My SD Moms 
(StatePoint) Keeping kids occupied after school and on weekends often means sports, bikes and playing outside. But all that physical activity should also be well-balanced with mental exercise.
With that in mind, here are several ways kids and parents can use the Internet to focus on education when class is not in session:
Personalized College Prep
It’s never too early to work on college applications. Investigate online services, tools and resources that can assist, such as Parchment. The company’s newest tool, College Match, uses a proprietary algorithm to generate personalized college recommendations, enabling students to discover schools for which they may be well-positioned to be accepted.
Parchment also makes ordering, tracking and sending transcripts to schools an easy, online process. Visit www.Parchment.com to get started.
Leisure Reading
Free online reading resources can help kids enjoy reading on their own terms. Check out Scholastic’s suite of free reading tools available at www.Scholastic.com/parents.
You can visit the site for daily tips, grade guides and tools to help you build your own home library, and find your child’s learning style.
Find great ebooks at home or on-the-go with teacher-approved ereading app, Storia.
Additionally, kid-friendly literature recommendations are available from Scholastic experts. Their book list features books for children in Pre-K-8.
Learning on-the-Go
Parents and kids are perpetually busy. Luckily, GreatSchools.org, a nonprofit website for parents that has reviews of more than 200,000 prek-12 schools, has launched smartphone-friendly tools like GreatKids, which provides advice and activities that can be used in just a few minutes. Its free, personalized stream of reading activities for parents and kids, as well as its mobile-based activities, help build reading comprehension, knowledge and perseverance.
Whether kids are in class, at home, or on-the-go, learning doesn’t have to take a break.
