Rockwood School District: Rockwood Creates Summer Learning Website As Resource For Elementary Students, Parents

Press release from the Rockwood School District:

June 8, 2021

​Members of the Rockwood School District Curriculum Department have collaborated to create a Summer Learning website to help keep our youngest learners engaged in educational activities over the summer months.The site, which is designed for Rockwood elementary school students, provides resources and experiences that reinforce and expand upon the knowledge the students gained during the school year in areas such as reading, writing, mathematics and STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.The site also includes a "Play" section stocked with educational online games and an "Explore" section that features virtual tours of national parks and zoos as well as introductions to fun locations to learn in the St. Louis area."We wanted to make these resources accessible to students and engage them in learning all summer," said elementary literacy coach Dr. ​Amy Orr. "This is a way that's free and accessible. We were going for some fun and games that are tied to our curricular objectives." The team created an early version of the site last year to ensure students had an online home for summer learning resources after the virtual end to the school year. This time around, Orr, fellow elementary literacy coach Katie McClain, math content coordinator Carrie Tomc, science content coordinator Susanne Moar and STEM coordinator Brian Reed improved and expanded on last year's site.There is also a "Caregiver's Corner" included in the site to help parents know how to best utilize the site's resources with their children."We would recommend at least 30 to 6​0 minutes a day where students are working on something where they're continuing to learn. If that's picking different options from this website or reading a book, that they have a variety of choice in their learning," Tomc said. "We view math as this beautiful, creative subject with lots of connections. For the math resources, we tried to make them things that are fun and engaging, so families can do these games together and kid​s can work with each other on problems."The Curriculum team sees the site as a resource that can be improved and added to over the years to come."This is what we do. As educators, that's our goal: to help students learn and grow," Orr said. "It's incredible to see something like this that's a passion project, where everyone jumped on board and made it such a collaborative effort. We're excited at the potential of the learners that we can help."

​Members of the Rockwood School District Curriculum Department have collaborated to create a Summer Learning website to help keep our youngest learners engaged in educational activities over the summer months.The site, which is designed for Rockwood elementary school students, provides resources and experiences that reinforce and expand upon the knowledge the students gained during the school year in areas such as reading, writing, mathematics and STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.The site also includes a "Play" section stocked with educational online games and an "Explore" section that features virtual tours of national parks and zoos as well as introductions to fun locations to learn in the St. Louis area."We wanted to make these resources accessible to students and engage them in learning all summer," said elementary literacy coach Dr. ​Amy Orr. "This is a way that's free and accessible. We were going for some fun and games that are tied to our curricular objectives." The team created an early version of the site last year to ensure students had an online home for summer learning resources after the virtual end to the school year. This time around, Orr, fellow elementary literacy coach Katie McClain, math content coordinator Carrie Tomc, science content coordinator Susanne Moar and STEM coordinator Brian Reed improved and expanded on last year's site.There is also a "Caregiver's Corner" included in the site to help parents know how to best utilize the site's resources with their children."We would recommend at least 30 to 6​0 minutes a day where students are working on something where they're continuing to learn. If that's picking different options from this website or reading a book, that they have a variety of choice in their learning," Tomc said. "We view math as this beautiful, creative subject with lots of connections. For the math resources, we tried to make them things that are fun and engaging, so families can do these games together and kid​s can work with each other on problems."The Curriculum team sees the site as a resource that can be improved and added to over the years to come."This is what we do. As educators, that's our goal: to help students learn and grow," Orr said. "It's incredible to see something like this that's a passion project, where everyone jumped on board and made it such a collaborative effort. We're excited at the potential of the learners that we can help."

This press release was produced by the Rockwood School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.