By Donna Duarte-Ladd, Olga Uzunova and Katarina Avendaño
It’s official, NYC Public Schools are CLOSED until April 20th due to Coronavirus (COVID-19). We will, of course, be posting and sharing on ways parents can keep their sanity all the while navigating what is new territory for so many of us.
For our kids, this may seem fun at first but kids need and ultimately benefit greatly from a structured environment. Many schools will start providing remote learning in the coming weeks — meanwhile, we have a curated guide of free resources and subscriptions for remote learning and homeschooling that we as parents will be utilizing and hope these resources will benefit you and your family during this quarantine.
Wondering what to say? Check out our post on How to Talk to Kids About the Coronavirus: Tips From an Expert.
New American History
Offering history materials tailored for grades 4 upward, New American History is a sophisticated offering aimed at history teachers. It’s not all that easy to navigate as a parent unless you’re quite dedicated, but the material is extremely well-thought-out for committed parents.
Readworks.org
If you’re looking to really zoom in on reading comprehension, Readworks is going to be a great fit for you, providing content from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. Readworks is a nonprofit, donation-based service, and the suggested donation is $25, though you can access the content for free.
123 Homeschool4me
Resources are organized by subject and grade. Helpful education activities to keep kids learning and printable worksheets when you need them to sit and get some work done.
2Simple
This is a great resource to set a list of work you would like your child to work on. From the classic subjects like art, math, spelling and grammar to the cool creative stuff like coding, publishing and animation, This site has a vast resource of e-books that can be paired with the appropriate activities.
3P Learning
3P Learning provides parents and schools with a package of online learning resources is designed for schools and families, covering mathematics, spelling, literacy, science. Children between ages 5 and 14 can find supportive learning activities, including structured lessons and fun games. You can claim your four weeks of free access to any of their online learning programs.
Accessibyte
Students learn remotely via typing tutors, arcade games, custom flash-cards and tests. Accessibyte is offering a 45-day trial period during the COVID-19 crisis.
Aleph Beta
Aleph Beta platform focuses on the Torah that is evidence-based, intellectually stimulating and emotionally relevant to your child’s life. Access to their free library is granted after submitting the required Google form.
All Kids Network
This free and rich content platform provides access to thousands of fun kids activities like children’s crafts, worksheets, coloring pages, printable mazes, dot to dot, hidden pictures and more. Various activities are available for children of all ages.
Arcademics
Arcademics make multiplayer educational games for students from K to eighth grade, from free math games to language games. Arcademics combines the excitement of video games with educational content to produce a high rate of learning through exciting, focused repetition that enables automaticity and fluency. All games can be played seamlessly on any device using the web browser for free.
Ascend Math
Ascend Math offers math instruction adaptive to all study plans and for all individual K to 12th-grade students. The platform will be free until the end of April. Parents and Teachers can assign different math exercises to children and the platform will adapt to their needs as it collects data on the child’s skills and pace.
Bamboo Learning
This free Alexa platform provides an education-focused game that showcases notable but less-known historical figures. By saying to your device “Alexa, Luminary of the Day” you activate a search through Bamboo video database of influential people from diverse fields. Kids can enjoy Bamboo video books, math lessons, and music. To get started, just say “Alexa, open Bamboo Luminaries.”
Bedtime Math
Bedtime Math’s mission is to introduce math as a fun part of children’s daily routine, as common and beloved as the bedtime story. Bedtime Math provides free apps, books and printable activity pages. The platform is targeted toward children age 2 through elementary school.
BeeLine Reader
BeeLine Reader is an online tool that improves the reading ability of students of all ages and skill levels. By displaying text using color gradients that wrap from the end of one line to the beginning of the next, BeeLine facilitates visual tracking and enables the reader to focus on other aspects of reading, such as decoding and comprehension. Free access to the BeeLine Reader Browser Plugin for Chrome through September 2020. Email education@BeeLineReader.com for a free account!
Belouga
Belouga is a free account for K to 12th-grade students. The site provides access to an extensive collection of educational resources on various topics like social science videos, math problems as well as real-time communication and collaboration with peers from all over the world.
Big History Project
Big History Project is a free online social studies course that emphasizes skill development as students draw mind-blowing connections between past, present and future. This multidisciplinary approach is focused on high school students, yet designed for anyone seeking answers to the big questions about the history of our Universe.
BlocksCAD
BlocksCAD builds math and computer science skills by using specialized 3-D CAD (computer-aided drafting) software. A block-based coding platform allows students to create and manipulate 3-D objects while using geometry and computational thinking skills.
BrainPOP
BrainPOP invites students to discover, play and create, enriching and deepening their understanding of topics across the curriculum. Children are encouraged to make movies out of images, build maps and develop their block-based coding skills. BrianPOP Jr. targets children from 0 to 3 whereas BrainPOP focuses on K-12 grade children.
Classroom cereal
Classroom cereal is a fun and easy way to practice grammatical exercises daily. How does it work? Print out free short stories — find the errors which help students can build their proofreading skills and become aware of what it takes for clean and precise writing.
Club Oasis
Club Oasis is a free online STEM club for children and parents. Join the DYI STEM labs, live classes, coding lessons and live pop-ups. Activities are targeted toward elementary schools students and older.
Coolmath4kids
Coolmath4kids is for kids from kindergarten to sixth grade. Kids can work on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions through online math games, quizzes, manipulatives and more. For kids 13 and up, visit their sister site at coolmath.com.
Desmos
Desmos is a learning community that provides students with incredible online tools to help them visualize math problems and creating interactive tutorials where students can “do” and collaborate in real time. Turn math into a game and play it in a team with kids from all over the world.
Dictionary.com
Build your vocabulary daily and learn about trending words! Hop online to see the word of the day and test your knowledge by the end of the week. There are several ways to build your vocabulary on Dictionary.com; improve your language skills with word games, see what words are trending in the news, learn about the English language, and simply browse the dictionary by focusing on one letter at a time.
Discovery K-12
Discovery K-12 is a great addition to kids’ pre-K to 12th-grade curriculum. Free lessons and activities are available in seven directives: language arts, reading, math, science, history/social studies, performing arts and physical education.
Dreamscape
This free game allows kids to have fun while engaging them in reading activities and challenging their skills. Dreamscape understands that kids learn in several ways, one of which is through games which aim to foster the growth of early literacy skills. This includes print knowledge, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonetics, high-frequency words and spelling. These games are for children in grades 2-8.
DuckDuckMoose
If you’re looking for some apps for the tablet, we recommend DuckDuckMoose for the preschool to kindergarten set. Graphics and interface are engaging and easily accessible for children. From puzzles, maps, to fun music apps where you can learn notes and rhythm, kids gravitate enthusiastically to this sister site of Khan Academy.
Duolingo
This free app site is perfect for your bilingual child to work on a series of practice exercises. From Arabic to Portuguese, kids will not fall behind with these fun and educational lessons.
Everyday Earth
Have you ever wondered how water changes Earth’s landscape or how are rocks formed? Take a walk with an Oklahoma Park Ranger on a video mission and learn the answers to these and many other questions related to nature and wildlife.
Everyday Learning
A PBS Learning Media resource that is perfect for pre-K kids. Topics from math, science to art provide early childhood resources to strengthen kids’ interest and sense of discovery.
Fluency&Fitness
Get free access to over 60 math and reading activities for K-2 grade students and enjoy more than 600 videos designed to both educate and entertain your children. Play the clips on the TV and watch your kids dance, move around and sing! The free trial is 21 days.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a free resource for students, parents and teachers. From exercises, quizzes, tests and instructional videos, students can practice and master educational skills. This resource is available in 40 languages and offers instruction from kindergarten to early college math, grammar, science, history, AP courses, SAT prep and more. During the school closures due to the coronavirus outbreak, Khan Academy is having daily live streams 9 a.m. PST/noon EST on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.
Little Twisters Yoga & Emotional Wellness
For kids ages 2 and up this resource with tips on how to engage kids through yoga. Fun printable lessons like Space Shape Yoga and Kids Yoga Cards are free for all during the COVID-19 school closure and quarantine.
Mathcelebrity.com
Need help with your math homework? The next time you get stuck on a math problem and want to learn step by step how to solve it, use Math Celebrity. Plug the problem in and see how to solve it. Get the answer and see where you went wrong.
Math Score
Actively developed by MIT graduates since 2003, MathScore is a research-based, adaptive, supplemental learning program for kindergarten through seventh grade. It contains all of the major components of a learning system, such as assessments, math topics, lessons and score tracking for parents and teachers who want to assess the child’s progress. With MathScore Freemium, you can use the platform for free and only choose to pay when a student is ready for the premium content.
Metkids
We recommend this resource for kids ages 5 and up. An extensive catalog of content, as well as a tool to partake in a virtual tour of the museum, will give kids a dose of art and culture. Kids can learn about a particular period or collection and explore art via the “Time Machine,” starting as early as 8000-2000 BC to present time with fun facts and videos.
Minecraft Education Edition
Perfect for Minecraft fanatics, this Minecraft Education Edition focuses on coding, math, problem-solving all via the Minecraft way. Kids will love this education version while parents will love that it is free!
NaNoWriMo
With only time on their hands, this site is for the young writer who is itching to write a novel … in 30 days. Common Core-aligned lesson plans from prewriting to publishing help kids to develop and fine-tune their writing skills. We love this resource for students who are up for using their imagination to create another world or simply tell their story. From lower elementary to high school.
PBS Kids
For toddlers up to pre-K students, parents will love the collection of printables that are geared to support kids in learning. Kids can also hop on their favorite shows such as Wild Kratts and Dinosaur Train, where games are designed to enrich their education.
ProjectGutenberg
A free library of over 60,000 free eBooks that include a children’s literature category where kids can download or read online classics like “Little Women” and “Peter Pan.”
Scholastic
From Smile to Dogman, Scholastic provides many favorite books to our kids. Students can visit the Scholastic website for a wealth of educational activities from grades pre-K and up. Weaving in familiar stories and games for the kids will help when the fun of being home has worn off, and delving into some familiar characters will add a bit of normalcy to the day.
Sesame Street
With a mission to help kids meet critical early development needs — the program many of us grew up on is still going strong and providing online content and shows every weekday morning. Many parents will attest that “Sesame Street” is still one of the best resources for the pre-K and kindergarten set, as well as kids with special needs. You’ll find video, games and art projects online. You may be home stuck with the kids, but we won’t tell anyone when you jump up when “Number of the Day” comes up.
Science Friday
For elementary to high school students with lessons that engage through stories and podcasts. Segments in categories like Physics & Chemistry, Earth Science, Brain and Biology, and more will provide kids with a new way of seeing science.
Storylineonline.net
If you catch one of your kids sneaking in a Fortnite game and want to remind them, this isn’t a snow day then time for a story.
The SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Story Online features cool videos were celebrities such as Sarah Silverman and Chris O’Dowd read books that entertain, providing you a bit of time to get some work done.
The Activity Mom
If you’re looking for actual paper lessons, this source is full of printables for kids from baby up. From a free toddler alphabet activity to a cool “Our Favorite” typing program geared towards homeschoolers.
The Fable Cottage (French Children’s Stories)
Perfect for the French bilingual students who love L’oiseau Et La Baleine and Petit Poulet and more for these stories are translated from English to French. Students will also find an option to translate in English, and there is also slow audio of a French narrator. The Fable cottage also has stories in Spanish, Italian and German languages.
Vizzle
An excellent resource for parents with children on the autism spectrum. Parents with children with special needs know that staying on the course of learning is important. Founded by a team with education and special needs backgrounds in collaboration with experts. Sign up for 30-day free access where you can set lessons and then review and learn from their progress.
Walkabouts
This is a wonderful platform emphasizing on enhancing children’s math and language knowledge, their activities are targeted toward pre-K to second-grade students. Walkabouts created general login credentials for new users. To get started, teachers can simply log in here with the username TeacherFree and the password walkabouts. The free account will be available through Sept. 1, 2020
Wonderopolois.com
On this cool site, kids can learn about a 2,000-plus wonders of the world. Questions come from the site’s users and cover a wide range of topics such as Why Do Whales Breach? Kids are full of wonder, and this site has many of the answers.
Zinc Learning Labs
For kids from sixth to 12th grade, this subscription service is offering its service free until July 2020. students will not fall behind with their vocabulary games, reading and long-term assignments that are self-paced, perfect for the older student.
*Thank you Amazing Educational Resources and Educator Bee Zizzo for additional resource information and tips on this post.
