If there is one thing certain in life, it is that things are always changing. We are growing into one and out of another season. Our families grow and change, as does the world around us. These changes can sometimes leave us in times of uncertainty, but one thing remains: our kids are BORED and need/want to learn something!
Whether you are looking for ways to supplement your children’s public school education, homeschool education or are simply looking for something to occupy your little people’s mind, this resource with over 200 {and almost all FREE} options is perfect for you!
Below you will find an abundence of options, from virtual field trips to science and math curriculum and live web cams from around the world. Enjoy!
A Child’s Introduction to Jazz
Art Appreciation/Lessons For Kids
Art Babble – High definition videos of art that ranges from classical to contemporary
Art for Kids Hub – YouTube station channel with simple art instruction from a father and usually his son
Art Projects for Kids – step-by-step learn to draw lessons
ArtThink – Created by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, this site offers theme-based activities in visual arts, language arts, history and social studies
Chrome Music Maker – website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments
Classics for Kids – Introduces elementary and middle school children to classical music in a fun and entertaining way
Google Art Project – Gives you access to more than 1,000 works of art appearing in 17 great museums across the world
Hoffman Academy – free piano lessons
K-12 Resources for Music Educators – Valuable resources for music educators and music students at all educational levels
National Gallery of Art – an entertaining and informative introduction to art and art history. Featuring a variety of art-making tools that encourage exploration and creativity, these computer-based activities are suitable for all ages
Paris Musees – a collection of 14 museums in Paris have recently made high-res digital copies of 100,000 artworks freely available to the public. Artists with works in the archive include Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso.
The World Music Archive – Run by the BBC, this archive allows you to sample the musical traditions of more than 40 countries
American Museum of Natural History
Bad Astronomy – Bad Astronomy is all about astronomy, space, and science
HooplaKidz – This channel is dedicated to animated nursery rhymes and stories designed to entertain and educate children between the ages of 2 and 8
Khan Academy – thousands of videos that will teach students the ins and outs of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, finance, physics, economics and more
iTunesU – Apple provides hundreds of free courses, lectures and academic talks, mostly suitable for older students
Learner.org – Run by The Annenberg Foundation, Learner.org hosts multimedia resources for teachers, students and lifelong learners
MIT-K12 – MIT is now producing ”short videos teaching basic concepts in science and engineering” for K-12 students
Minute Physics – Cool science videos that are all about getting people into learning physics
NASA Television – NASA’s mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research
NeoK12 – Designated a “Great Site for Kids” by the American Library Association
Peekaboo Kidz – specially designed for kids as they explore the world of kids educational videos
Pinkfong – Fun, musical, and educational videos
Periodic Videos – channel for all things chemistry
SpaceLab – created by Google and Lenovo, in cooperation with Space Adventures, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Schoolhouse Rock – Animated musical educational short films covering grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics
Super Simple – Kids songs, nursery rhymes, and more
TED-Ed – The maker of TED Talks now provides carefully curated educational videos or “lessons worth sharing”
WatchKnowLearn – Over 33,000 educational videos from YouTube and placed into a directory of over 3,000 categories
ABC Jesus Loves Me – free curriculums for ages 2-5 years
Ambleslide Online – K-12
An Old-Fashioned Education – uses classic books and textbooks available for free in the public domain. All of the main subject areas and several electives are included; however, you may find it necessary to add more modern materials.
Connections Academy – a tuition-free online public school for grades K–12
Core Knowledge – lessons plans lined up with the Core Knowledge Series, this site supports Common Core State Standards, PreK-6th grade
Curriculum Pathways – interactive, standards-based resources in English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and Spanish for use in traditional, virtual, and home school
Discovery K12 – traditional curriculum education built on open source technologies
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool – K-8th grade curriculum using a variety of online resources, some courses also include downloadable workbooks
Georgia Virtual Learning (6th to 12th) Georgia Virtual Learning offers all core subjects and several electives through the use of online textbooks and some videos
Homeschool College USA – assists students earn their college degrees from home at a small fraction of the cost of going away to school. They also offer free plans for homeschooling high school
K12 – an online option for a high-quality, personalized education experience
Little House Kindergarten – full kindergarten curriculum that includes nature study, math, health, art, music, and English. The curriculum cost is based on how much your family can afford
MobyMax – K-8th covers all major subject areas through the use of interactive, adaptive lessons
Plain and Not so Plain – 1st-9th grade traditional curriculum offering downloadable workbooks or guides for most subject areas. All of the main subject areas, except for science, are available
Under the Home – K-4th grades based mostly on materials available in the public domain
Free Christian Homeschool Curriculum – 1st to 8th grade free Christian curriculum suggestions for each grade
Free Audio Books – 450+ free audio books includes many children’s classics.
Free eBooks – This collection includes many children’s classics in ebook format.
CK-12 – This non-profit provides “open textbooks” for K-12 students all over the world
ePubBud – Makes available free children’s books for the the iPad, Nook, Kindle and other ereaders
International Children’s Digital Library – Provides free access to high-quality children’s books from around the world in different languages
Project Gutenberg – The mother of all ebook sites hosts 40000 free ebooks, and makes them accessible for Kindle, Android, iPad, and iPhone
Project Guthenberg Children’s Books – free ebooks
Free Textbook Collection – a meta collection of free textbooks available on the web. It covers everything from Art History to Biology, Math, Physics, and Psychology
Highpoint Virtual Academy of Michigan – serves Michigan students in grades K-8. Students are offered the same core courses that are available to students in a brick-and-mortar school. Textbooks and instructional materials are provided for the student. Virtual students are invited to participate in school outings and field trips and other social events.
Insight School of Michigan – a full-time only free virtual public school authorized by Central Michigan University. Currently, the Insight School of Michigan offers grades 6-12.
Michigan Connections Academy – a free K-12 virtual charter school. State-certified teachers provide instruction with support from trained counselors and administrative staff.
Michigan Great Lakes Virtual Academy – serves students in grades K-12. Parents do not pay tuition for their students to attend an online public school. The academy offers core, comprehensive, honors and AP courses.
Michigan Virtual Charter Academy – offers full-time enrollment for grades K-12. Because Michigan Virtual Charter Academy is part of the public school system, there is no charge for the curriculum.
Michigan Virtual School – offers two free classes per academic term at no cost to parents of students in Michigan. Additional courses require payment of a fee.
Virtual Learning Academy Consortium – serves students in grades K-8. The Virtual Learning Academy Consortium serves students in Genesee, Lapeer, Livingston, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties. VLAC also serves students in grades 6-8 in Kalamazoo county.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Museum (CDC) – PDF downloads of curricula on health and food safety for students grades K-12. Worksheets, fact sheets, and coloring pages are also available.
Cosmic Kids! – YouTube channel with videos that promote yoga, mindfulness, and relaxation that are designed specially for kids aged 3+
Eat Smart. Play Hard – PDF sticker book and guidelines for ages 6-8 from the USDA.gov
Food Safety Education For Kids & Teens – activity book, food safety at home podcasts, food safety mobile game and more
Food Is Elementary – a unique and vibrant curriculum introduced into schools and communities that teach children about food, nutrition, culture, and healthy living
Go Noodle – YouTube channel and available downloadable app to get kids moving
Jack Hartman Kids – YouTube channel with featuring fun, movement songs for children
Learn to be Healthy.org – students can play health science education games and activities, explore interactive webquests, and learn ways to make their body strong and healthy
National Eye Institute – website provides a variety of fun learning tools about the human eye, ranging from optical illusions to video interviews with scientists
National Institutes of Health – resources for kids to learn about the importance of staying healthy
Publications and Educational Resources – Fruits & Vegetables – From the Virginia Cooperative Extension
Staying Healthy – Find out how to take care of your body, eat healthy, and stay fit!
The Learning Station – YouTube channel with fun and educational videos for children with active participation
50States.com – Offers copious information about the fifty United States of America
A Crash Course in World History – a playful and highly visual crash course in world history, taking you from the beginning of human civilization 15,000 years ago through to our modern age
Ancient Web – destination for information and resources related to the Ancient world
Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government – A primer on American government for grades K-2
Bridging World History – Created by Learner.org, this site offers multimedia materials designed to help learners discover world history. The material is organized into 26 thematic units, which include videos and an audio glossary
Google Cultural Institute – Google has built a robust, umbrella Cultural Institute to house 42 new online historical exhibitions
Google Historical Voyages and Events – This site is dedicated to the explorers, voyages, events, and historical backgrounds of countries throughout the world
iCivics – Founded by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, iCivics prepares young Americans to become knowledgeable and engaged 21st century citizens by offering free and innovative educational materials
Liberty’s Kids – An animated educational historical television series originally broadcast on PBS Kids
National Geographic – Provides facts, photos, videos, and more about countries around the world
Soft Schools – free social studies worksheets, games, and activities
Soft Schools – 100s of free, interactive timelines
Teachinghistory.org – This site is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom
The Internet History Sourcebooks – This site features collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly for educational use
Visualizing Emancipation – A map of slavery’s end during the American Civil War
World History for Us All – a wealth of teaching units, lesson plans, and resources
World Wonders Project – famous sites on earth
World Atlas – An educational resource for world maps, atlases, and in-depth geography information
World Data Atlas – Great source of world statistics on every country
50+ Free Emergent Reader Printeables
Alphabet Coloring Book – The Alphabet Soup’s Alphabet Coloring Book has a page of images to color for every letter of the alphabet
Alphabet Preschool Activities and Crafts – Visit a letter in the Alphabet Activity Index to find activities that include easy instructions and a list of materials needed
Arcademic Skill Builders – Arcademic Skill Builders are online educational video games that offer a powerful approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills
Duolingo – free, fun foreign language education
Google Lit Trips – provides free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth
Handwriting Worksheet Maker – Make full-page custom handwriting worksheets in seconds
Mother Goose and Nursery Rhymes Coloring Pages – Familiarize your children with Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes while they color. Here you can choose from 48 different rhymes; each page includes the rhyme itself as well as an illustration for your child to color.
Poetry Archive – Search the Poetry Foundation’s archive of over 10000 poems
Preschool Alphabet Activities and Crafts – Free coloring pages, color posters, flash cards, mini books and activity worksheets to present the alphabet, reinforce letter recognition and writing skills
Printable Alphabet Letters – excellent worksheets for preschool and kindergarten kids to learn to recognize and print the letters of the alphabet
Progressive Phonics – free online
Shakespeare’s Plays Animated – Brings to life 12 famous Shakespeare plays
Soft Schools – free handwritting worksheets
Soft Schools – free language arts games and worksheets
Spelling City – Spelling & Vocabulary Website with over 42,000 spelling words with customizable sentences and definitions
The Good and the Beautiful – paid curriculum with free PDF downloads for Language Arts for levels (~grades 1-5)
Tracing Preschool Printables and Worksheets – Preschool printables, including tracing worksheets, for children to learn to trace and print letters, numbers, shapes, and their name
AAA Math – Features a comprehensive set of interactive arithmetic lessons
Algebra: In Simplest Terms – A step-by-step look at algebra concepts
Arcademic Skill Builders – Arcademic Skill Builders are online educational video games that offer a powerful approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills
Convert-me.com – Provides instant conversions for thousands of various units and measurements
Free Printable Kindergarten Math Coloring Worksheets – These are very basic number recognition worksheets
Illuminations – Resources for teaching Math. Funded through a grant sponsored by Verizon this site offers more than 600 online resources (lessons, activities and games) for free
IXL – Site features thousands of exercises designed to help young students (K-8) practice math
Khan Academy Math – You can dive into the Khan Academy’s math tutorials
Math Drills – Includes over 11,000 free high-quality printable math worksheets with answer keys
Math Fact Cafe – Free math worksheets for elementary school and home use
Math Worksheets for Kids – over 100 printable kids math worksheets designed to help preschoolers and above learn everything from early math skills (like numbers and patterns) to their basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division skills
NRICH – The Nrich Math Project (based at Cambridge University) offers mathematics resources for children
Prodigy – easily motivate 1st to 8th grade students to learn and practice math
Soft Schools – free math games, activities, and worksheets
Sumdog – Sumdog’s math games are always free to play. They cover 100 numeracy skills, split into 10 levels.
XtraMath – A free web-based math fact fluency program that is designed to help students master addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts
Bartleby.com – Gives you access to free online classics of reference, literature and nonfiction
Busy Toddler – tons of great play and learning ideas for littles
Ducksters.com – An educational site covering subjects such as history, science, geography, math, and biographies
Education.com – free printable worksheets in all subjects areas for grades prek-5th
E-Learning for Kids – fun and free digital kids world wide
Google’s Be Internet Awesome – Helping kids be safe, confident explorers of the online world through a fun, interactive game
Krazy Dad – thousands of free printable sudoku, logic puzzles, mazes and more
Lakeshore Learning – free lesson plans, resources, activities, and worksheets
Learning Is for Everyone – This non-profit has created a valuable collection of web resources
National Geographic Kids Online Learning
Starfall K-3rd Online Learning
Student Handouts – free educational materials for K-12 teachers and students of all subjects
Tot Schooling – free preschool printables and packets
360 Degree City Tours Across the World
3D Interactive Journey into the Great Pyramid of Khufu
Aquarium of the Pacific Live Cams – penguines, sharks, reef, and more
Bald Eagle Live Cams – Northeastern Florida Dollywood National Arboretum Bald Eagle Nest Cam
Buckingham Palace Virtual Tours
Canadian Space Agency Northern Lights Live Cams
China’s Great Forests Virtual Field Trip
Deserts and Grasslands of Africa Virtual Field Trip
Easter Island Tour and Information
Explore Live Nature Live Cams – the largest live nature cam network on the planet
Google Arts & Culture – Explore collections from around the world
Great Wall of China Virtual Tour
Houston Zoo Live Cams – Chimps, elephants, gorillas, rhinos, and giraffes
Hubble Space Telescope Virtual Tour
International Space Station Live Cams
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts – livestreams many of the performances and later posts the videos online
Africam – Live African wild cams
Monterey Bay Aquarium Live Cams
National Park Services – Archeology for kids
National Park Services – Live bear cams
National Park Services – Teaching With museum lesson plans
Ocean Explorer – follows scientists and underwater cameras as they explore the depths of the ocean and investigate sea creatures
Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin Live-Stream Webcam
Plimoth Plantation Virtual Field Tour
San Diego Zoo Live Cams – pandas, penguins, koalas, giraffes, elephants, tigers, and more
Smithsonian Museums and the National Zoo Live Cams – pandas, lions, elephants
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Virtual Tours
Statue of Liberty Virtual Tour
The British Museum’s Online Collection
The Coral Reefs of Palau Virtual Field Trip
The Museum of the World – Online world historical information provided by The British Museum and Google
United States Antarcic Program – South Pole live cam
Virtual Field Trips – Virtual field trips for grades k-12 across multiple subject areas
100,000 Stars – An interactive visualization of more than 100,000 stars
All About Birds – Covers 585 species of birds, gives quick run-downs of four keys (Size & Shape, Color Pattern, Behavior, Habitat) for bird identification, offers a large collection of beautiful photos of birds in different places/poses, and offers a video to correspond with each bird
Ask an Astronomer – In video format, scientists answer questions about the universe
Atlas of the Universe – Contains maps of the universe zooming out from the nearest stars to the entire visible universe
BioED Online – An online educational resource for educators, students, and parents, dedicated to biology
Bugscope – Lets K–12 students view bugs under a scanning electron microscope over the web
BuiltByKids – Encourages next generation of makers to tackle the do-it-yourself projects of their dreams. Engineering very 101
CELLS Alive! – Brings together 30 years of computer-enhanced images of living cells and organisms for education and medical research
CODE.COM – a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science with FREE coding activities for preK-9th+ grades
Chemistry Activities for Kids – Features chemistry demonstrations, crafts, and projects that are suitable for kids
Dynamic Periodic Table – An interactive Web 2.0 periodic table with dynamic layouts showing names, electrons, oxidation, trend visualization, orbitals, and isotopes
Exploratorium Museum – activities from this public learning laboratory exploring the world through science, art, and human perception
Eyes on the Solar System – A 3-D environment lets you explore the cosmos from your computer, hop on an asteroid, fly with NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, see the entire solar system moving in real time
Encyclopedia Smithsonian – The Smithsonian provides a set of handy online resources across many disciplines
Eric Weisstein’s World of Science – Contains encyclopedias of astronomy, scientific biography, chemistry, and physics.
Google Science Journal – transforms your device into a pocket-size science tool that encourages students to explore their world
Kids Astronomy – An absolutely free astronomy resource designed to teach children about the exciting world of outer space
National Park Service (NPS)
– Kids in Parks – The NPS offers kids the chance to go on field trips, examine fossils, observe wildlife up close, and even become a Junior Ranger
– Every Kid in a Park – this online activity allows your fourth grade student to earn a free pass to any National Park for a full year
– Teachers – Homeschool educators can plan field trips, view multimedia, and browse the extensive teacher resources library for lesson plans and more.
– Distance learning – Grand Canyon National Park offers free distance learning programs for students of all ages
– Smokey the Bear – teaches kids how to prevent forest fires
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Educators, students, and curious people everywhere — come explore the ocean and atmosphere
National Weather Service – learn about weather safety, science, forecasts, weather partners, and more
NASA for Students – America’s space agency provides educational media for different age groups
Paleontology Portal – this site is a resource for anyone interested in paleontology, from the student in the classroom, to the interested amateur scouting for fossils
Physics to Go – A collection of websites where you can learn physics on your own, through games, webcasts, and online exhibits and activities
Robotics – web site is designed to help K-12 teachers and other educators in developing or improving courses that use robotics as a tool for teaching STEM topics or robotics itself
Science Kids – Provides educational resources for teachers and parents to help make science fun and engaging for kids
Smithsonian Open Access – initiative that expands the ways educators and students may use Smithsonian digital assets
Soft Schools – free science activities, games, and worksheets
STEM Learning UK – thousands of free-to-access, quality-assured resources to support the teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects
Teach Engineering – K-12th – Teach Engineering is a digital library collection of engineering lesson plans and units
Teach Preschool Science – a free science curriculum for early childhood
The Good and the Beautiful – paid curriculum with free PDF download for a Marine Biology unit
Try Science – A science education resource for children, parents and educators, featuring information for kids on science, science museums, and science fair project ideas