If your power is on, the Web has a wealth of information for families and students. Many of the APS Instructional Department web pages include links to resources for parents and students. For example:

MATHEMATICS: includes Math Resources for parents and students. For secondary students, last year's Summer Math Review activities are also available online. Activities are listed by grade or subject.

SCIENCE: The page includes links to many science-related sites including external websites that support learning opportunities about hurricanes. Weatherwizkids has photos, games, flashcards, interactive activities and much more to explore, and you'll also find links to National Geographic, science bulletins from the American Museum of Natural History, and other resources.

SOCIAL STUDIES: With one week to go before the presidential election, the APS Social Studies Office offers some great ideas to help students "Follow the Election" from home.

• The Library of Congress, "America's Library," has a wealth of resources for parents. Go to www.loc.gov/families/
  
• The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies has a wide range of activities online for students: www.smithsonianeducation.org/students/

Family Activities for Learning

During "Snowpocalypse" of 2010, we asked parents for ideas.  Here are just some of the suggestions gathered from Arlington families to help your children continue to learn and explore from home.

• Have a spelling contest by pulling words from a variety of books at home. Select a word, then read the paragraph in which it was found. For those words that need more practice, have your kid(s) write out the correct spelling three times each. Then let your kids test you!
• Make your own mail boxes out of an old box and some paper. You and your kids can write letters and deliver them to each other throughout the day. They love checking to see if they have mail, plus they're having fun writing silly notes and drawing pictures for each other.
• Start a story with a sentence like "There was an old rundown house at the end of the long dirt road." Then each person in the family takes a turn adding a sentence to the story; keep going around the table many times, until you run out of ideas or the story comes to a natural conclusion. If kids are young, one parent can act as the scribe, if not, you can pass the pencil around and everyone can write their own sentence. Read it out loud when you are done.
• Family baking and cooking projects are excellent opportunities for students to practice reading and following directions, weights and measurements. Plus everyone can enjoy the results.
• Card games, board games, video and electronic games, charades - all of these provide great opportunities for strategic thinking and communications while indoors where it's (hopefully) warm.

Here are some other fun activities when you're housebound:

• Begin a hurricane journal. Take pictures (or draw pictures) of the front and back of your home, as well as your surrounding neighborhood. Include comments about the changes before, during and after the storm.
• Bring the outdoors in by using watercolors to paint what you see. Experiment with mixing colors to create new ones.
• Decide how you would describe to someone in Uganda (look it up to know the weather there) what a hurricane is like, what a hurricane is, etc.
• Find the driest and wettest city in US every day - what's the difference in temperature between that location and here?
• Take digital photos of your backyard and then print out a page for each child. Have each kid draw people (themselves and friends) playing in the rain, and then have them write a story to go with the picture.
• Try some weather-related math calculations:  If a wind gust of 70 miles an hour keptmoving westward, how long would it take to reach California? Hawaii? China? If it rains two inches of rain per hour, how long will it take to fill up your bathtub?

APS Classroom Work & Other Learning Resources:

Students are reminded to continue to read and review materials and assignments provided or referenced by their teachers in their course materials. Some of these materials are in print form and others are available online through teacher-created webpages, Blackboard sites, and/or school webpages. Students may wish to practice their skills by reviewing the SOL-released items tests from the Virginia Department of Education, where they can practice and then check their answers using the answer keys included in the released tests, available online at http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/released_tests/index.shtml.