Stop Summer Learning Loss with PowerMyLearning.org

Disclosure: This is a sponsored review.  I received payment in exchange for my time to review the site.  All opinions are my own, no agreement was made for a positive review.  More information can be found here.

Power My Learning basically takes the best of all of the free online learning activities on the web, and consolidates them into one easy to use website.

Find and use thousands of free games, videos, and interactives in all major K-12 subjects and aligned to the Common Core.

A strong home learning environment can have a big impact on a child’s academic achievement. We know, as parents, you want to help your children succeed. We built PowerMyLearning to make that easier.

Finding activities online to help kids with school is challenging. Online searches turn up tons of results, but are they trusted or high-quality? With PowerMyLearning, you know the answer. Our team of educators has evaluated thousands of free activities and identified the ones that are most fun and effective. We’ve tagged them by subject, grade, Common Core Standard, and more, and made them all easy to find and use. And it’s free!

Your child’s school may be using PowerMyLearning too! Lots of educators use the free resources on PowerMyLearning in class or to assign homework that extends learning beyond the classroom.

To start with Power my Learning, you first create an account.  You can set up an account as a student, parent or eduacator.  I initially set up an account as a parent, but was curious what the difference would be setting it up as a student.  The basic difference is that as a parent, you must give an email address. As a student, you must specify a school.

When setting it up as a student, I noticed that my son's school was not listed.  I'm guessing this is because my son's school is new to the school system.  I sent an email requesting that it be added, and it was added quickly.

Once signed in, you are able to choose which grade level you want to learn in.  

This is great, because it offers your child the ability to learn at their own pace.  Most summer learning sites are simply for younger students, but studies show that children of all ages loose over Summer break.  Did you know that on average, most students loose 2 months of grade level equivalency in math skills every summer.  

What's more worrysome, is that the same John Hopkin's study showed that low income students loose more than 2 MONTHS of reading achievement over summer vacation, while their middle-class counterparts make small gains in reading achievement. 

The National Summer Learning Association did a survey, and it confirmed that teachers spend a significant amount of time re-teaching material due to summer learning loss.

This means that of the roughly 9 months of school, 2 months are lost RE-TEACHING what they learned the year before. 

After you choose your grade level, you can choose which area of study you (or your child) wants to play in.

They offer: Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Art & Music, Technology, World Languages and Your Life.

Within the subjects are sub-headings.  For example, in Language Arts, you can choose Reading (foundational, literature or Informational Text), Writing, Speaking & Listening or Language

For Art & Music,  they offer color, drawing, graphic design and music. 

Then there are suggestions for games that your child can play. 

For the parents ( I love this) each game shows exactly what school subject the child will be learning in (most games fall under more than one category - see picture)

Here are 2 that are offered for the k-2 age group: 

Change It! - 

Is it a solid or a liquid? Watch what happens to these objects after you put them into the oven or the freezer.

What's Your Favorite? 

Allows you to Graph answers from students about their favorite things using tallies, bar graphs, and pictograms.

This one is great, because that's one thing that my son was doing prior to the end of the school year, so this would allow him to remember and use what he's learned, as well as not loosing the knowledge over summer.

These games also teach, which would not only prevent Summer learning loss, but it would encourage learning.

For example, last summer, when he was going into the 1st grade, I was teaching him fractions.  I taught my son fractions, using a pie chart, having him write the fraction that corelated to the number of shaded pizza pieces.  Over the course of the year, I reiterated it, so he would not loose that learning.  In the 3-5 grade section they offer a multitude of games, one of which is Fraction Flags, where you would use paint to color the flag in the right fractional portions.  

One major thing I love about this site, is it's ability to cater to not only every grade level, but every child's individual needs.

I had my son play on the site, and actually could not get him off of it.  He loved it.  We have found his new summer adventure!!

Having a special needs child can be a wonderful thing.  It can also be extremely difficult, especially when it comes to school and learning.  I am lucky, in that my son is, intellectually, well above his 2nd grade counterparts.  He, in some areas, tests as high as a 10yr old (he is only 7!) However emotionally, he is more like a 5yr old.  This is why we opted out of AP classes or grade jumping, and chose to keep him with his age group.

I also have a teen-ager, going into highschool (9th grade.)  For his age, they offer things like learning about good and bad Ozone.  One game I found, that I know I MYSELF will play, is Titantic Moviemaker.  You can literally make your own movie, of the Titantic using the real wreck!

This is a great site for not only typically developing, but really, it seems better for special needs children, and I'll tell you why.  Often times, SN children need special attention in one specific area of study, but like any child, tell them it's 'learning' (especially during Summer vacation!) and they'll blow a bracket.  But... let them play a fun game, and all of a sudden, they're just 'playing video games'!  This is important to curb the summer learning loss, but allowing them the ability to have fun.

They offer different areas for students, educators and parents.

You can link your parent and student accounts, allowing you to see reports that show the activities your child is using (monitor your child's progress, anyone?)

This helps parents stay on top of teacher-assigned schoolwork and learn about their child’s interests.

I plan on suggesting this not only to other parents, but also to the school staff, as an extension of their learning.  

They even offer the site in Spanish, for non or low English speaking parents and students.

I would HIGHLY recommend this to ANY parent, and even parents of younger children who are ready for learning games... it's never to early to get them ready!!