Education Information: Top Blogs and Websites for Parents
Think it gets easier when your child reaches school age? Think again. You may have survived potty training and temper tantrums, but now you’ve moved onto new adventures in parenting – managing behavior and attention issues and staying on top of your children’s homework and tests, not to mention coaching appropriate interactions between your children and their educators and other students.
You will face countless experiences in the world of education as a parent, some loosely related to schooling and others very closely entwined. Your children’s success as students and even later in life shines far beyond the marks recorded on any report card. With so many areas to learn and develop beyond math, science, and language arts, you as a parent can help your sons and daughters to be curious about the world around them, and besides that, to love learning.
From parent-teacher conferences to helping your kids study for exams and maybe even a few spelling bees, you can find some great resources on the Internet to make the journey a little smoother. Here are some of the most helpful and professional education blogs and websites for parents and students to use at home.
SURVIVING YOUR CHILD’S SCHOOL YEARS
Parent-teacher conferences and school board meetings are just the beginning. A few education survival resources can help you keep your sanity as your children progress through school one year at a time.
Family Education wraps many topics together into a pretty package with a nice bow, featuring key concepts like homeschooling, relating to the teacher, public vs. private school, tips on choosing a good school, and more. This site offers help for just about all ages, including study skills, tutoring, and activities to help enhance skill-building abilities.
The PTO Today Blog gives parents insight into surviving your first PTO meeting, getting involved as a parent, fundraising and more. This site delivers everything and anything related to school parent groups and helping those parents run their groups and serve their kids’ schools more efficiently and successfully.
LEARNING SUPPORT AT HOME
Learning shouldn’t stop when your child leaves the classroom. Take some time to discover things with your kids and to share your own knowledge. These sites and blogs can help.
For a fun take on learning, check out Discovery Education, a vast resource brimming with interactive activities, competitions like the Young Scientist Challenge, math help experts, professional development aids, virtual experiences, and more. The parents’ Motivation Station also provides useful tips and techniques for inspiring and motivating your kids.
Lehigh Valley Family Fun is a website that provides information and links to the Lehigh Valley’s area libraries, preschool listings, religious activities, and opportunities for music lessons. This resource makes it easy for parents to take their children out to find some good books, fostering a love of reading and learning.
lehighvalleyfamilyfun.com/education.html
ReadWriteThink makes reading and language arts more fun than ever. This site introduces a variety of games, activities, and information to help kids improve their reading and writing skills. Projects, tools, tutorials, podcasts, and resources are all broken out by age group, making it easy to navigate to age-appropriate content for your students’ needs.
readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources
EDUCATION POLICY AND REFORM
Don’t miss out on some important updates on funding, acceptance issues, failing schools, security issues, and more. Find out how to get involved or just read enough to know what’s going on in the world of education.
Parents Across America helps to empower parents to seek the changes they want to see in their children’s educations. Here you will find petitions, fact sheets, news stories, and personal anecdotes, plus a wealth of information about the Parents Across America organization and how you can start your own chapter, if interested.
The Huff Post Education site covers lots of issues and school policy matters that are bound to ruffle someone’s feathers along the way. Stay on top of the latest news on education policy, funding, bans, and more. Expect to find some touchy topics here, like anything to do with the separation of church and state as well as race, religion, sexual and gender identity, and other sometimes seemingly taboo topics.
EDUCATION NEWS
Watching the local news only gets you so far. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the bigger picture as it pertains to education and the schools outside of our immediate area.
This Week in Education gives a glimpse into the world’s education topics and studies. Some of the information seems playful and fun while other articles come across as quite serious, though written in first person and inviting a bit of debate.
scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation
Education News delivers a large dose of detail when it comes to technology, online schools, K-12, higher education, policy, parenting, and more. Articles discuss student loans, school funding, enrollment, online courses, math standards, pregnancy in schools, and special needs, among other topics.
SITES FOR COLLEGE AND BEYOND
Once you’ve survived your child’s elementary years, middle school, and high school, it’s time to pack up and get them ready to experience a bigger pond. College planning websites can help you and your children with everything from taking the SATs and choosing a college to packing lists, money managing tips, and more.
Encourage your student to start looking at colleges well before senior year. A site like CollegeBoard.org can offer an extensive look at all the colleges in a searchable format based on type of school, location, majors, sports, activities, and more. College planning tips on this site can also be helpful, especially related to paying for college, financial aid, and choosing a major, to name a few.
College Prep 101 helps students and parents start the planning process early, with tips on taking the SAT and other standardize tests and several checklists on college prep for different ages, from high school grade levels even down to young children. The site’s list of college terms and college packing list may be helpful as well.
In addition to helpful education blogs and sites, some teachers recommend using social media and other modern technologies to enhance learning and discovery. Twitter can be useful in following current events and courses in meteorology or other topics where up-to-the-minute coverage and updates can be more instant and meaningful than going directly to a website or television station for the latest reports. The world of technology is ever-changing, allowing teachers, parents and students to constantly find new, creative ways to foster a love of learning, and perhaps more significantly, to survive one school year after another.
