This is a place where parents, children, and other family members can find resources for Parent and Children Together (PACT) activities, family literacy and family numeracy, and links to information which will help parents.
From the LAC Parent and
Family Resources Web page
Ants
on A Banana Bus
http://www.hamstertours.com/snacks.html
Parents, children, teachers and others can make a great dessert
while reading beautifully and amusingly illustrated directions written at a
very basic literacy level. This may be the Web's most popular online family
literacy activity.
Brainpop
http://www.brainpop.com
This is a highly interactive science, health and technology Website
designed for children, and also used by adult learners. One needs
high speed access to the Internet (e.g. a DSL, ISDN or TI connection) or to
patiently download and save the animated movies and load them from a hard drive
or external storage disk; direct access by modem is frustratingly slow. There
are a number of different topics, each with a clever, entertaining animated
movie which a parent or child can, at any point, stop and discuss. For
example, the water cycle might be good for familes with children five years
old or above.
Children's
Author Fact Finding Safari
http://www.lacnyc.org/technology/safari.htm
This is an opportunity for elementary and middle school aged children
and their parents to test their knowledge of beloved children's authors: Eric
Carle, Judy Blume, Beatrix Potter, Ezra jack keats, and Dr. Seuss.
ERIC
Reading, English, and Communication Family Information Center
http://reading.indiana.edu/
Resources from the ERIC clearinghouse.
Family
Education.com
http://www.familyeducation.com/home/
Family
Literacy Resource Notebook
http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/famlitnotebook/
This is the table of contents page of a very well-researched,
complete and easy-to-read 1998 book on family literacy by Connie Sapin, Assistant
Director of the Ohio Literacy Resource Center and Nancy D. Padak, Ed.D., Professor
of Education at Kent State University. The book has an extensive collection
of PACT advice and activities. The entire book is on-line in PDF and can
be downloaded free using Acrobat Reader software (also dowload-able free.)
Family
Literacy Special Collections:
Resources
For Family Literacy Professionals
http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/FamilyLit/profresc.html
This is a Midwest LINCS collection of family literacy resources
for practitioners.
Family
Math Fun!
http://www.nald.ca/library/learning/familymath/cover.htm
The activities in this book are designed for families to do together.
All the activities will help children learn to think about numbers and shapes
and patterns—that is, they will learn to do “math thinking.”
But besides the mind, the activities involve the spirit, heart, and body.
Figure This! Math
Challenges for Families
http://www.figurethis.org/
Intergenerational
Cultural Traditions
http://www.otan.dni.us/webfarm/emailproject/cul.htm
Here is an activity or project developed by California ESL teachers,
Susan Gaer and Melissa Wilhoit, where grandparents, parents and children write
about and draw or paint their experience of the same family tradition from different
generational perspectives.
Intergenerational
Learning
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Swearer_Center/Literacy_Resources/intergen.html
Intergenerational
Literacy Activities
http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeadult/iglindex.htm
The Colorado Department of Education's Intergenerational Literacy
Notebook "is a collection of thematically based activities for adults and
their children to complete together. A majority of these activities are designed
for English language learners and are life skills based. Science and social
studies activities primarily target the ABE / GED learner."
COMPLETE NOTEBOOK -- This is the complete 2004 Intergenerational Literacy Activities
document, 282 pages long.
Massachusetts
Family Literacy Consortium
http://www.doe.mass.edu/familylit/
Midwest
LINCS Family Literacy Special Collection
http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/FamilyLit/siteindex.html
If you want to go to one comprehensive Web site on family literacy,
here it is: the Midwest Regional LINCS (Literacy Information aNd Communications)
family literacy special collection. Several of the Web pages listed here
are from that site. Be sure to check the What's New section, as it is
frequently upd with new materials and links to other good Web sites.
Parent
and Family Resources on the Web
http://www.lacnyc.org/resources/familylit/
This site includes a list of Web links used as part of a workshop
on family literacy offered by the Literacy Assistance Center in New York City.
Parent
Made Developmental Toys:
Integrating
Parenting, Self-Esteem, Literacy & Fun
http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/PACT/
This is a National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) LINCS
Hot
Site for September, 1999. The description on the NIFL LINCS national
Web site says "Created by Ohio practitioner, Rita Hoppert, this site is
being put online in stages. The EvenStart curriculum focuses on hands-on,
sensorimotor learning materials for both parent and child. Parents make
developmental toys during the ABLE sessions and also manipulate materials
when they focus on their own learning needs. As a part of the integrated
curriculum, each strength of the system is numbered."
This simple, low-cost, set of activities for pre-schoolers and their families is sound from reading, writing, and visual arts-readiness perspectives. The activities are easy and fun for children and parents.
Parenting Education Bibliography
http://www.ed.psu.edu/goodlinginstitute/pdf/research_topic_b_10_2005.pdf
This is a section of a larger annotated bibliography in family
literacy. This section includes literature that has strategies for helping parents
to support and foster their children’s literacy and language development
needs.
Parents
and Children Together Online
http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/www/famres/pctogeth/
This is a magazine for parents and children on the Worldwide Web.
Each issue has lots of stories, at different levels, which parents and children
can read together in English and also in Spanish. It has articles for
parents and also reviews of childrens' books.
From the Parent-made Developmental Toys Bingo Web page
Summer
Home Learning Recipes
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Recipes
Reading, writing, math and science home learning activities for
parents and kids from the Home and School Institute
From the U.S. Department of Education
Summer Home LearningRecipes Web page
Talk
To Your Baby
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/quicktips.html
Tips on reading, talking to, watching television with, singing and sharing rhymes
with, and playign with your baby. In English and several other languages. Developed
in Wales, U.K.
Websites...Which
ones should you trust?
http://www.altn.org/webquests/websites/index.html
This is a WebQuest, an organized investigation, using the WorldWide Web, to answer some specific questions, in this case about the quality of information of Web sites. The four questions this WebQuest asks are:
1. Who is the author?
2. Is the information accurate?
3. Is there bias?
4. When was the website made?
This webQuest can be a family activity to help children and other family members learn how to judge the quality of information on a web site.
Word
Turtle
http://www.funbrain.com/detect/
Make original word search games for children