Parent Tips

We are delighted to present Scholastic Learn at Home! Each learning journey in this program offers a carefully crafted package for children and their families. 

A learning journey is made up of an animated fiction book, a nonfiction book, a nonfiction video, and an off-screen activity. Each journey one centers around a single topic, such as spiders or rabbits. That helps children make text-to-text connections among the storybook, the nonfiction book, and the video. Then children can deepen their understanding of the topic. 

One of the benefits of Scholastic Learn at Home is how easy it is for both children and their families to use. Here some extra tips on how to make the most of this wonderful resource! 

First, Explore the Book Pairs!

  • The book pairs in Scholastic Learn at Home are from BookFlix, the online literacy resource that pairs classic video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction from Children's Press and other trusted Scholastic imprints.
  • Start your learning journey by watching the story. Just click “Watch the Story” under the book cover to stream a beautifully crafted story video. 
  • You can also click “Read Along” under the book cover to show the words of the story, with each word highlighted as it’s read. This is a great way to expose children to the words themselves, which helps develop both prereading skills and reading skills. 
  • Now read the nonfiction book. You can activate the Read Along option to hear the text read aloud with word-by-word highlighting. In addition, key content vocabulary words are highlighted in yellow. Placing the cursor on the highlighted word will display its definition, and clicking the ear icon will play a recording of the definition read aloud.
  • Note: Some of the books are available in Spanish. Just click “español” next to the Read Aloud button under the book cover.
  • After you are done reading the books, explore the Puzzlers on the left side of the screen. These are interactive educational games related to each book pair. Click ear icons to hear the game directions, as well as all statements and definitions, read aloud.
  • The “Dive Deeper” section offers two additional resources. "Meet the Creators" shows profiles of the author and illustrator of the story on which the video is based. "Explore the Web" offers editorially selected, age-appropriate Web links related to the topic of the book pairs. 

Watch a Fascinating Video

The next part of each learning journey is an engaging nonfiction video. Our Watch and Learn videos inspire and excite with real-world footage. They also build your child’s knowledge base and help expand vocabulary on a topic. Here are some simple steps to get the most of a viewing:

  • Preview key words together. Your child will hear them in the video.

  • Turn on closed-captioning for hearing-impaired students or to help with reading development.

  • Watch the video multiple times and pause for discussion.

  • Get ideas for discussions from our Think Sheets (“My Video Review,” “What’s the Main Idea?,” “Three Important Words I Heard”). If you have a printer, do one of the activities on paper. They come in different levels from prereader to reader. 

  • Play Quiz Whiz. Check comprehension with the quick mini-quizzes.

 

Do an Off-Screen Activity

The final part of each learning journey is a hands-on activity. This part of the journey takes children off-screen and gets them active. Activities are designed to be fun and simple to do together. And they require only materials that are easily found in the home or no materials at all. In addition, our hands-on activities cover a range of essential early-learning skills, including:

  • movement (fine and gross motor)
  • scientific observation
  • early engineering
  • language and song
  • math

Each learning journey is simple for busy caregivers to share. You can do a journey all at once or spread it out. With Scholastic Learn at Home, you have the tools to keep your child’s mind active and engaged outside of the classroom. Let’s keep the learning going!