Teaching & Homeschool Articles - Page 4

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a brand-new feature in Talented and Gifted Online: the Toy Box! Now kids can take a break from their lessons to play educational games that review basic math and ELA skills. All games were designed to make the learning process more enjoyable by and effective by allowing children to review foundational skills in a fun and friendly way. Toy Box can be easily accessed online from any device and browser! 

It’s no secret that word problems are notoriously challenging for early learners. They’re so tough because solving them takes reading comprehension and mathematical skills, both of which are still new to kids in the first few years of their schooling. However, teaching word problems from a young age is incredibly important for fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills while allowing children to understand how math applies to real-life situations. 

Kids Academy offers a large library of word problem worksheets for learners at every level! Let’s look at some of our best word problem worksheets and teacher-led videos that will help students master the solving strategies.

Teaching children about community should begin from a very young age. For toddlers and preschoolers, their knowledge about the world around them is very limited, often to their family, teachers, and the people they see on a regular basis. As they reach kindergarten, kids must broaden their worldview to learn about the wider community. In doing so, they do much more than merely gain knowledge; they nurture their social and emotional learning by feeling a sense of belonging and purpose. 

In educational times today, it’s important to make sure that young learners have strong foundational skills early on. Text analysis is one  skill that can significantly enhance reading comprehension as well as critical thinking. In this guide, we will  demonstrate how to reinforce text analysis in emerging readers, specifically kindergarten students, through text comparison using Kids Academy's Classroom tool and Talented & Gifted Online program.

Ask any second grader about the hardest part of math, and most are likely to say word problems. Word problems are tough because so many things can go wrong when trying to solve them. Children who already struggle to read will find this type of math problem extra challenging. Even those who excel in reading might find math phrases and concepts tricky. Many students lack the focus to connect all these skills together, from reading them to figuring out which operation to use before finally following through to solve it. Add a notoriously tough math concept like subtraction, and one can see why these problems are so daunting!

Kids Academy is constantly striving to bring teachers and families new, innovative ways to make teaching and learning easier and more efficient. Two possible solutions include Kids Academy Classroom and Talented and Gifted Online, both of which are digital tools to reinforce learning and skills practice. 

As a third-grade teacher at a Title 1 school in Irving, Texas, I was recently given the opportunity to test a beta version of the Classroom feature on Kids Academy. I have  primarily taught  reading and social studies for the past 7 years, and I often find myself searching for engaging and effective activities for my students during our small group reading rotations. Gaining access to the  Classroom seemed promising, especially for integrating it during this time I struggled with filling. Through exploration of the application I enjoyed the timer feature, the classroom list feature, and the classroom library. 

During their first school year, grade K, children learn the basics of operations with numbers, such as counting groups of objects and counting forward and backward along a number line. When it comes to addition and subtraction, by the end of the year learners should master single digit addition, subtraction, and follow multi-step directions in word problems. 

If you’re not sure where to start their addition and subtraction journey, let’s explore the milestones that all early math learners must master, along with helpful simple worksheets that they can use for practice. 

The best edtech solutions are those that empower teachers to create more engaging learning experiences while also making their jobs easier, especially when it comes to grading and gauging skill mastery. Kids Academy Classroom aims to do all of that and more by providing educators with an online space to host interactive activities that students can complete during class. Better yet, they are given access to a ready-made resource library from which to choose assignments, and activities are autoscored with the help of AI technology that provides kids with instant feedback while compiling data for instructor use. 

Overall, Classroom is an innovative new tool that enhances children’s learning experiences while streamlining teacher’s administrative tasks, such as creating assignments and grading. Because Classroom focuses on offering a top-notch experience for both instructors and students, let’s take a closer look at how it works for each audience.

As technology becomes more integrated into the classroom, a growing concern of parents and educators alike  is the increasing amount of time children spend in front of screens. Not only do students use technology in most assignments they complete  in the classroom, homework is more often than not, digital as well. And while there are benefits of digital homework, in the end it is not adding to the problem of excessive screen time. In this article we'll consider various strategies parents and educators can use to leverage homework as a tool to reduce screen time.

Because the math that 5 and 6-year-olds learn is so crucial to their developing skills, it’s important that parents and teachers have a strong idea of a child’s strengths and weaknesses. The easiest way to get it is to assess their knowledge regularly using a quiz or test. However, it’s understandable that to some quizzing a 6-year-old might seem boring and unmotivating. That’s where Kids Academy comes in to save the day! We provide short, targeted quizzes that feel more like solving a puzzle than completing a math problem. By playing with gamified quizzes, kids have fun while working hard, and parents get the feedback they need to monitor learning. Read the article to learn more!