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Books to Build on: A Grade-By-Grade Resource Guide for Parents and Teachers (Core Knowledge Series)

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Special Features - KidSource Calendars

Parents will find 30 days of great resources, comments and advice for the many back-to-school issues that we all face. The calendar is broken into sections for kindergarten and younger, elementary and middle school/beyond, with a special area on general information.

This great calendar provides 30 days of advice, ideas and resources to help students and their families with managing and succeeding with homework. You'll find general information and sections for elementary, middle school and high school students.

This calendar provides a wealth of information, ideas, activities and resources for parents of gifted and talented children. Use it as a reference for articles, books, websites, mailing lists, associations and more.

General Back-To-School Articles

RUN * YELL * TELL, Ltd., has 10 tips for parents gearing up to send their children back-to-school. According to Jones,"Children must be prepared, as early as age four, with pro-active rules that will help keep them safe. If parents communicate this in a casual manner, the process doesn't have to be scary."

For some children, this September will be their first school year and that brings with it new risks the children have not faced before," says Meri-KAppy, vice president for public education at NFPA. "No matter what their age, children heading back to school should know how to prevent passenger, bike and pedestrian injuries; falls; poisoning; choking and strangulation; and fire and burn injuries.

Getting your child ready for school requires not only setting up good routines, but it also means working with your child's teacher to have good communications. This articles provides good tips of what you can do to accomplish both of these important objectives.

Back-to-School Boosters - American Academy of Pediatrics Reminds Parents to Immunize Children

Each year, children miss the first day of school because they do not have the immunizations needed to enter a particular grade. That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) want to remind parents to immunize their children on schedule as the best protection against dangerous childhood diseases.

Back to School Tips for Parents of Food Allergic Children

For the parents of the 2 million children with a food allergy, back to school time cannot only be stressful, but also filled with trepidation. However, pre-planning, education and teamwork can help alleviate parents' concerns.

Back to School: Communication is a Key to Success

When parents get their children ready to go back to school, they spend a lot of time buying the right supplies in hopes that their child will be prepared for the first day. However, one of the best ways to ensure a child's success is by establishing open lines of communication among parents, teachers, and students.

Back-to-School 'Parent Survival Guide'

The anticipation of Back-to-School brings excitement and anxiety to both parents and children alike. First day jitters, new routines, structured schedules and separation anxiety affect millions of students each fall. Judsen Culbreth, Editorial Director of Scholastic Parenting and Early Childhood Magazines, offers helpful tips to parents to assure a smooth transition into the new school year.

When planning your back-to-school checklist, health and safety precautions should be at the top -- right up there with new clothes, notebooks, and lunch boxes. Bicycle helmets and protective sports gear, updated immunizations, and properly fitted backpacks also should be addressed to make your child's transition into a new school year as successful as possible.

Back to school time often means changes for children and families: the first day of kindergarten or first grade; new preschools or child care settings; new classrooms and new teachers. Making smooth transitions between home, programs and schools can help children feel good about themselves and teach them to trust other adults and children. Helping children adapt to new situations can ease parents' minds and give them a chance to become involved in their children's education.

Transition is a Journey

On the first day of school children may experience multiple changes such as different classroom arrangements, new teachers, and unfamiliar routines. Other events such as the birth of a sibling or divorce also result in numerous changes children must adjust to.

As the school year approaches, it is easy to forget how much more susceptible a child becomes to illness after returning to school.Here are some very good tips to help children remain healthy at school.

The kids are back in class. It's 7:15 a.m. and Andy says, "I don't feel good." You ask yourself, "Can he still go to school or daycare today?" Parenting is full of judgment calls and this one is often less than clear-cut. This article provides a few good guidelines to help parents make this decision.

Students make many transitions during their years of schooling: from home to school, elementary to middle school, middle to high school, and high school to college or work. These transitions are usually major events in the lives of students and parents. The stresses created by these transitions can be minimized when the new environment is responsive to each particular age group. This article presents a brief overview of some of the issues involved in the transition from elementary to middle school and provides suggestions for transition programs and activities.

Just the thought of the first day of the new school year has a lot of first-time students terrified. But they're not the only ones. Studies indicate that the first day of school can be almost as stressful and emotionally upsetting for parents who are sending their kids off to school for the first time.

Back to school time is, well, back, and it's the back that has some doctors concerned. This article provides suggestions for how students can avoid potential back problems due to incorrectly using backpacks to carry heavy loads of books and school supplies.

If you are considering to purchase a new computer for your child, here are some helpful tips.

Homework Helpers

Homework is an opportunity for students to learn and for parents to be involved in their children's education. A parent's interest can spark enthusiasm in a child and help teach the most important lesson of all--that learning can be fun and is well worth the effort. This book includes practical ideas for helping children complete homework assignments successfully. Even though this article is written for elementary and junior high school-aged children, some of the ideas in this book may also be helpful for high school students.

Homework can help students learn and can help parents be involved in their children's education. When parents show an interest in their child's schoolwork, they teach an important lesson--that learning is fun and worth the effort. Children who do more homework, on average, do better in school. And, as children move up through the grades, homework becomes even more important to school success.

Research shows that when parents become involved in their children's schoolwork, the children do better in school. One way you can get involved is by helping your child with homework. It will benefit both your child's school work and self-esteem.

Research in the last decade has begun to focus on the relationship between homework and student achievement and has greatly strengthened the case for homework. Studies generally have found homework assignments to be most helpful if they are carefully planned by the teachers and have direct meaning to students. This article provides suggestions about how parents can be more involved with their children's homework and includes suggestions for how much time students should spend on homework by grade level.

Helping with Homework: A Parent's Guide to Information Problem-Solving, is based on the Big Six Skills problem-solving approach. The Big Six Skills apply to any problem or activity that requires a solution or result based on information. An abundance of information is available from many sources, and the Big Six can help parents effectively deal with that information to guide their youngsters through school assignments.

"Helping Your Child" Series of Educational Articles

This booklet is designed to help parents stir children's curiosity and steer that curiosity toward geographic questions and knowledge. It is organized around the five themes set forth by geographers and geography educators across the Nation--the physical location of a place, the character of a place, relationships between places, movement of people and things, and phenomena that cause us to group places into particular regions.

Today American educators are working to promote the study of history in the schools and at home. This booklet is a tool you can use to stimulate your children's active involvement in the history that surrounds them every day. As a result, the authors hope to encourage children to love history and to enjoy learning about it.

This is a great booklet, filled with suggestions and activities for children ages 5 to 13. These math activities not only are meaningful, they are fun. You might want to try doing some of them to help your child explore relationships, solve problems, and see math in a positive light. These activities use materials that are easy to find. They have been planned so you and your child might see that math is not just work we do at school but, rather, a part of life.

Most parents say they do not--or cannot--help their children with science. But degrees in chemistry or physics aren't necessary to help our children. All we need is a willingness to observe and learn with them, and, above all, to make an effort and take the time to nurture their natural curiosity. This book provides examples of a few simple activities we can do with our children and it is an introduction to the wealth of material in many other books available in libraries and bookstores.

Another very good article with many activities for children from infancy through age 10 with many of these activities designed for parents and children to do together. You can show that learning is fun and important and can encourage a love of reading in your child.

This article will help parents understand what they can do to help their child learn science. It discusses myths about learning science, what parents can do, what children are learning and science. And it's filled with online resources for parents to find science standards and learning resources.

Succeeding In School & Test Taking

This booklet focuses on specific activities for children aged 5 to 11 that parents and children can do together. The authors believe that all children have two wonderful resources for learning--imagination and curiosity and as a parent, you can awaken your children to the joy of learning by encouraging this imagination and curiosity. Teaching and learning are not mysteries that can only happen in school. They also happen when parents and children do simple things together.

This is a great article with common sense approaches to helping our children do better in school. It advocates parental involvement, reading together and more. A must-read for all parents.

Tests are important, especially to school children. The ability to do well on tests can also help throughout life in such things as getting a driver's license, trying out for sports, or getting a job. Without this ability, a person can be severely handicapped. Your child can develop this ability and you can help the child do it. Just try the simple techniques developed through Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) research in this article.

This digest highlights one tool that teachers use--standardized tests. It explains basic features of testing and suggests questions that you might ask your child's teacher. By understanding the role of testing, you can help your child succeed in school and can develop a better relationship among you, your child, and your child's school.

One tool that schools use to learn about students is the standardized test. This brochure explains basic features of these tests and suggests questions you might ask your child's teacher about testing. Understanding the role of testing will help you to enable your child to succeed in school and to develop a better relationship between your family and your child's school.