These Education Companies Are Offering Free Activities to Parents During School Closures
You don't need to be a teacher or an educator to get access.
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With all of the school closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak, thousands of parents have turned into homeschooling educators overnight. And while many school districts are providing some kind of distance learning, parents still find themselves scrambling to come up with lesson plans, educational activities, DIY projects, indoor activities, science experiments, and brain-boosting or boredom-busting diversions to keep the kids entertained while everybody is staying home. This is especially true of the younger kids, since it’s so hard to find content that is appropriate for their age and grade level — and they get disinterested easily if something doesn’t grab them right away.
Educational companies to the rescue! Many apps, websites, and curriculum planners have been lowering their paywalls and offering their services for free to families affected by school closures. Others were always free, but seem all the more essential now. And even a few entertainment companies have started at-home learning hubs. These 33 education companies are currently offering free subscriptions and activities for kids. And, while many other apps and websites are offering free services only to teacher and school districts, these go directly to parents — you don’t need an educator’s account to start using them. From science experiments to daily read-alouds to interactive video lessons about cooking and music, they’ll fill the days with diverting enrichment.
IBM's Open P-Tech
IBM's learning platform is always free, and gives older students experience in subjects like AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Quantum and more. Students can take self-directed courses and build skills, or even earn badges that they can use on a resume.
Waterford.org
Waterford.org, a nonprofit with a goal of achieving universal literacy for children, has a slew of resources for parents looking to combat post-COVID summer slide. On the site, you can find summer reading challenges, tips and books for boosting social-emotional learning and other ideas for at-home learning activities.
Scholastic
Every day Scholastic's website offers a new mini-lesson that includes a story, a video, and an activity. The lessons are grouped into four age groups: pre-k and kindergarten, Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3 to 5, and Grades 6+.
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WE Schools @ Home
For K-12 students, WE schools offers weekly lesson packages that complement distance learning. This includes lesson plans, ideas for at-home activities, and resources that bolster social-emotional learning, well-being, service-learning, and resiliency. In addition, there are daily livestreams on Facebook Live.
PBS Kids Daily Newsletter
While there's always child-friendly content at PBS Kids, the organization is going the extra mile during school closures: It's creating a newsletter that gives parents ideas for learning activities to do at home. A new newsletter arrives every weekday.
The Daily Splash
Litton Entertainment has combed through its Emmy-winning, family-friendly TV programming, and now offers a daily newsletter where a half-hour educational show is sent to your inbox every weekday. Stars like Miranda Cosgrove, Dylan Dreyer, Jeff Corwin, Jack Hanna, Mo Rocca cover topics like nature, STEM, travel, wellness, and history.
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Khan Academy
During school closures, the education website offers free daily schedules for students from the ages of 4 to 18. It'll also be hosting livestreams on their Facebook, YouTube and Twitter about navigating school closures.
Tinkergarten at Home
If you sign up for their mailing list, Tinkergarten will send you weekly activity plans designed to get real little ones outside. You can see a sample plan before deciding if it's right for your family.
Circletime
At Circletime, educators host free, interactive videos in whatever their area of expertise might be. You can find video lessons in everything from yoga to family cooking to sing-along songs.
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History at Home
History offers a free video series that includes a quick history lesson, plus ideas for follow-up activities that parents and kids can do at home. The first one, fittingly, is about the history of hand-washing. New videos are available every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 a.m. ET, and special guests include Laurence Fishburne, Padma Lakshmi, Billie Jean King, and Max Brooks, among others.
Highlights@Home
Highlights offers a twice-weekly collection of family-friendly themed stories, puzzles, videos, craft ideas, activities. Each edition has a theme, like finding your funny bone or staying connected to loved ones.
NatGeo@Home
National Geographic has launched its own at-home educational hub, which includes animal videos, DIY projects, live talks from National Geographic Explorers, and fun quizzes. It's definitely a destination for a nature-loving kid.
Sesame Workshop's "Caring for Each Other"
Sesame Workshop's "Caring for Each Other" portal offers resources to help families understand the COVID-19 outbreak. It also has coloring pages with tips on how to stay healthy, videos on how to do "belly breathing" if you're stressed, and learning activities you can do at home.
The Lion King Experience
Broadway's The Lion King has always offered theater-making classes for kids, but normally you'd have to pay for them and do them in a classroom setting. Now they've adapted their curriculum so families can do it at home for free — just download the PDF guides. There are two tracts: one for kids between the ages of 8 and 11, and another for kids between the ages of 12 and 15.
EduHam at Home
If Hamilton has sparked an interest in our country's founding, the show has teamed up with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for an at-home version of its Hamilton Education Program (EduHam). You get a diverse selection of primary sources, tips on how to help students create their own work, and interviews and videos with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Students are encouraged to submit their own raps and videos on the subject, some of which will be shared on social media.
The Moth Home Schooled
Celebrated literary organization The Moth will now release a new story video along with a teaching guide twice a week. It's perfect for older students thinking of a future in creative writing.
Girl Scouts at Home
We know you can buy the cookies at home, but the Girl Scouts also offers a wealth of ideas for at-home activities. You can browse by grade level or topic of interest, ant the activities cover STEM, life skills, entrepreneurship, and the outdoors, among others.
Cosmic Kids Yoga
Similarly, the Cosmic Kids yoga videos are good for a few minutes peace and quiet so you can work — we mean, a nice stretch and mindfulness break in the middle of all the academic learning. The app requires a subscription, but you can watch the videos on YouTube.
GoNoodle
When it's time for them to get up and move around, this always-free app has videos that kids can follow along with for a little dance break. They're also coming up with daily activities for parents to use at home.
Math Games
You can sort through these always-free math games by grade level, or by skill you're looking to work on. There are also free worksheets you can print out.
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
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