Following the recommendations of experts, staying at home and keeping a social distance is very important to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. It can also be exhausting, especially for the parents whose children are staying home instead of going to school.
This list of resources can be helpful for those families who are running out of ideas of what to do during the quarantine.
Some of the websites listed below offer online activities and games, others have offline options. Various resources include tools for parents and teachers to help their children learning.
What most aim to do is to help children avoid feeling like they're on vacation and are staying active.
Offline Activities For Children
- Fun Learning Games offers ideas for crafts, singing games and games that stimulate math and language skills.
- 100 Activities to Do at Home During School Closures. This website offers a list of in-home activities for children of all ages: from recipes to ideas of how to make regular games, such as hide-and-seek, more fun.
- 20 Old-School Ways to Keep Kids Busy Without Screen Time. This list of ideas on how to keep children busy at home includes building sculptures, playing treasure hunt or even asking kids to help with chores.
- The 15 Best Activities for Children to Help Them Learn Through Play. A list of 15 activities children can do at home through “play” learning.
- Giant List of Activities. 71 ideas of things children can do at home. Some stimulate learning, some are just for fun.
- The Best Ideas for Kids. List of 100 indoor ideas for children.
- Music Activities for Preschoolers. Eight music-related activities that will encourage children to explore their musical talent. Some of these activities need props for dressing up or playing instruments.
- Music Activities for Children. These indoor activities stimulate children’s musical interest. Some use old materials to create instruments and others use instruments to create music.
Online Activities For Children
- Featured Educational Games. This web site offers online learning games in categories like geography, health, math, science and art. It also features educational videos and online lessons.
- 27 Best Educational Games for Kids. On this website, you can find dynamic learning games for children that will help them develop skills in science and art.
- Scholastic Learn At Home offers different 20-day long learning experiences for children from kindergarten till ninth grade. Each day, children will watch videos, read books or articles and comment on what they’ve learned.
- Kids Classes From Home. On this website, early childhood educators lead the sessions, which include yoga or cooking, and provide ideas for activities that kids can do offline. The sessions are live but can also be streamed on-demand.
- Free, Easy Science for Remote Learning. This website has free science lessons for children from kindergarten to fifth grade. Lessons vary from short five-minute videos to 30-minute lectures. Some also offer activities that children can do at home.
- The Kennedy Center Art Classes. Videos of daily art classes by Mo Willems, writer and animator of books for children.
- Buzzfeed Ideas to Entertain Children. A list of 18 ideas to do at home with children, including learning to play instruments online and yoga classes for kids. Parents can also join the children in these activities and help complete them.
RELATED: Coronavirus Coverage On WUSF
Online Activities For Families
- Educational Shows on Netflix. Here families who enjoy watching TV together can find a list of more than 150 educational Netflix shows. Some of the shows are recommended for adults only, but you can also find some to watch with children.
- The Ringling. The museum has several kid-friendly activities, including a virtual “animal safari” in which artists portray animals in different ways. Also check out various art-making activities, Ringling Read Along videos, and more.
- Museum Virtual Tours. This website has links for 12 virtual tours of museums around the world including the British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam or the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
- Internet Archive. This online, non-profit library offers free access to 418 billion webpages, 23 million books, 5.6 million movies, 9.5 million audios, 2 million clips from TV, 527,000 software programs, 3.4 million images, 214,000 concerts and 772,000 collections.
- The Metropolitan Opera. The Metropolitan Opera will stream performances each day for the remainder of March at 7:30 p.m. The performances will remain available for 20 hours on the Met's homepage, metopera.org.
- Florida Aquarium Live. The Florida Aquarium is doing a Facebook live stream, SEA-SPAN, each day at 10 a.m. The aquarium will also have live sessions on their YouTube page.
-2EScc
Tools For Parents And Teachers
- Montessori Free Downloads. More than 130 free tools that parents or teachers can download to teach children different subjects including French or Chinese. It includes work plans, study cards, games, worksheets and printable books.
- Hippocampus Free Videos offers more than 7,000 videos on different subjects and collections like Khan Academy. The videos are designed for students from middle school to college.
- “We are Teachers” Online Learning Resources. This website offers more than 125 online learning courses for children of all ages. It offers descriptions of the program and instructions to access them for free.
- The Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award Online Courses. This website offers online programs that can get you certified in different skills. Courses include coding, blockchains and virtual reality.