Helpful At Home Resources
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PBS.org shares information to help you talk to your kids about Coronavirus. The article includes links to videos of different characters like Daniel Tiger, Curious George, and Elmo showing how to practice healthy habits, like washing your hands and catching your coughs.
HealthyChildren.org gives more information about COVID-19 and outlines the best ways to talk to children about the virus.
The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) released a handout to share the best ways to inform children about COVID-19. This page also includes links to additional resources for dealing with broaching the subject of COVID-19 with children.
KiwiCo created a video to explain why social distancing is so important during this time.
Our YouTube account features storytimes from your favorites! Read and sing along with Miss Ellen, Miss Debbie, Miss Debbie, and Miss Anne!
Dav Pilkey- Dav Pilkey at home- Get creative and have fun with some of your favorite characters from Dog Man and Captain Underpants! Check back every Friday at 8:00 am to discover new activities, exciting videos, and so much more!
LeVar Burton- Mondays at noon EDT, he will read for children; Wednesdays at 6 EDT will be YA; and starting April 3, Fridays at 9 p.m. EDT will be for adults.
Greg Pizzoli- reads during his "Standby Book Club" weekdays at 11 pm.
James Dean- reads various Pete the Cat stories weekdays at 12 pm.
Tara Lazar- live readings weekdays at 12 pm.
Peter Reynolds- live readings weekdays at 12 pm.
Emily Arrow- singalongs and stories weekdays at 1 pm.
Mo Willems- Lunch Time Doodle's with the Kennedy Center's Artist-in-Residence, weekdays at 1 pm.
Dan Gutman- "My Weird Read-a-Loud" weekdays at 2 pm.
Jarrett Krosoczka- Draw with Jarrett weekdays at 2 pm.
Oliver Jeffers- live readings weekdays at 2 pm.
Ben Clanton- draw along with Miximal Mondays, Mondays at 9:30 am, and see previously recorded storytimes on Ben's Facebook page.
Mac Barnett- offers read-alouds and drawalongs on Instagram stories.
Miss Jolie- kids music, movement and mindfulness.
Songs for Seeds- singalongs and musical playalongs
Storyline Online- home to many videos of celebrities reading favorite children's books
Stimola Live is a website of live stream events for kids, tweens, and teens by professional authors and illustrators Stimola Literary Studio.
Story Time From Space offers videos of astronauts up in space reading stories to kids down here on Earth!
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy is sharing live storytimes on Facebook every day at 10 am, March 23rd through March 27th.
Kidlit TV - Explore the world of children's literature with author interview, video read-a-longs and much more.
International Children's Digital Library - Free online children's books from around the world in many languages for ages 3 to 13.
Goodnight with Dolly - Beginning April 2, these videos will feature Dolly Parton reading stories from her Imagination Library.
Many zoos and aquariums offer live feeds of their animals! Check out:
- San Diego Zoo
- Monterey Bay Aquarium
- Atlanta Zoo
- Houston Zoo
- Georgia Aquarium
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game
Tour three floors of the Boston Children's Museum!
The Brookfield Zoo in Chicago hosts a Facebook Live event, Bring the Zoo to You, every weekday at 11! The feature a different animal every day and offer a live Q&A at the end of the video.
Take a virtual tour of the Great Wall of China! This field trip offers great 360 views as you 'walk' along the wall.
Boeing and Discovery Education offer a virtual field trip to the Johnson Space Center! In this field trip, kids will learn some history of space travel, then hear from Boeing employees working to create a new spacecraft.
The Louvre museum in Paris, France offers virtual access to many art exhibits.
Explore the real surface of Mars! Ride along with the Curiosity Rover and get 360 degree views of Mars.
NJ's own Cape May County Zoo is bring the zoo to you weekdays at 11:30 am with Virtual Zoo School. A different animal will be featured every day and a different challenge will be issued to at home viewers!
The National Park Service offers virtual tours of different attractions in Yellowstone National Park (spread throughout Idaho, Wyoming and Montana), including Mammoth Hot Springs, Mud Volcano, the Upper Geyser Basin, and more!
Get an inside look at the NASA Glenn Research Center! You can tour different labratories, wind tunnels, and rocket hangars.
Digital Giza gives you access to the largest collection of information, media, and research materials ever assembled about the Pyramids and related sites on Egypt’s Giza Plateau.
- The Cat in the Hat Builds That- Based on the PBS KIDS series, “The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That,” this app introduces pre-k kids to science inquiry and engineering (STEM) concepts through games tailored to their learning progress.
- Fish School- A playful underwater experience filled with 8 educational activities, this award-winning app teaches children letters, numbers, shapes and colors with colorful fish and friendly sea life characters. Ages 2-5.
- Khan Academy Kids- Inspire a lifetime of learning and discovery with our free, fun educational program for children ages two to seven.
- Play and Learn Science- The Play and Learn Science app contains a suite of educational kids games from PBS KIDS designed to encourage early science learning!
- PBS KIDS Games- The PBS KIDS Games app has over 100 free learning games with your favorite PBS KIDS characters. Kids can play anytime, anywhere!
- PBS KIDS ScratchJr- With PBS KIDS ScratchJr, kids can create their own interactive stories and games featuring their favorite PBS KIDS characters. The storytelling possibilities are endless with this creative coding app for children ages 5-8.
- ScratchJr- Coding is the new literacy! With ScratchJr, young children (ages 5-7) can program their own interactive stories and games. In the process, they learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer.
- Seek by iNaturalists- Get outside and explore the nature around you! Use this free app to identify plants and animals in your neighborhood (while social distancing)!
- States of Matter by Tinybop- Experiment with solids, liquids, and gasses from the safety of your own tablet!
- But Why- But Why is a show led by you, kids! You ask the questions and we find the answers. It’s a big interesting world out there. On But Why, we tackle topics large and small, about nature, words, even the end of the world.
- Ear Snacks- A musical podcast for kids about the world.
- Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls- Based on the bestselling series, each episode delves further into the lives of women from the books, encouraging young listeners to ask questions and explore their interests.
- Kids Listen- Listen and learn about science, history, animals, music, and language, and then make that learning active with hands-on projects and activities.
- Kidz Nuz- Five minutes of today’s top stories, current events, politics, science, entertainment, sports and more — all nonpartisan and age-appropriate.
- The Past and the Curious- this amusing podcast features people telling interesting, little-known stories from history with an emphasis on fun and humor.
- Story Time- Do your children like listening to a story? Story Time has lots of great stories for everyone to listen to. Each story is usually less than 20 minutes long, hopefully just long enough to keep your toddler, preschoolers, and little ones engaged. Story Time is a free fortnightly audiobook podcast for children ages 2-13.
Liberty Science Center has an "in the house" section of their website with ideas for trying at-home experiments, animal live cams, and inspirational links!
Paper Planes- How to make 5 easy paper planes.
Go Noodle offers hundreds of at-home activities, including how-to videos for anything from drawing to cooking to making slime! There are also many videos to get you up and moving!
Tynker is offering free coding lessons while schools are closed!
ABCya offers learning games for children.
Make music with some of your favorite characters at PBSkids.org!
Jumpin' Jamie! - Fun and educational music videos from our friend, Jumpin' Jamie!
ESL at Home - Links to activities in 20 languages for students in grades K through 8. They require only paper and pencil, and some materials that can be found around the house.
Teach Your Monster to Read - The ground breaking game that makes learning to read fun!
National Geographic Young Explorer - Read issues of National Geographic's Scout and Voyager editions online.
Coloring Book- Print out individual coloring pages- or the entire book! The book contains art by 23 celebrated illustrators, in honor of Children's Book Week.
Harry Potter at Home- Here you’ll find all the latest magical treats to keep you occupied - including special contributions from Bloomsbury and Scholastic, nifty magical craft videos (teach your friends how to draw a Niffler!), fun articles, quizzes, puzzles and plenty more for first-time readers, as well as those already familiar with the wizarding world. We’re casting a Banishing Charm on boredom!
Glazer Children's Museum has a list of fun things to do at home, including tips on making the best forts, ice cream in a bag, and making a rubber band car!
This free website provides PreK-9+ students with 20* days’ worth of exciting learning journeys.
https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html
The following digital programs are available for Free from Scholastic, now through April 20, 2020. They all use the same login information:
Username - Learning20 Password: Clifford
BookFlix (PreK-3) BooKFlix provides a fun way for early readers to engage with delightful stories and interesting nonfiction ebooks.
Watch & Learn Library (Prek – 3) Builds learning excitement with real-world videos in English and Spanish.
TrueFlix (Grades 3+) Helps students build science and social studies knowledge in an engaging way.
ScienceFlix (Grades 5+) Gets students excited about all sciences with exciting articles, videos, and project
For the two resources listed below use the username "engaged" and the password "learning"
PebbleGo (grades K-3) - Packed with informational articles, ready-made activities, and literacy supports for students of all abilities.
PebbleGoNext (grades 3-5) Helps students in Grades 3-5 learn about key concepts related to Social Studies, Biographies, Science, States, and American Indians.
For the resource listed below use the username "continue" and the password "reading"
My Capstone Library - E-books on numerious topics for grades K to 6.
Big TImber Media is offering free access to a variety of eBooks through June 30.
#ScratchAtHome provides children, families, and educators with ideas for engaging in creative learning activities using the free Scratch coding environment. This page will be updated weekly with new activities!
This week, we’re challenging you to get coding and create a Scratch project. With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations, and share your creations with others in the online community. It’s easy- and free!
Follow this step-by-step tutorial to animate your name. You’ll learn how to make each letter change colors, move around the screen, and more! If you’d like to share your finished projects with us, email them to ber-childrens@gmail.com. We’d love to see your creations!