We know many schools have been cancelled and families have had to quarantine themselves due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak. At TCKI, we wanted to provide as many resources as we can to help you during this time. Below you will find a variety of resources for dealing with these times including education, games, virtual tours, and other fun activities to pass the time.
Educational Resources
- Companies Offering Free Education Resources – This site has a large list of companies that are offering their services for free due to school closings. You will need to create accounts on some of these sites.
- Scholastic – Scholastic is offering a Learn at Home program with daily activities to fit several grade levels.
- Progressive Phonics – Help your kids grow in their learning of reading and writing. Progressive Phonics offers activities for learning the alphabet, phonics, and handwriting.
- Multiplication Games – At Multiplication Games, kids can practice their math skills in a fun way.
- Khan Academy – Khan Academy offers an expansive library of lessons in math, science, art and humanities, and even SAT prep!
- Kiwico At-Home Resources – Updated daily, Kiwico has different DIY activities for different age ranges and an at-home learning schedule for parents to help them plan a “school day.”
- Science Mom and Math Dad – Science Mom and Math Dad are having daily “QuaranTime” episodes where they dive into a math lesson, math activities, interactive games, and stories.
- PBS Learning Media – PBS has standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more, where you can filter by subject or browse by grade.
- Beyond the Chalkboard – This is a website created by staff from Boston Children’s Museum and other contributors with a variety of after-school activities from different categories to help with process skills like problem solving, communicating, and working together with others.
- Sporcle Trivia Quizzes – Play a round then swap so the next person can try their hand at beating your score or play against one another using separate devices, starting the same quiz at the same time to see who will get the most points or finish before the time is up!
- World Geography Games – Get ahead in your geographical knowledge with these fun games!
- SciShow Kids – A YouTube channel that explores a variety of fun topics for kids, some include experiments and fun things to make.
- Lalilo – A phonics program where students work on adaptive exercises in phonics, word recognition, and comprehension.
- Sumdog – Game-based practice for math, spelling, and grammar.
- Vooks – Improve literacy and impact your child’s future with Vooks, a library of animated read aloud storybooks that are kid-safe and ad-free.
- eSpark – Instructional videos, activities, and quiz questions aimed at helping your K-5th grader in math and reading.
- Storyline Online – Storyline Online streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations.
- Prodigy – Adaptive game-based learning program for math for 1st-8th graders.
- Mystery Science – Science lessons for your kids K-5th grade.
- XtraMath – Basic arithmetic practice.
- PebbleGo – Weekly resources to help your K-3 student practice a variety of subjects.
- BrainPOP – Learning resources for Kindergarteners through Middle Schoolers (check out BrainPOP Jr. for younger kids).
- Sheppard Software – This is a website that has a variety of educational subjects over which students can play games to practice their knowledge and skill level.
- Numberock – A YouTube channel centered on math concepts that are set to a kids music video. The content of the topics range from place value to integers. (Or go to Numberock.com)
- Crash Course – A YouTube channel geared for upper grades with an explanation on a wealth of topics from Astronomy to Zoology (some are very specific, I.e. Post-WWI Recovery, Plato & Aristotle).
- Crash Course Kids – A YouTube channel that explores a variety of topics, making some abstract topics easier to understand (great for 4th-8th grades).
- Homeschool Pop – A YouTube channel that explores a variety of educational topics and subjects.
- Code Wizards HQ – This website lists and has links to free coding apps, websites, and activities for kids of all ages.
- Quizlet – This is a website that lets you create flashcards for any topic and then you can play games and test yourself on the content.
- Spelling City – This website allows you to create a free account and enter in spelling lists for your kids so that they can then play the games to practice each list and can even take a spelling test and print the results.
- Rosetta Stone – Rosetta Stone is offering 3-months free to homeschoolers and students whose school has shut due to covid-19.
- Hoopla – Download audiobooks straight from your local library. It also has an extensive children’s audiobook section, which will make for good bedtime reading or car listening.
- Epic! – Epic is the leading digital reading platform—built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world’s best publishers—that safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get 30 days free when you join.
- Coolmath Games – Lots of fun games for kids to play.
Things to do and see
- Mo Willems, Kids’ Author, Livestream Doodle – Author of the Elephant & Piggie series, Mo Willems offers a daily lunch doodle where he doodles and invites kids to doodle with him! You can also see previous videos here.
- Librivox (Free Audio Books) – Librivox offers a huge library of free public domain audiobooks for people to listen to.
- Cincinnati Zoo Facebook Live Events – Each weekday there will be a home safari Facebook Live Event at 2pm (CST) where they will highlight one animal and include an activity you can do from home. (They will also provide it on their YouTube channel shortly after the Facebook Live ends.)
- Zoos & Aquariums with Live Camera Feeds:
- – Atlanta Zoo Panda Cam
- – Houston Zoo – Live feed from 7 AM to 7 PM CST- you can even be in control of the camera view for some – how fun!
- – San Diego Zoo
- – The National Zoo
- – Other zoos with webcams
- – Georgia Aquarium – The Georgia Aquarium offers live views of jelly fish, Southern Sea otters, California sea lions, beluga whales, Indo-Pacific barrier reef, the underwater puffin cam, African penguins, and piranhas!
- – Monterey Bay Aquarium – The aquarium has a variety of animals for you to view on their live cams from 9 AM to 8 PM (PST). Note: can be slow to load)
- Jetsetter – Jetsetter has provided a list of 14 livestream travel cams from around the world.
- Virtual Tours:
- – The Louvre – Take a tour of The Louvre without the crowds! There are currently 7 virtual tours offered: The Advent of the Artist, Power Plays, The Body in Movement, Founding Myths: From Hercules to Darth Vader, Egyptian Antiquities, Remains of the Louvre’s Moat, and Galerie d’Appolon
- – Boston Children’s Museum – Offers virtual tours of the first, second, and third floors. In addition, the museum provides a list of 100 Ways to Play.
- – You can explore the Japanese House at the Boston Children’s Museum with their 360-degree virtual tour.
- – Great Wall of China – Offers three scenes to virtually tour
- – Farm Tour – Learn about farming and food processing by taking a virtual trip to a Canadian farm.
- – Yellowstone National Park
- Access Mars 360 View – Shares some information about NASA’s Curiosity rover’s trip to Mars and lets you explore a 3D replica of the surface of Mars.
- Lego Play Ideas – The 30 Days of Lego Play Calendar provides different scenarios and building prompts for kids to use to help create a unique piece using their imagination with whatever Lego pieces they have.
- The Coaster Views YouTube Channel – Offers many POV videos from several theme parks. Read the article here.
- A to Z Summer Fun: Ideas to Inspire Family Fun – This book offers hundreds of ideas that don’t just have to be for summer.
- Actor Josh Gad Reads to Kids – Josh Gad decided to read children’s books to families around the world via his Twitter page in March during the outbreak of coronavirus.
- GoNoodle – GoNoodle gets kids up and moving to fun, engaging content and games.
- Raz-Kids – Raz-Kids delivers hundreds of interactive, leveled eBooks spanning 29 levels.
- The Bible Project – Offers short, animated videos covering a variety of Bible topics.
- Reading Rainbow’s Levar Burton Livestream Readings – Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night, Levar Burton is reading a variety of books.
Understanding and coping with the Coronavirus
- Focus on the Family: Talking with Kids about the Coronavirus – Help for parents on talking about the coronavirus and its implications to their kids.
- Covibook – A children’s book to help kids process their feelings about COVID. It is also available in several different languages.