It’s that time of year where the phrases “summer slide,” “summer learning loss,” and even “summer brain drain” are starting to make the news. Kids are out for school and studies have shown that over vacation kids lose up to 2 months in learning especially in reading and math. This makes it tough both for our children and their teachers when they get back to school in the fall and they have to play catch up. That’s why I’m excited there are so many fun summer slide sites for kids.
These sites are not only educational but lots of fun too. They get kids excited about learning and really have them using their brains for reading, math, and more. These list features my favorite sites. I’ll be sure to update the list regularly whenever I come across a good summer slide site. If you know of any, please feel free to email me and if they are a fit, I’ll be happy to add them.
Happy Healthy Summer With PBSKids – this is a fun and free site for kids where they can play fun games, learn how to make healthy snacks, and sing happy songs all summer long. Features Maya & Miguel, Clifford, Sesame Street, and more.
Scholastic Summer Reading Program – this free program encourages kids to read throughout the summer and to log their time spent reading. They are rewarded for reaching goals with badges, original short stories written by popular authors, as well as never before seen videos with the authors
Brain Chase – this is a fascinating and fun program where kids complete weekly assignments in reading, math, writing or language, to unlock animated webisodes that reveal clues to a real life $10,000 buried treasure! Kids can drop a pin on a virtual map every 24 hours with their guess of where the treasure might be, the child who guesses closest in a 2 mile radius is flown to the location with a parent or guardian to actually dig up their $10,000 college scholarship!
Splash Math Summer Program – there are currently over 11 million learners on Splash Math and we can see why. It’s a fun and interactive site for K-5 kids that helps them increase their math competence and confidence. Kids can use the program to master over 350 key math skills. There is also a parent dashboard that keeps you connected in real time so you can monitor your child’s progress.
Sheppard Software – this is one of my favorite sites for kids, they strive to provide games that stretch kids brains and offer hundreds of free, online educational games for kid. They have so many subjects and games to choose from that children can do something different every day. Many of their games have multiple levels as well so kids can continue to enjoy them even after they’ve mastered an early challenge. Last year they had over 20 million visitors and over 5 million hours of learning!
Education.com – this site is full of all kinds of online educational games for kids. There are math games, reading games, interactive stories, and educational songs. There are also a number of fantastic articles for parents to read. If you want your child to unplug for a bit the site has lots of printables and worksheets as well.
Kids.gov – I love that the tagline for this site is “a safe place for kids to learn and play.” It’s a free site where kids can pick from a wide variety of subjects including Arts & Music, History, Math, Science, Reading & Writing, Money, and more. Within each section they can watch videos about the subject they chose, play educational games, and visit links to other approved educational and fun sites for kids
