Understanding COVID-19
- The UW-Madison Global Health Initiative has created a coloring book to help kids understand how to stay safe during the pandemic. Download a printable copy of the “Staying Safe While Staying Connected” coloring book.
Books and authors online
- Storytime Online features celebrated actors reading children’s books
- Scholastic Learn at Home provides daily articles and stories, videos, virtual field trips, and learning challenges for grades PreK-9
- Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems brings you into the studio with one of America’s favorite children’s authors
- Neil Gaiman’s MouseCircus.com includes the author doing a full video reading of The Graveyard Book, games, and downloadable activities.
- Kate Messner, author of Over and Under the Snow and other award-winning children’s books, is compiling an enormous list of favorite authors and illustrators sharing resources, reading their books, teaching online art lessons, and more
- The Wizarding World has announced Harry Potter at Home, extra activities for Harry Potter fans including free downloads of the first Harry Potter audiobook and ebook.
- Shel Silverstein.com has downloadable learning kits and activities.
Museums, Zoos and other virtual tours
- The Milwaukee Zoo’s ZooView.tv lets you peek into the habitats of some of the zoo’s most popular residents.
- Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safari features a daily Facebook Live feed at 3pm EDT (that’s 2:00 p.m. here in Wisconsin) to highlight one of their animals, along with a website of resources
- Explore the National Parks of the United States with Google Earth
- Google Arts & Culture offers tours of museums and an enormous amount of content about art, artists, mediums, art movements, and more
- Take a Virtual Field Trip to a zoo, aquarium, volcano, farm, museum, or even the surface of Mars with this list of teacher-curated resources
- VirtualFieldTrips.org provides virtual field trips with videos sorted by curriculum topic, grade, and location
- The British Library’s exhibition, “Harry Potter: a history of magic,” is online with plenty to explore.
STEM (science, technology, engineering & math) Activities online
- KiwiCo has some excellent ideas for stay-at-home STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) projects for kids of all ages. Their project videos and printables are sorted by age.
- NASA Stem @ Home has activities for kids in grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12, plus resources for parents and educators.
- EEK! Environmental Education for Kids is a great website from the Wisconsin Green Schools network. It has videos, activities and games to teach kids about our environmental resources.
If you’re on Facebook
- The North Lakeland Discovery Center in Manitowish Waters is doing twice-weekly environmental education videos.
- The Wisconsin Historical Society Press is doing Wednesday story times with their children’s book authors.
- “Goodnight with Dolly” features Dolly Parton reading bedtime stories for kids, weekly on Thursdays at 6pm CDT (7pm EDT).
Online Escape Rooms
Many public libraries have been creating “escape room” or “breakout” activities online. Here’s a selection:
- Check out this Digital Harry Potter Escape Room created by librarians at Peters Township Public Library in McMurray, PA.
- The Mukwonago (WI) Community Library has put together an online Star Wars Escape Room.
- Escape From Starkiller Base is brought to you by the Richmond Hill Public Library
- Spy Apprentice Digital Escape Room was put together for teens and adults by the Washington-Centerville Public Library
- “Oh the Horror: a classic tales escape room” from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library
- Doctor Who Escape Room from the Tehachapi Branch Library
Last updated: July 28, 2020