Parents

Welcome to the Parent Resource section. Here you will find links to various resources to support your son or daughter at home, along with videos co-created by teachers and students from Banaadir Academy in Minnesota and Daystar Academy in China.

Learn more about my parent outreach initiatives.

Resources for Parents

 

Literacy Websites – Free

  • Phonic Genius – Great app to teach phonic awareness
  • Newsela – Leveled authentic newspaper articles.
  • Storyline Online – Stories read by actors; read and view them!
  • Starfall –  Free site to teach the basics of reading. Features interactive books and phonics games
  • Oxford Owl -offers 100 free ebooks that range from simple level-reader stories to more complex titles and layouts, such as “How to Build a Castle”. Each book is prefaced with guidance for teachers and parents, explaining the reading skills emphasized in the story. The book ends with more guidance for discussion and reading comprehension questions. 
  • Between the Lions – Great resource for videos that focus on different phonics sounds from short vowels, long, vowels, diphthongs, and digraphs 
  • Reading Bear – is a collection of free, well-made, multimedia phonics presentations. Targeted by sound. 
  • Kids Phonics – Interactive books help children practice their phonics skills. 
  • ABCYA – Reading games and Apps for Kids. 
  • Story Nory – A collection stories with audio recordings from around the word including Chinese Fables. Great way to make connections for students. 
  • BBC Phonics – Great resources for traditional rhymes when working on phonemic awareness 
  • Epic – Book subscription service that offers thousands of high-quality books from well known publishers like HarperCollins and National Geographic
  • OpeneBooks –  a partnership between Digital Public Library of America, The New York Public Library, and First Book, and is part of the White House ConnectED Initiative
  • Unite for Literacy – a social enterprise that provides digital access to picture books, narrated in immigrant and indigenous languages.

Math/Science Websites – Free

  • Scholastic: Study jams – find over 200 Jams on topics like The Universe , listen to songs about Landforms , and test yourself on concepts like Range
  • Khan Academy – Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more
  • MathAids – free math worksheets for teachers, parents, students, and home schoolers

School Information and Homework Help 

 

 

Bilingual Parent Support Videos

 

Supporting Literacy at Home | School Expectations

 

Using Technology to Support Your Child’s Literacy at Home

This initiative was a collaboration between the ELL teachers and Chinese teachers to help English and Chinese speaking parents support literacy at home in a concrete way by helping parents understand and use two of our favorite online literacy resources: Reading A-Z and Phonics Genius.  The teachers collaborated with Chinese colleagues to shoot and translate the videos. The result was a marked uptick in use of these tools with parents and students!

Using Reading A-Z at Home to Support Your Child’s Literacy

Using Technology to Support Phonics at Home

Reading With Your Child at Home Using Reading A-Z

 

Bilingual School Expectations Videos for Students and Parents

This initiative was a collaboration between students and ELL teachers in order to help all students and parents understand school expectations given that there were many new-to-country families to our school who had limited or interrupted formal schooling in the past.  The students brainstormed school norms and agreed to them through voting.  They then co-wrote the scripts and created the videos with graphics and sound.

 

Banaadir Academy Expectations: School Arrival

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Hallways

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Cafeteria

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Recess

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Bathrooms

Banaadir Academy Expectations: Dismissal and Busing