It was challenging enough just being a parent, but now, thanks to widespread school closures in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, you may be faced with an entirely new role: your child’s teacher.
For some, the role of teacher comes naturally and offers a wonderful chance for bonding and development. For others, teaching is a foreign—and not altogether welcome—task that can spark discord and frustration.
Whether you love it or hate it, teaching your own kids can be tough, so to help make it just a bit easier, we’ve put together a list of parent resources during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Resources to Supplement Schoolwork
Schools may be closed, but most students are attending digital learning days with their school teachers. Teachers across the country have made an amazing transition from classroom-based learning to digital learning, often with little official training and no time to prepare. These digital solutions might not be ideal, but they are a testament to the dedication of our children’s educators.
If we want our children to learn to their full potential, it isn’t enough to simply help them complete their digital learning assignments. We need to fill the gap between what teachers can do digitally and what they would normally be able to do in person. The following resources can be used to supplement the digital learning students are doing with their schools.
Great Schools Coronavirus Support
Great Schools has curated K-12 resources by grade level, including worksheets and book lists.
Newsela
The Newsela platform curates articles based on a student’s reading ability and provides standards-aligned lessons for English, Social Studies, and Science. This is a great resource to supplement critical reading, writing, and reasoning skills.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is already used in a lot of classrooms. The platform offers video lessons and practice problems in a variety of subjects for grades K through 12. You can create a parent account to track your child’s progress.
New York Times’ Learning Network
The New York Times has made its writing prompts and related resources available for free. Students are invited to share their opinions and analysis of articles on a variety of topics, providing valuable peer interaction and learning opportunities.
PBS Learning Media
PBS has curated standards-aligned videos and lesson plans in a variety of subject areas for students from pre-K through 12th grade. Create a teacher account to access lesson plans.
Enrichment without Leaving Home
As parents, we try to bring enriching activities into our children’s lives. We take them to the zoo or the museum, we seek teachable moments in daily life, and we encourage intellectual curiosity. All of this is much more difficult when we are housebound.
These resources provide virtual enrichment opportunities to keep our kids engaged and learning.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed is a collection of video lessons curated for students from elementary through high school. Some lessons would be great supplements for the stuff kids are learning through their digital school days. Others offer a great enrichment experience to keep young minds learning. Encourage and satisfy curiosity with videos on topics from engineering to philosophy. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Outschool
Outschool offers small group video chat classes on a huge variety of topics. There’s something for every student here: Herbology 1 covers plant science with a Harry Potter theme, Murder at the Baxter Hotel lets students solve a murder mystery, and What’s for Dinner Tonight walks students through making a family dinner.
Virtual Fieldtrips
That trip to the aquarium is cancelled. So are plans to see the new exhibit at the science museum. Ditto for the family vacation to DC. But our children can still see and learn about new things! There are tons of resources for virtual field trips, from the zoo to the Met to the farm. This website offers a great list of virtual field trips to keep the kids busy.
Learn to Code
Coding is a great skill to develop. Not only can it be fun to learn, it can help students explore and pursue tons of potential careers. Code.org has curated suggested learning resources to help students learn to code during the COVID-19 school closures.
ACT Updates: COVID-19
ACT, TEST PREPJuLY 9 UPDATE
ACT has postponed the launch of online testing. ACT remains focused on increasing seat capacity for fall test dates at in-person centers.
June 25 UPDATE
ACT has added three additional test dates this fall to help meet increased demand created by COVID-19 cancellations and reduced center capacity due to social distancing. The new dates are September 19, October 10, and October 17.
ACT is also opening up Sunday test dates to all students during September and October 2020 only. After October, non-Saturday test dates will again be available only for students who cannot test on a Saturday because of religious convictions.
There are now 8 ACT test dates this fall, and registration for all dates will open in late July.
Remaining 2020 test dates are:
June 22 UPDATE
ACT is preparing for greater testing capacity in July as more states and communities “open up.” Students registered for the July test should expect an update on their test center status by the end of June.
Registration for fall 2020 and spring 2021 test dates will open at the end of July.
Section retesting, the option to retake one section of the ACT test at a time, has been postponed to focus on testing capacity for those who need to take the full test.
Online test taking will be available at select centers this fall; this allows for faster turnaround of scores which will particularly benefit seniors working to meet application deadlines. A remote proctoring solution will also be available on a limited basis last fall or early winter; more details on this will be announced later.
ACT will report a superscore for students who have taken the test more than once. This gives colleges the option to use the best scores from all tests taken, not just from one sitting.
ACT will now offer four fee waivers to qualifying students (up from the previous two) and unlimited free score reports are available to students who have taken the test with a fee waiver.
June 3 UPDATE
The June 13 test is still scheduled to take place in many locations. A list of center cancellations and additional information can be found on the ACT website.
Plans are underway to allow students to take the ACT at home via remote proctoring either late this year or early next.
Registration for the July 18 ACT is currently open; please note that no NY centers are scheduled for this date. Registration for test dates in September and later will open in July.
April 3 UPDATE
ACT has postponed its April test date to June 13 in response to Covid-19 closures. Students who registered for the April test date have the option to reschedule to June 13 or a future ACT test date.
For rising seniors, cancelled test dates have a big impact: every cancelled test date means that there is one less chance to improve test scores. When students are eventually able to take the ACT, they may have fewer opportunities to retest, so the stakes for each remaining test date will be higher.
There is good news, though:
Need help navigating ACT changes and prepping for the ACT? Check out 宝博体育 Virtual—the same expert guidance, the same amazing teachers, and the same proven programs delivered face-to-face live online.
SAT Updates: COVID-19
SAT, TEST PREPJune 22 UPDATE
College Board is working hard to make additional test seats available for this fall. If you attempt to register and are unable to find a seat, please check other dates. And per College Board, you can also try again later to see if any new seats have been opened in your area.
College Board will also add a test date in January 2021 if there is demand for it.
Registration is currently open for all students for all SAT test dates.
June 3 UPDATE
School day tests are scheduled for September 23 and October 14.
Plans for an at-home digital SAT are now delayed indefinitely. All SATs administered this fall will be in person.
Registration for students who didn’t cancel their June registrations and students in the classes of 2020 and 2021 who don’t already have test scores is now open for August, September, and October test dates. Registration for all students will open later this week.
April 24 UPDATE
The new SAT test date is September 26. Registration will open in May; the exact date will be provided by the College Board the week of May 26th.
April 15 UPDATE
The June SAT is cancelled per a College Board announcement today. Students who were registered can either transfer their registration date or request a refund in May.
Starting in August and assuming it is safe from a public health standpoint, there will be an SAT every month through December. Already scheduled dates are August 29, October 3, November 7, and December 5; a date for September will be announced. Registration for all these dates will open in May with early access to some dates for students who were registered for the June date and juniors who do not have any test scores to date. It is also possible that some areas may offer the SAT during the school day this fall.
If schools don’t reopen in the fall, a digital version of the SAT will be made available.
There will be no spring PSAT 10 or PSAT 8/9 this year.
April 6 UPDATE
MIT is no longer considering SAT Subject Tests as part of the admissions process, meaning that there is no longer a single school requiring them. Many, Ivies included, still recommend them. You can review MIT’s updated testing requirements here.
April 3 UPDATE
In response to Covid-19, the College Board cancelled the May SAT. Currently, the next test date is in June, but the College Board has said that they may decide to cancel that test date as well.
For rising seniors, cancelled test dates have a big impact: every cancelled test date means that there is one less chance to improve test scores. When students are eventually able to take the SAT, they may have fewer opportunities to retest, so the stakes for each remaining test date will be higher.
There is good news, though:
Need help navigating SAT changes and prepping for the SAT? Check out 宝博体育 Virtual—the same expert guidance, the same amazing teachers, and the same proven programs delivered face-to-face live online.
Student Resources to Make the Most of Remote Learning
COVID-19You probably didn’t intend to spend a good chunk of this semester attending school from home, but here we are. Although there’s plenty to miss about leaving the house, you may as well resolve to make the most of your time at home. Look at this as a unique opportunity: thanks to a combination of the world wide web and a lot more free time than usual, you have the chance to learn almost anything you’ve ever wanted to learn.
In the interest of helping you make the most of your remote learning days, here are some great websites for high school students to explore during quarantine.
For students looking for help with school classes…
World History for Us All
A great resource, especially for AP World History students. This website is a project of the UCLA Department of History. Although it is directed towards history teachers, it includes a wealth of information and clear explanations of the connections that exist across world history.
Library of Congress
A seemingly endless collection of U.S. history resources, including tons and tons of primary source documents. The Library of Congress website can be particularly helpful for AP US History students worried about their free response questions.
CanFigureIt Geometry
An interactive web app where students can practice geometry proofs and problem-solving. This website is great for students who are already taking geometry and need the extra practice or for students who will take geometry next year and want to get a head start.
Khan Academy
Free online videos and practice questions for almost any subject and grade level. Khan Academy can be a great resource for students who just need a little extra explanation for tricky concepts.
College Board’s AP Review Sessions
To help students whose schools have closed, the College Board has put AP review sessions on YouTube. Participate live or watch the videos later on.
For students looking for extra learning opportunities…
Codecademy
If you’ve never learned to code, now seems like a pretty good chance. Get started learning the basics of coding with Codecademy.
Code Wars
Already got the basics of coding down? Refine your skills by training with other users on real-world code challenges at Code Wars.
Adobe Spark
Develop your visual storytelling skills with Adobe Spark, a user-friendly program that allows you to create images and videos.
edX or Coursera
Take a class (or two or three) with professors from Duke, Stanford, or Harvard. There are thousands of courses to choose from. Learn about game theory, tour the Museum of Modern Art, master the art of persuasion, or explore the science of cooking.
Lingvist
Learn a new language or expand your vocabulary in a second language. Courses are personalized to your skills and interests to help you master a new language quickly. Currently offering Spanish, French, Russian, and German.
TEDEd
From Mysteries of Vernacular to Superhero Science to Questions No One (Yet) Knows the Answers To, there are thousands of videos to keep you learning. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
For students worried about keeping up…
Check out 宝博体育 Virtual
. Our centers are temporarily closed, but all of our in-person services are available online—the same expert guidance, the same amazing teachers, and the same great programs. Whether you need help keeping up with digital learning, getting ahead for next year, or figuring out what Covid-19 means for your college plans, 宝博体育 Virtual can help.
Surviving Your School Closure: Remote Learning Tips
COVID-19As schools across the country have closed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, students have unexpectedly found themselves attending class online. Whether you’re usually a high achiever or not, this transition is tough. After all, the skills and habits that produce success in the classroom don’t always translate to success with digital learning. Being out of the classroom doesn’t mean learning stops. Keep reading for remote learning tips to make the most of your new school environment.
Have a Schedule
You might not like waking up at the crack of dawn to make it to first period on time, but the school day lends important structure to your day. The first week or so of freedom from the school schedule might have been fun, but unstructured days can get old fast. More importantly, days without a real schedule can seriously hurt your productivity.
Instead of wandering aimlessly through your days, create a schedule.
For inspiration, check out our sample schedule below. You can download a Word version of this and edit the times and activities as you see fit.
Download this sample in a Word Doc
Create a Good Workspace
If you’re going to be learning from home for a while, you’ll need to set up a good learning environment.
We’ve got some more tips for an ideal at-home study environment here.
Stay in Touch
Your teachers are still there to support you. If you have questions, ask! The more you engage your teachers, the better you’ll do on your classwork.
Don’t Rush Through Your Work
Remote learning means that your school day is over when you finish your work. On the one hand, you’ll get a lot more free time to write your novel, learn another language, or perfect your jump shot—but you need to avoid the temptation to rush through your work to get to that free time.
This is where setting a schedule helps. If you finish your schoolwork early, don’t just knock off for the day. Spend the rest of your allotted academic time studying for a test, doing more practice problems, or reviewing your notes. Remember: the goal of remote school days isn’t just to get through the work but to continue learning.
Look for Support
These remote learning tips will get you started, but if you find yourself struggling with class material or having trouble keeping yourself accountable, don’t wait to ask for help. Use a video chat app to set up study sessions with classmates. Enlist your parents to help you stick to your schedule and meet your goals. Or look for online tutoring to help you get through your remote learning days.
宝博体育 Education has launched 宝博体育 Virtual to bring the same guidance and expertise we’ve always offered in our centers to the web. With 宝博体育 Virtual sessions, you’ll get face-to-face support from expert tutors who will help you meet your academic goals.
Helpful Parent Resources During the COVID-19 Outbreak
COVID-19It was challenging enough just being a parent, but now, thanks to widespread school closures in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, you may be faced with an entirely new role: your child’s teacher.
For some, the role of teacher comes naturally and offers a wonderful chance for bonding and development. For others, teaching is a foreign—and not altogether welcome—task that can spark discord and frustration.
Whether you love it or hate it, teaching your own kids can be tough, so to help make it just a bit easier, we’ve put together a list of parent resources during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Resources to Supplement Schoolwork
Schools may be closed, but most students are attending digital learning days with their school teachers. Teachers across the country have made an amazing transition from classroom-based learning to digital learning, often with little official training and no time to prepare. These digital solutions might not be ideal, but they are a testament to the dedication of our children’s educators.
If we want our children to learn to their full potential, it isn’t enough to simply help them complete their digital learning assignments. We need to fill the gap between what teachers can do digitally and what they would normally be able to do in person. The following resources can be used to supplement the digital learning students are doing with their schools.
Great Schools Coronavirus Support
Great Schools has curated K-12 resources by grade level, including worksheets and book lists.
Newsela
The Newsela platform curates articles based on a student’s reading ability and provides standards-aligned lessons for English, Social Studies, and Science. This is a great resource to supplement critical reading, writing, and reasoning skills.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is already used in a lot of classrooms. The platform offers video lessons and practice problems in a variety of subjects for grades K through 12. You can create a parent account to track your child’s progress.
New York Times’ Learning Network
The New York Times has made its writing prompts and related resources available for free. Students are invited to share their opinions and analysis of articles on a variety of topics, providing valuable peer interaction and learning opportunities.
PBS Learning Media
PBS has curated standards-aligned videos and lesson plans in a variety of subject areas for students from pre-K through 12th grade. Create a teacher account to access lesson plans.
Enrichment without Leaving Home
As parents, we try to bring enriching activities into our children’s lives. We take them to the zoo or the museum, we seek teachable moments in daily life, and we encourage intellectual curiosity. All of this is much more difficult when we are housebound.
These resources provide virtual enrichment opportunities to keep our kids engaged and learning.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed is a collection of video lessons curated for students from elementary through high school. Some lessons would be great supplements for the stuff kids are learning through their digital school days. Others offer a great enrichment experience to keep young minds learning. Encourage and satisfy curiosity with videos on topics from engineering to philosophy. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Outschool
Outschool offers small group video chat classes on a huge variety of topics. There’s something for every student here: Herbology 1 covers plant science with a Harry Potter theme, Murder at the Baxter Hotel lets students solve a murder mystery, and What’s for Dinner Tonight walks students through making a family dinner.
Virtual Fieldtrips
That trip to the aquarium is cancelled. So are plans to see the new exhibit at the science museum. Ditto for the family vacation to DC. But our children can still see and learn about new things! There are tons of resources for virtual field trips, from the zoo to the Met to the farm. This website offers a great list of virtual field trips to keep the kids busy.
Learn to Code
Coding is a great skill to develop. Not only can it be fun to learn, it can help students explore and pursue tons of potential careers. Code.org has curated suggested learning resources to help students learn to code during the COVID-19 school closures.
Creating the Right Study Environment
Resources, School, STUDY SKILLSYour surroundings have a big impact on how well you learn. Your study environment — whether you’re in a small or large room, a loud or a quiet one, even a blue or a red one — can change your emotions, thoughts, and focus. That means that surrounding yourself with the correct stimuli can make the difference between studying that sticks…or doesn’t.
We’re going to cover three specific characteristics to help you build the ideal environment when studying at home:
The Effect of Color
While much of the field of color psychology is unproven, one study has noted a correlation between the color red and poorer test performance. No one knows why, but the common wisdom holds that red excites our nervous system, making us agitated or excited and less likely to focus. Of course it’s hard to dictate the color of the room that’s most convenient for you, but if you can, try to pick a room without loud colors. You don’t want the walls themselves to distract you!
Does Room Size Affect At-Home Studying?
Are you claustrophobic? Then avoid the cupboard under the stairs, Harry! Room size has different effects on different people. While a small space could help reduce distractions for one student, it might make another anxious. Anxiety can lead to interruptions in certain cognitive functions, like working memory. Pick a room that makes you feel calm and happy as you begin studying at home more. Chances are you’ll pay better attention to your work.
Noise Level
Noise is another surprising stressor. Some scientists think that background noise creates a certain amount of bodily stress, producing a hormone called cortisol. Excess cortisol keeps a section of the brain called the prefrontal cortex from working properly. The prefrontal cortex helps control what’s called “executive” functions, including planning and reasoning — two faculties you’ll need while you’re studying!
While families are stuck at home, finding a quiet corner can be particularly challenging. Now you have the ammo you need to tell your little brother to keep it down—your cortisol levels are interfering with your learning!
What About Music?
But what about music? After all, plenty of people claim that listening to Mozart makes you smarter. Surely the right music could help you study, right? The science is pretty mixed. The so-called Mozart Effect was illustrated by a study in which college students who listened to Mozart performed better on a test of spatial reasoning than students who listened to relaxation music or to nothing at all. However, the boost to performance lasted only for a few minutes, and other studies have failed to replicate the results—so Mozart doesn’t make you smarter. Lots of other researchers have looked into the cognitive effects of music. Some studies have shown that music that promotes positive feelings and that doesn’t have a lot of tempo changes might be beneficial. Others have shown no effect regardless of the music or have shown inconsistent results. In the end, whether music will help depends on a lot of factors: what you’re studying, what music you play, how loud you play it, and your own personality and preferences.
What’s your perfect study environment?
Only you can figure that out, but our suggestion is to trust your gut. Look for a room that makes you feel at ease, preferably a quiet one with cool colors. The more relaxed you are, the better you’ll remember why the Archduke Franz Ferdinand is important (hint: it has nothing to do with the rock band), or when George Washington forded the Delaware, or who discovered DNA. Find a great place, and hit those books!
Need help keeping your studying on track? Contact your local 宝博体育 Education center for a free consultation.
宝博体育 Education Bothell now serving the community
CENTERS宝博体育 Education Bothell is now open! Our newest center in Bothell, WA is now open and ready to provide students with the expert help they need to succeed! For over 20 years, we’ve been working with students on their journey towards attending the school of their dreams. We’re bringing our test prep, tutoring, and college admissions counseling services to Bothell and the surrounding community to produce the great results tens of thousands of our students see across the country.
宝博体育 Bothell Stands Out from the Rest
What sets 宝博体育 Education apart from other tutoring centers? You’ll be impressed.
Start Today with 宝博体育
At 宝博体育 Education, we offer K-12 tutoring programs; test prep for the SAT, ACT, PSAT, AP exams; and college counseling services. We’re here to help get you into the school of your dreams. Our expert tutors are ready to create a custom study plan for you, so stop by 宝博体育 Education of Bothell today, or call us.
What Is Rolling Admission?
COLLEGE ADMISSIONSWhen colleges do regular admission programs, they wait to evaluate all applications until after the application deadline. It makes no difference whether you send your application in three weeks before the deadline or three hours before the deadline—no one’s going to start looking at it closely until after the deadline has passed. Rolling admission is a whole different ballgame. Colleges with rolling admissions evaluate applications as they are received, sending out admission decisions periodically.
Advantages of Rolling Admissions
Rolling admissions offers some pretty great perks:
Colleges with Rolling Admissions
None of the Ivy League schools use rolling admissions, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great colleges with rolling admission programs! When you’re planning your applications, be sure to check out some of these great options:
Applying to a college with rolling admissions? Contact 宝博体育 and get a free college admissions counseling session.
5 Reasons You Need to Take a Practice SAT Test
SAT, TEST PREPPop quiz: What’s the number one thing you can do to boost your SAT scores?
A. Do daily headstands to improve circulation to your brain
B. Sleep with a test prep book under your pillow to learn by osmosis
C. Only eat foods that begin with the letters S, A, and T until test day
D. Take practice SAT tests
Hopefully, you answered D. (The other options probably won’t work).
Which brings us to our five reasons you need to take a practice SAT test:
Practice makes perfect.
If you want to be really good at hitting homeruns, you go to the batting cages. If you want to play piano flawlessly, you practice every day. And if you want to do well on the SAT, you take practice tests.
You can’t maximize your SAT scores by only taking practice SAT tests—after all, if you don’t review the material and master new concepts, practice will only get you so far. But practice is by far the most valuable test prep activity you can do on your own.
Get your timing down.
If you had unlimited time to take the SAT, you’d probably do pretty well. Half the challenge of the test is the time limit. To succeed on test day, you need to beat the clock—and if you’re going to beat the clock, you’ve got to get your pacing down.
How can you do that?
You guessed it: practice.
It’s a great check in on progress.
Whether you’ve been prepping for the SAT for a while or you’re just now thinking about getting started, you probably need to check in.
If you’re already on a test prep routine, how’s it going? Is what you’re doing working—are your scores going up? Where can you see further improvement? Practice SAT tests give you valuable checkpoints to make sure you’re on the right track and to help you correct course if needed.
And if you haven’t started your SAT prep journey…what are you waiting for? Take a practice test so that you know where you stand now, and get going!
And don’t forget to check in from time to time by…
Taking practice tests.
Test day is weird.
The day of the big test is likely to be pretty nerve-wracking. You’re taking this big important test. You’re waking up early on a Saturday. You may be going to a different school or someplace you’ve never been before, so there’s the stress of finding the right place. You absolutely can’t be late.
The events leading up to the test can be stressful—you can reduce some of the stress of test day by knowing exactly what to expect from the test itself.
And how can you do that?
Spoiler alert: it’s practice.
Practice SAT tests help with nerves.
I’m not nervous. Why…are you? Should I be nervous? Ahhh!
If you suffer from test anxiety, practice tests are even MORE important. Knowing exactly what to expect on every single section will help reduce nerves. Maybe you’ll still be nervous about your score, but at least you won’t need to be nervous about the unknown.
In conclusion…
Take a practice test. If you haven’t started SAT prep, it’ll give you a good baseline. If you have started SAT prep, it’ll give you a good checkpoint. And either way, it’ll help you do better on test day.
Contact your local 宝博体育 center to schedule a practice test today!