic games like chess and sudoku. Young learners will enjoy the competitive nature of these games while focusing on basic math skills needed in school. Check out their companion page coolmath4kids. | |
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FOG STONE ISLE: GRADES 5-9, ON-LINE WORLD FOCUSING ON FRACTIONS
FOG STONE ISLE is a fun, strategy-based game that challenges students' ability to work with fractions. In this game, student are trying to create a world for friendly people who are in danger from monsters. Students will build castles, create cities, and irrigate farms all using their knowledge of essential concepts that will help them in Algebra and beyond! This game does require that the teacher create an account in order to get a class code that your student can use. Since your LUSD student has a Google login, all they need is the code from the teacher and they can play/build all summer long! | |
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VIRTUAL PIANO: ALL GRADES, ON-LINE PIANO CONTROLLED BY THE KEYBOARD
VIRTUAL KEYBOARD is an on-line keyboard that uses the keys on your computer to play! This is a great way to reinforce basic typing skills by making them fun and connecting them to music. There is a 'sheet music' gallery with a large variety of songs that your students (or you) can play! Coupled with some traditional typing exercises, use virtual piano as a great way to work on your student's typing fluency throughout the summer! | |
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TYPING.COM: K-12, READY MADE TYPING LESSONS FOR FREE!
TYPING.COM is a fantastic resource that takes students through fundamental typing exercises. Decorated with attractive graphics, this site is especially easy to use because students can log on with their Google username and password - easy! In addition to the on-line exercises, typing.com also has games that kids can play to continue practicing their typing skills. | |
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FUNBRAIN: GRADES K-8, ON-LINE GAMES AND BOOKS
FUNBRAIN.COM has a large variety of on-line games that focus on math, reading and grammar. These games require Adobe Flash Player so they are not I-pad friendly. At the upper grades (6-8), Funbrain even has books to read like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Kids love this website but it is free because it has ads, that could be a distraction to watch out for. Otherwise, this website is great to reinforce fundamental math and language skills kids are expected to know in class! |
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CHROME MUSIC LAB: ALL GRADES, MUSICAL EXPERIMENTS DEVELOPED BY SOFTWARE ENGINEERS
CHROME MUSIC LAB is a collaboration between Google and software engineers to help anyone learn more about music. The homepage offers several fun and visually interesting activities that students can choose from. Each activity focuses on a different aspect of music from tone to pitch, from rhythm to scales. This site is one students could do on their own but it is also equally interesting for parents to do alongside their children. | |
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SISTINE CHAPEL: GRADES 6-12, VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL
THE SISTINE CHAPEL is often beyond our reach unless a European trek is in our future. Available now is a virtual tour of the chapel with access to all of its glory! Using advanced camera technology, you can now look at each painting up close and admire it in detail. Controlled by your mouse/trackpad, students can get a true sense of the expansive and intricate nature of this world heritage landmark. | |
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PBS KIDS LAB: GRADES K-3, ON-LINE COLLECTION OF PBS KIDS RESOURCES
PBS KIDS LAB is a great place to find all of the different resources PBS Kids has to offer! Students can search by their favorite cartoon (Cat In The Hat, Wild Kratts), or by resource type (Videos, Apps, Activities, Books, Games). One special feature is a Math activity of the day that is posted on the homepage. You can view the full calendar here. Its a one-stop shop for providing your young learner with fun, engaging activities. | |
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TED ED YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: GRADES 3-12, YOUTUBE PLAYLIST OF TED ED VIDEOS
TED ED is dedicated to presenting informative topics in an engaging, meaningful way. Topics range from Science and Literature to History and Technology (and beyond!). Each of these videos were voted by viewers as the best on their website and your students can subscribe to that playlist so they will get notified of new uploads. Older students can also subscribe to the Ted X Youth Youtube playlist. | |
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PROFILE PUBLISHER: GRADES 6-12, INTERACTIVE ON-LINE PROFILE CREATOR
PROFILE PUBLISHER is an interactive feature created by ReadWriteThink.org. If your student is at the age where they are wanting to create a social media profile, this tool can help them think about the kind of image they want to portray on-line. The student is prompted to address positive goals, characteristics and attributes about themselves. After completing the activity, students then can print out the result to review with you in order to give you a chance to advise them on how to use social media. |
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GOOGLE EARTH: ALL GRADE, OPEN SOURCE MAP OF THE WORLD
GOOGLE EARTH is a site that allows students to explore any location on Earth with the click of a button. Best visible in the Chrome web browser, Google Earth features 3-D images of landmarks as well as 360 degree images of major landmarks (both human and natural). Built into the latest version of Google Earth is the Voyager feature. Voyager is a collection of expeditions around the world by theme: National Parks, Tour of London and Discovery Machu Picchu. These are just a few of the features within Google Earth for your student to enjoy all summer long. | |
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READING A TO Z: GRADES K-3, READING RESOURCES TO HELP THE EARLY READER
READING A TO Z is a comprehensive resource designed to provide teachers resources for helping their students learn to read. Since Lincoln Unified Schools has a license for these services, all you need is the code from your student's teacher! In this site there are activities, reading challenges and downloadable books at several different reading levels. Students can practice their reading fluency, work on comprehension or just read for fun with this trusted resource! | |
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KEEP KIDS ACTIVE AT HOME: ALL AGES, MINDFULNESS, MOVEMENT AND EXERCISE!
GO NOODLE is a service dedicated to encouraging fun movement and purposeful activity. Combining song with activity, Go Noodle provides a library of videos that get kids singing and moving all summer long! For older kids, Hip Hop Dance Workouts is a playlist that provides a variety of workouts of varying length that uses dance to get teens moving (and building coordination). Lastly, this video, from Fitness Blender, is a great 25 minute workout that parents can do with their kids - it gets the heart pumping but its fun as well! | |
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ZEARN.COM: K-5, MATH LESSONS, GAMES, EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS!
ZEARN is a standards-aligned math program that many classrooms at Lincoln Unified have been using with much success! In the classroom, it is a tool that allows teachers to give students independent practice while working with small groups of students on important math concepts. For the students, Zearn keeps track of the skills students have mastered and those they need to work on. As they log on, Zearn remembers where they are and has a set of activities and lesson for them to work on. This is great for daily math practice that they can do independently or with you alongside. All they need is their school login! | |
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CODE.ORG: K-8, INTERACTIVE LESSONS TO HELP KIDS LEARN TO CODE!
CODE.ORG dedicates its efforts to bringing the benefits of computer science to every student. Using animated characters and easy to follow activities, Code.org provides students with a basic foundation of programming logic and computer science knowledge. Easy to use at home or at school, have your student take the hour of code challenge during the summer! If your student is ready for the next step, try Scratch. Scratch will build upon what students have learned in Code.org and provide more advanced instruction. |
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TINKERCAD: 3-12, 3-D MODELING ON-LINE
TINKERCAD designs a wonderful website built to give your student a space to create 3-D images. This is great for students' spatial and geometric awareness. Tinkercad is a place where students can make images that can be created on 3-D printer, transferred to Minecraft, or just saved in their Tinkercad gallery. Tinkercad can grow with your student, the more they learn the more they can do! | |
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JIGSAW PLANET: ALL GRADE, PUZZLES ON-LINE!
JIGSAW PLANET provides a large variety of on-line jigsaw puzzles. These are perfect for those summer days when your student needs something fun and relaxing to pass the time. At the same, logical-sequential skills are being tested! Your student can also create an account (minimal information is requested) and upload pictures of their own that become puzzles. Puzzles range from very easy to advanced. Finished puzzles can be printed! | |
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GOOGLE ARTS AND CULTURE: VIRTUAL MUSEUM EXHIBITS!
Google Arts and Culture allows students to virtually tour partner museums’ galleries, explore physical and contextual information about artworks, and compile their own virtual collection. The "walk-through" feature of the project uses Google's Street View technology. This site is visually rich and provides explanations of the artists, their work and their era in time. Students can explore artists and art pieces of their choice which leads to great opportunities for drawing, additional reading and writing!
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