Online Writing Class

This website has since been retired.

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A very nicely conceived and executed online writing class.  It is self-paced, customizable, web and email based for upper elementary and middle school students.

http://www.rayofwrite.com/

Online Grammar Class

Just discovered a really interesting site for learning English grammar.

https://www.noredink.com/

A child needs to mention his/her grade, and gets to list her/his interests.  For instance, my son picked Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

On picking Adverbs and Adjectives, he was presented with material to learn about the concepts.  To practice, he got to work on sentences related to his interests.  Really cool.

Stanford's EPGY Program

Stanford has an Education Program for Gifted Youth with online courses in Math, Physics, English, Computer Programming and other subjects.  Math and English are available at the Elementary School Level.   Students are supposed to take an aptitude test to apply.   I have not enrolled my kids for any of the classes.  A friend has, and is quite happy with it so far.  

Beestar

We were referred to http://www.beestar.org/by a friend. Turns out to be quite a treasure trove. They have Math and Reading worksheets for K-8. We signed up for the free version that allows one access to 2 worksheets per week. The first grade Math worksheets are not easy, to put it mildly. They cover a variety of concepts such as "read clock, place value, simple patterns, problem solving methods, describe individual coins, understand real object graphs, skip count, unit sense, apply simple addition facts, addition/subtraction patterns, compare small numbers, etc". This is a huge improvement over say, Kumon, worksheets that tend to be very uni-dimensional.

Again, this is not a site that teaches concepts but tests concepts. They do provide a list of reference books that could be used offline.

I am still on the quest for finding sites that not just test but also teach in a fun way. Of course, it would be nice if those sites were free and great at capturing the imagination of young children. :)

Youtube!

We have been trying in vain to get our 3.5 year old to learn some phonics. She knows her letters and sounds, and we now want to see if she is ready to read small words. So, we spell words out to her such as "C-A-T is cat", and then ask her "So, M-A-T is m-m-m-m...." Her response is usually "I am tired". Considering that she is completely and absolutely addicted to TV, I went onto Youtube (she associates Youtube with entertainment) and did a search on "phonics". I found a series of short videos that teach words with nice pictures. I did not think they were particularly exciting, but my 3.5 year old was transfixed. Here is the link to the first in the series. We were able to make it through the first three in a row. Quite impressive! However, the only con is that there is no structure, and no repetition. The series quickly moves through a bunch of unrelated words (phonetically). So, I am not sure about its effectiveness.

If you like Kumon...

If you like the Kumon system, you can save some money by using sites that provide free Math worksheets. An example - http://www.freemathworksheets.net/general-math.php

A site that is more comprehensive -  covers Math and Language Arts - http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/index.html

Pro - This is an easy way to save the 100$ a month one would pay to a Kumon franchise for their worksheets. Con - Children are not accountable to any third parties, and this may lead to them slacking off. One more con is that at Kumon, they test the kid once in a while to see if he/she is ready for the next level. In the case of using free worksheets, parents would have to make that call, and decide what the next level should be. Again, just like in the case of Miss Maggie, these worksheets are good once the concepts have been taught, and only speed has to be developed.

Starfall

Now, here is a site I love - http://www.starfall.com

My daughter learned her letters and sounds from this site. The most useful part is the screen where it displays the letters. Click on them, and hear the sound they make with examples of words that begin with the letters. My daughter has been through these many times. The rest of the site has introductions to other phonics concepts. We are yet to see the effectiveness of those. Will post updates as we see progress.