PARENTING WEB SITES

For great songs, fingerplays, and activities look online. One great web site is

Family matters, parenting tips from the business world. Go to

http://www.parentingpress.com/

The American Library Association (ALA) has posted its recommendations for the best new children’s books of 2000. The site features several categories of award-winning books, including many multicultural selections. You’ll also find listings of great videos, software, and websites for children – all approved by the ALA.

www.ala.org/parents

The First Words Project from the Florida State University website. This site focuses on communication and has great tools for looking at the communication skills of very young children.

http://firstwords.fsu.edu/A/default.html

A study done by the National Research Council’s Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy. They looked at the research on learning a development and have summed up their conclusions in the new (2000) book Eager to Learn. The report focuses on ensuring that early childhood programs are high quality and that education and child care cannot be thought of as separate – both are critical to the development of young children. You can download the executive summary from the web at

http://books.nap.edu/books/0309068363/html/1.html#pagetop

Boundless Playgrounds. These web sites have information about developing fully integrated universally accessible playgrounds.

http://www.boundlessplaygrounds.org/

http://www.sptimes.com/News/080601/Hernando/Playground_exercises_.shtml

It’s never too early to begin thinking about transition. There is a new guide to help you design or enhance your transition process and both are available on the web. Easing the Transition from Preschool to Kindergarten: A Guide for Early Childhood Teachers and Administrators

http://www.headstartinfo.org/recruitment/trans_hs.htm

Launching Young Readers is a site sponsored by PBS. It has great tips, resources, and research for teachers and parents about reading with children, helping children to become readers, and struggling readers. On this site you can sign up for their regular e-newsletter full of more ideas and tips.

http://www.pbs.org/launchingreaders/

This site contains other terrific teaching resources such as Exploring Earth: Visualizations. Not all contain teaching strategies or activities designed for young children but there are many visuals as well as information that will be interesting for your young learners.

www.ed.gov/free

Culturally Competent Practice launched by NASP. This site has information on culturally competent teaching practices, administration and more.

http://www.nasponline.org/culturalcompetence/index.html

We’ve got great training opportunities are coming up. Watch for them in on our website at

http://www.esd113.k12.wa.us/

Support for Families of Children with Disabilities (SFCD), which includes Family Voices of California, has launched a super new website for families.

http://www.supportforfamilies.org/

The Kaiser Family Foundation presents health care policy information on the broad range of issues such as managed care, health insurance coverage and the uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare, women’s health, minority health, and HIV/Aids. State Health Facts Online, at

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/

The Reading is Fundamental (RIF) web site. This site has some great downloadable information for you and for families about reading to children and articles about literacy. RIF also has a program called Care to Read, a Train the Trainer model uses children’s literature to actively engage early childhood caregivers. The program provides training for the trainers, posters, development charts, and RIF’s video series, Read With Me. RIF has a program called Shared Beginnings that helps young parents develop their children’s early language and literacy skills. The description of this program and the application are on the web site.

http://www.rifnet.org/

The Talaris Research Institution in Seattle is dedicated to discovering how children think, fell, and learn. On their web site you’ll find information about their research as well as interesting and short articles about development, father involvement, the role of play and exploration, and much, much more.

http://www.talaris.org/index.htm

The Rand Research brief Early Childhood Interventions: Benefits, Costs, and Savings that outlines the results of a study done by Karoly, et al. This information details the short and long range cost impact and cost savings for providing early childhood programs.

http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB5014/

Teachers Net – The teacher web site! Teacher chatboards & chat rooms, lesson plans and teaching

http://www.teachers.net/

Teacher Resources and Lesson Plan Databases

http://www.disciplinehelp.com/

Family Support America

http://www.familysupportamerica.org/

Ntnl. Institute On Media & Family

http://www.mediafamily.org/

Ntnl Child Care Information

http://www.nccic.org/

WonderWise Parent

www.ksu.edu/wwparent/

Parenting.com

http://www.parenting.com/

WSU Cooperative extension

http://parenting.wsu.edu/

WA Parent Power

http://www.washingtonparentpower.org/

National Council on Family Relations

http://www.ncfr.com/

National Association for the Education of Young Children

http://www.naeyc.org/

Children, Youth and Families Education and Research Network (CYFERNet)

http://www.cyfernet.org/

Infant Development (0-3). Information and articles for parents, educators and all infant caregivers. Based on the teachings of Magda Gerber and Maria Montessori emphasizing respect for the child. Links to sources at the national and regional level.

http://www.educarer.com/

ABCs of Parenting

http://www.abcparenting.com/

Food & Nutrition Information Center

www.nal.usda.gov/fnic

Puget Sound Parent

http://www.parenthoodweb.com/

The Family Support Center

http://www.familysupportctr.org/

Zero to Three

http://www.zerotothree.org/

Smarter Kids: Vast selection of free or low-cost educational software to download.

http://tukids.tucows.com/

Trace Your Family Tree: Extensive directory of genealogy sites includes tutorials, mailing lists, international resources, etc.

http://www.cyndislist.com/

Sing Your Heart Out: Melodies and lyrics for hundreds of American folk songs, patriotic music, hymns, spirituals, etc.

http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/usa.html

Family Fun: Activities and festivities for Groundhog Day, Presidents’ Day, and more.

www.educationworld.com/holidays

Parents Encouraging Parents (PEP)

http://www.parentingonline.org/

A web site for that distance learning literacy program Heads Up Reading that has been put together by Sue Bredekamp.

http://www.huronline.org/

The Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning website. It has great research information about early childhood reading. They have produced a document similar to our state’s Birth to Five Frameworks called A Framework for Early Literacy Instruction. You can down load it from their site. Look for their Early Literacy Advisor.

http://www.mcrel.org/

The National Network for Child Care website. Follow their link for early literacy and you’ll find some great information about promoting literacy including articles to share with staff and parents, fingerplays, and some good links on other sites.

http://www.nncc.org/

Bank Street College has long been a leading light in early childhood education. Their website has great early childhood information plus a link to the America Reads Challenge.

http://www.bnkst.edu/

Scholastic’s Early Childhood Today has a website that contains articles from the magazine on a variety of topics by such authors as Bruce Perry and Stanley Greenspan. In addition you can go to scholastic.com and access the variety of information available from the vast resources of the Scholastic Corporation.

Scholastic’s Early Childhood Today

http://www.newhorizons.org/

Scholastic.com

http://www.scholastic.com/

A to Z Teacher Stuff sponsors Lesson Planz.com with lots of activities from arts and crafts projects to thematic units.

http://www.lessonplanz.com/

Early Childhood News. It’s a nice resource of information on environments, mental and nutritional health, and other things of interest.

http://www.earlychildhood.com/

The Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center web site. This site has information about all of the Center’s projects, many of their downloadable products, and the downloadable Newsletter, Early Developments.

http://www.fpg.unc.edu/

National Center for Children in Poverty website. It has research and other articles about children in poverty including an excellent article on the impact of poverty on brain development.

http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp

Children’s Literature Web Guide: Detailed information about children’s books, including award winners, press releases, and information about authors.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html

Children Now: A nonpartisan policy and advocacy organization for children.

http://www.childrennow.org/

Family World Home Page: Links top resources for Net newcomers as well as educational and parenting resources.

http://family.com/resources.html

Global Show-N-Tell: contains links to schools and students from all over, featuring their art and stories.

http://www.zen.org/~brendan/kids.html

KidLink: KidLink project promotes a dialog for children age 10 to 15 and currently boasts 30,000 participants from 66 countries.

http://www.kidlink.org/

KidsCom: A communication playground for children ages 8 to 12 in English, Spanish, French, and German.

http://www.kids.com/

Kids Web: Links to resources for children’s learning ranging from the arts through the sciences and including just-for-fun links like games and sports.

http://www.npac.syr.edu/textbook/kidsweb/

ParentsPlace.Com: A host of articles on pregnancy, breastfeeding, baby, adolescence, parenting twins, step-parenting, children’s health and education, family activities, and more. Opportunities for parenting dialog and shopping.

http://www.parentsplace.com/