"Best of" - Kid-Centered Resources for Parents and Educators at Home

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Let’s be clear: COVID-19 is not the time to worry about whether or not your children (or you!) are achieving at the highest possible levels in a typical academic sense.

This is a time for surviving, for connecting, for curiosity, and for practicing patience, self-compassion, grace, and hopefully laughter.

There is an extreme diversity of experience with the shelter-in-place rules. And, there are tons of resources being thrown at parents and educators — coming through my own inbox at a rate of 5–10 per day.

Here’s a curated list of a few to check out if you haven’t already found your favorites.

For Everyone

Talking with Children about COVID

Communities of Care — Fostering Relationships

Stress & Resilience

  • Asset Education — videos & tools created BY STUDENTS for SEL/Stress reduction.

K-12 Resource Lists

Many other people have compiled lists…which are the best?

  1. **YAK Learning — What if we thought about learning at home being mostly about thinking — not about learning standardized, grade-level content, but about practicing the kinds of thinking that contribute to a life well lived?

  2. **Wide Open School — Common Sense, XQ Institute, Scholastic, Khan Academy and many other big name partners brought together resources for everything from planning your day to academics to play and emotional learning for both families and educators.

Additional:

Pre-K Resources

  • Zero to Three — Resources for 12–24months

  • Sesame Workshop Caring for Each Other — resources on how to talk with children about COVID-19, making a routine “for the now normal”, a virtual hug from Elmo, etc.

  • Montessori activities here for toddlers and preschoolers — most of the materials families may already have at home.

  • Tinkergarten at home — outside and at-home activities.

For Fun & Exploration

PLAY

ART

VIRTUAL MUSEUM & ZOO TOURS

READING TIME

  • Tandem Bay Area is doing daily readings

  • Erin Jones reading children’s books each morning in different languages — Monday and Wednesday in English, Tuesday and Thursday in Spanish, and Friday in either Danish, French, Spanish, or English!

  • Many different authors reading their books aloud — list here.

MATH

SCIENCE

  • National Geographic Kids — videos, games, & more.

  • Mystery Science — popular science activities for kids of all ages

  • Steve Spangler — 50 science experiments in 50 days. The videos are on Facebook and Instagram: @SpanglerScience

  • KidsQuest — HomeQuest — art, science, engineering activities led by educators

OUTDOORS

EXERCISE

For Educators & School Leaders

Erin RaabResourcesComment