ONLINE RESOURCES & IDEAS FOR FAMILIES UNEXPECTEDLY HOMESCHOOLING

 

Special Live Offerings:

 

Special Opportunities

  • Audible Streaming: For as long as schools are closed, we’re open. Starting today, kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids. 
  • Scholastic: Scholastic has created a free learn-from-home site with 20+ days of learning and activities. 
  • Brooklyn Game Lab: Live stream of content, programming and discussion for kids and families, aired publicly over the internet and available to any family that wants it. The plan (currently) is to stay ON AIR every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The broadcast will stretch from late morning till early evening. Every hour will bring different team members into focus. Most of the content will have an element of participation. 
  • The Parenting Junkie: New free 28-page ebook + course offering guidance, reassurance and practical steps to transform your forced-seclusion and social distancing into a true family retreat.
  • Jennifer Cook’s Covideo Bundle:  Author Jennifer Cook put together some of her best non-lame, seriously fun learning activities from the pages of the award-winning Asperkids Game Plan. Jennifer will teach you how to engage ANY kid at ANY level on ANY subject and have you feeling like an educational expert in no time.

 

Live Author Events & Resources

  • Roda Ahmed: The author will be doing read-alouds on Instagram Live of her book Mae Among the Stars. 
  • Mac Barnett: The author will be reading a book a day on Instagram Live.
  • Julie Falatko: Enjoy a reading of Falatko’s book, Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book), by Stranger Things actor, David Harbour. This read-aloud comes with a teacher’s guide. 
  • Monique Gray Smith: The author has added a collection of videos of herself reading from her picture books on Instagram. 
  • Oliver Jeffers: The author will be reading one book every day on Instagram Live. He’ll also be posting the videos to his website. 
  • Tony Medina: Upcoming author Brittany Thurman reads aloud Medina’s book, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Boy.
  • Kate Messner: A former classroom teacher, Messner has written more than three dozen books for kids. She’s put together a library of distance learning resources for students, families, teachers, and librarians. 
  • Grace Lin: The author and illustrator has taken to YouTube to provide a glimpse into Chinese culture and a guide for drawing Chinese dragons. 
  • Melissa Stewart: The nonfiction science book author has created engaging video mini-lessons including a similes worksheet, researching skills, and more.

 

Virtual Zoo Visits:

  • Cincinnati Zoo: Home Safari Facebook Live sessions featuring Fiona the Hippo
  • ZooBorns: Compiles the newest baby animals from all the zoos and aquariums

 

Online Educational Resources 

  • Brainpop: Animated Educational Site for Kids – Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology.  
  • Curiosity Stream: Watch award-winning science, technology, history and nature documentaries, worldwide, on-demand and available on multiple devices.
  • Tynker: Tynker is an educational programming platform aimed at teaching children how to make and code games and programs. 
  • Outschool: Live Online Classes for Ages 3-18 with access to 10,000 small group video chat classes—created and taught by inspiring teachers (as low as $5/class).
  • Udemy: The world’s largest selection of courses — over 100,000 online video courses. 
  • Khan Academy: Free short lessons in the form of videos. Its website also includes supplementary practice exercises and materials for educators. 
  • Creative Bug: Creativebug offers online video arts and crafts workshops and techniques. Learn how to paint, knit, crochet, sew, screen print, and more. 
  • Starfall: Starfall is a children’s website that teaches basic English reading and writing skills. The main demographic is preschoolers, and kindergarteners. It teaches children how to read by using games and phonics. 
  • ABCYA: Educational games for grades PreK through 6 that will keep kids engaged and having fun. Topics include math, reading, typing, just-for-fun logic games, and more.
  • FunBrain is an educational browser game website for children and adults. 
  • Funbrain Jr. helps preschoolers and kindergarteners jumpstart their journey of learning with engaging online games, stories and printables. 
  • SplashLearn is an award winning math learning program used by more than 30 Million kids for fun math practice. 
  • Storyline Online is a children’s literacy website created by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, which provides free storytelling videos and resources for parents and teachers to foster a love of reading in children. 
  • PBS Kids: Educational games and videos from Curious George, Wild Kratts and other PBS KIDS shows!
  • Highlights: The place for children of all ages to play games and discover new jokes, surveys, answers to science questions, and fun crafts and recipes from Highlights.
  • National Geographic Kids: Find amazing facts about animals, science, history and geography, along with fun competitions, games and more. 
  • Math Game Time offers free math games, worksheets, homework help & videos for teachers, parents & children. 
  • Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages. 
  • Literactive: The most comprehensive phonics-based reading program available for early learners.
  • Science Kids is the home of science & technology on the Internet for children around the world. 
  • At Switch Zoo you can make new animals, play animal games, build a biome, learn about animals, and hear animal music. 
  • Seussville: The Cat in the Hat, Sam-I-Am, Horton and the Whos, and the rest of the Seuss characters welcome you to Seussville, Dr. Seuss’s playground in cyberspace.
  • TurtleDiary activities pair with the appropriate grade level to enhance retention of material and increase success in the classroom. 
  • Udemy Coding for Kids Courses: Udemy offers a range of courses for you and your child to choose from. You can opt for courses focused on a specific language (like HTML, CSS, or Python), or you can choose more game-based introductions algorithmic logic.
  • Ocean School: Week-long packages of media and activities that you can do with your kids.
  • Inner Pieces Gallery: I designed these printable tools for parents, teachers, specialists, and anyone wanting to help children tap into their own learning power.
  • Werkz Publishing: Award-winning interactive science units for free for two years (math for elementary age coming soon).
  • Varsity Tutors: Free resources to help students and parents cope with school and summer camp closures.

 

YouTube Channels

  • Crash Course Kids: Tons of awesome courses in one awesome channel! Nicole Sweeney teaches you sociology, Carrie Anne Philbin teaches you computer science, Craig Benzine teaches film history, and Mike Rugnetta is teaching mythology!  
  • Science Channel: Learn about outer space, leading scientific exploration, new technology, earth science basics, & more with science videos & news from Science Channel.
  • SciShow Kids: SciShow Kids explores all those curious topics that make us ask “why?” Every Tuesday and Thursday, Jessi and her robot rat Squeaks answer your questions and explain fun, complex science concepts for young, curious minds. 
  • National Geographic Kids: Nat Geo Kids makes it fun to explore your world with weird, wild, and wacky videos! Videos featuring awesome animals, cool science, funny pets, and more, are made just for curious kids like you.   
  • Free School: FreeSchool is a safe and friendly place to expose children to famous art, classical music, children’s literature, and natural science in an age-appropriate and kid-accessible way. 
  • Geography Focus: The GEOfocus channel is all about geography! I love geography, maps, flags, culture, languages, and travel. The videos I create for this channel include profiles of countries and regions, descriptions of important landmarks and geographical features (both natural and man-made), and discussion of international issues. 
  • The Brain Scoop: I’m Emily, the Chief Curiosity Correspondent of The Field Museum in Chicago, former volunteer of the University of Montana Zoological Museum, and I’d like to share some of the amazing things we have in the collection with the Internet! 
  • SciShow: SciShow explores the unexpected. Seven days a week, Hank Green, Michael Aranda, and Olivia Gordon delve into the scientific subjects that defy our expectations and make us even more curious!  
  • Kids Learning Tube: Kids Learning Tube educates kids through music and animation in a fun and unique approach to learning. 
  •  Geek Gurl Diaries: Welcome to the Geek Gurl Diaries, where us gurl’s discuss, create, demo and interview all things geek.  
  • Mike Likes Science: I like learning and helping people learn. So every month or so, I make science inspired music videos. If you like learning, then you’ve come to the right place! 
  • Science Max: Have you ever done a science experiment and wondered “What would this be like if it were HUGE?” Welcome to Science Max, the exciting new series that turbocharges all the science experiments you’ve done at home.  
  • SoulPancake: SoulPancake tackles the universality of the human experience. We are the dreamers, misfits, artists, activists, and innovators who have the power to positively change the world. 
  • Kurzgesagt: Videos explaining things with optimistic nihilism. Currently we make one animation video per month.