This page contains links to resources for use with school-aged children from kindergarten to 12th grade. The resources are divided by 'All Ages,' 'Elementary,' and 'Secondary'.
To access specific microunits of study, click below or hover over EXTENDED BREAK RESOURCES at the top of the page. These are labeled by Elementary School, Middle School, or High School. This list will be continually updated as more are created, so check back often! Please see my contact page if there is something I am missing that you would like to see on here.
Ensure that you screen all resources before assigning them to students or your children.
To access specific microunits of study, click below or hover over EXTENDED BREAK RESOURCES at the top of the page. These are labeled by Elementary School, Middle School, or High School. This list will be continually updated as more are created, so check back often! Please see my contact page if there is something I am missing that you would like to see on here.
- High School: Family Matters
- Middle School: Family Matters
- Middle School: Super Powers, Super Heroes
- Elementary School: Museums
- Elementary School: Inventions
- Elementary School: Kids in Space
Ensure that you screen all resources before assigning them to students or your children.
Resources for All Ages
- Picture Prompts from the New York Times. The NYT has over 140 pictures prompts to inspire inquiry, creative writing, and more. Kids of all ages can respond to the picture prompts, and older students can click on the linked article and learn more about the image.
- Virtual Museum Tours. This is an activity that can be easily customized to the age of your child. Younger kids might just want to click through and look at paintings. Older students may use them as inspiration for writing or inquiry.
- Once Upon a Picture. I love these images as prompts for writing. Each image has a series of questions underneath, and students might choose to respond to those or write something completely creative inspired by the image.
- Storybird. Picture books aren't just for little kids! Storybird allows students to select beautiful images created by artists and pull them together into a book. This could be a graphic novel version of a novel they read, a picture book that explains something complicated they learned to a younger audience, or a completely creative endeavor.
- ListenWise. This collection of podcasts and associated resources is free for the foreseeable future. Podcasts are a great way to learn new things!
- The Literacy Shed. This a huge collection of videos divided by theme. Each video comes with suggested activities.
- Artopia. While it's designed for grades 6-8, there are some resources in here that are accessible for all. This site uses one-minute movies to teach art history, and then students can view videos of professional artists at work.
- Scribble Maps. This cool tool allows kids to pull up a map of anywhere in the world and draw all over it! Younger kids can make maps of their neighborhood, while older kids can plot out historical events or the plot of a novel.
- Brain POP. These animated educational videos are super cute and available in every content! Kids can learn about cells, fractions, classical music, and metaphors all in the same place.
- Scratch. This building tool allows kids to program their own interactive stories, games, and animations and then share them with an online learning community.
- Pixton. Got a budding comic artist? Check out Pixton, an incredibly detailed and thoughtful program for creating dynamic comics. Students can use this to create something entirely new or use it to summarize something they read or learned.
- OutSchool. This website houses tons of small-group video learning sessions, with real teachers. It isn't free, but there is a huge variety of cool, engaging options.
Resources for Elementary
- Magic Blox. If you're running out of picture books for your elementary-aged kiddos, check out Magic Blox, a free site with tons of kids' books!
- Story Starters. Check out Scholastic's Story Starters page for elementary-aged students. They can click on a theme to get started, or click on 'Scrambler' to get a surprise!
- National Geographic Kids. If you have a budding naturalist on your hands, what better place for them to learn more than National Geographic? This site has games, videos, and articles galore.
- Wonderopolis. If you have a kiddo who has nothing but questions, Wonderopolis might be the place for them. This whole website is based around questions and their answers!
- Mystery Science. This amazing website has gathered up its most at-home-friendly lessons and is now offering them for free to anyone who needs them.
- Storyline Online. If you've always wanted to hear your favorite picture books read by celebrities, this is the site for you!
Resources for Secondary
- The Story Starter. This story generator is weird and fun. Have your kiddo click through a few times until they find a prompt they want to write about.
- TED-Ed. TED talks are one of my favorite types of "texts" to use in lessons. They are engaging, they come with a transcript that is often translated into many languages, and they're super informative. TED-Ed has taken TED talks and turned them into lessons, complete with comprehension questions, additional information, and a writing prompt at the end.
- LibriVox. Librivox is a collection of audio recordings of books in the public domain. While you won't find any recent texts here, if you've got a student who's into the classics, this might work for you!
- American Rhetoric. How do people persuade others to do things? What does it take to be a great orator? Get your learner thinking about these questions with American Rhetoric, a database of historical and movie speeches that have made a lasting impact.