Thanks to the coronavirus, covid-19, the “rona,” or even “the beer virus” depending on which generation you belong to, everyone’s normal has been flipped on its head, and signs that the apocalypse is nigh seem to pop up in our news feeds every day. No one can find toilet paper or hand sanitizer, I can’t remember the last time I showered, and this isn’t quite what I expected the end of times to look like.
Instead of ripping through a post-apocalyptic desert in a crazy car with spikes and torches while clad in a sexy leather getup and goggles, I look like a braless bum. And if all this weren’t enough, the kids are out of school and questioning us to death. With nothing to do, what fun things can you do with your kids at home?
To save everyone’s sanity, I thought I’d put together a master resource list of things to do with your kids to try and resuscitate your last fuck. We’re all in this giant shit storm together, screaming, tired, and stir-crazy. Hang in there, my fellow mother cussers.
Enjoy this huge list of free kid activities to keep you from hurling yourself into the sun during this sugar-free, Haribo gummy bear-fueled liquid shit storm of a time.
Activities I’ve done with my kids during quarantine
Virtual Amusement Park Rides
I have never been to a large amusement park, but thanks to these YouTubers, I can experience places like Disney and Universal Studios, both of which are currently closed due to coronavirus, and I don’t even have to wait in long lines or put on pants. Just click on each page link and enjoy an at-home smorgasbord of amazing thrill rides for the price of free!
SoCal Attractions
Blog Mickey
LMG Vids
On Demand
Since everything is shut down, On Demand has figured out a way to bring the movie theater to us. Premiering March 20th, and for just $19.99, you can rent Universal movies for 48 hours that are still in theaters such as Trolls World Tour, The Invisible Man, Emma, and The Hunt. While $20 for a movie may seem steep, remember you’re not paying admission fees per person, crazy inflated prices for popcorn or snacks, and there’s no one donkey-kicking your seat from behind. Score!
Onward is an adorable new movie that has been released to buy early on major digital marketplaces, and if you have Disney+, it will be available on there April 3rd.
Minecraft: Education Edition
This is a – you guessed it – educational version of the hugely popular game Minecraft, and they’re providing it for free until June to students and educators. Enter your student email here to see if you’re eligible (hint, ask your child what password they use in their computer lab and it will likely be the same to log-in to Minecraft: Education Edition. Also, you may need to message their teacher or district employee to find out what their school email address is)
ABC Mouse/Adventure Academy/ReadingIQ
All umbrellaed under Age of Learning,these three highly popular learning programs are now available for free. ABC Mouse.com is an amazing app that acts as a virtual classroom and provides plenty of learning games and activities and rewards you with items to build your own room. Adventure Academy is a virtual MMO (massively multiplayer online game) but educational and geared towards kids ages 8-13. To sign up, visit the website of your choosing and use the code: AOFLUNICEF – this code will work for all 3 products: ABC Mouse, Adventure Academy, and ReadingIQ
BBC Civilisations AR
This is a badass learning app that brings ancient artifacts right into your living room (or wherever you are) via the absolute sorcery that is augmented reality. Read about and listen to facts about each object, and tap into your inner Sherlock Holmes by investigating highlighted areas to find out more.
Amazon’s Audible
Amason allows you to download any two audible books of your choosing for free, and a month to read them before being charged. You can cancel at any time, and they’ll even e-mail you before your free trial ends.
San Diego Zoo
San Diego zoo provides educational activities, games, videos, virtual tours, and stories on their website.
Monterrey Zoo here, you can find several live cam feeds of the adorable and awesome, like jellyfish, African penguins, and sharks.
The National Park Service
Kids will love that they’re offering virtual tours on their website of Yellowstone National Park. This is an educational and free kid activity!
Mars
Thanks to a collaboration between Google and NASA, you can now explore the surface of Mars without leaving your couch.
Google Arts & Culture
Google provides a wealth of 360 degree tours you can take of famous destinations both on and out of this world, like the Hubble’s control center. Where do you want to visit today?
YouTube
This kid favorite is chock-full of walking tours to popular vacation destinations, world wonders, and popular places. Type “virtual tours” and watch the results pour in. So far, we’ve personally toured the Louvre, Stonehenge, the Colosseum, and the pyramids.
CELEBRITY READINGS/TUTORIALS
Celebrities are stepping in to read to and teach our kids and help us all feel a little less alone amongst this toiletpaperpocalypse, and I’m all ‘bout it, ‘bout it.
Mo Willems, the popular children’s book author is providing drawing tutorials via The Kennedy Center on YouTube.
James Dean, the author and illustrator of the popular Pete the Cat books is live-streaming story time and drawing tutorials on Instagram Live.
You can draw: Jarrett Lerner is posting activity pages on YouTube and his website which you can print out and enjoy. Lerner is the author of “EngiNerds and “Revenge of the EngiNerds,” as well as the forthcoming “Geeger the Robot” early chapter book series and the author-illustrator of the “Hunger Heroes” graphic novel series.
Jennifer Garner and Amy Adams have launched a campaign called Save the Children where they read books online to children suffering school closures due to coronavirus. Other famous faces like Reese Witherspoon are contributing to this campaign by reading books on their socials.
Astronauts are reading books to children from space via a program called Storytime From Space.
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES/PROGRAMS/APPS
123 Homeschool4me provides helpful worksheets, printables, and activities that are organized by subject and grade.
2Simple provides tons of cool educational resources for you and your child to explore.
Actively Learn Ready-to-go ELA, science, and social studies assignments, curriculum units, premium features, and more are free! Teachers can upload unlimited content and easily create engaging assignments, give students real-time feedback, quickly set up student collaboration, use Extra-Help scaffolds for struggling students, assess student progress, and more. And now students have access to a new independent reading library, too. The articles can be translated into over 100 languages and progress monitoring tools allow you as the teacher to easily see what supports are being used and provide feedback. Experts are giving free webinars every day to answer questions.
All Kids Network: Get worksheets, craft ideas, printable dot to dot, hidden pictures and more.
Animals are amazing: Learn all about animals from the Switcheroo Zoo.
Arcademics: Games are aimed at students from kindergarten to eighth grade.
Archive.org: If you’re looking for a large collection of public domain media, your best bet is Archive.org. It has millions of public domain books, songs, TV shows, magazines, and more. If you’re feeling particularly bored, you can also use the site’s Wayback Machine feature to snoop on what your favorite sites looked like way back in the day.
Ascend Math: Ascend Math offers math instruction for kindergarten to 12th-grade students. The platform will be free until the end of April.
Babbel: Students who are worried about falling behind on language courses can keep up on their studies on their own time. Babbel is offering students enrolled in schools and colleges in the U.S. three months’ free access to its app and platform, in any and all of its 14 languages offered: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Dutch, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian, and English.
Bedtime Math: See math as part of your child’s daily routine.
Belouga: Get a free account for K-12th grade students for resources such as math problems and social science videos.
BrainPOP: Want to make a movie? BrainPOP lets students make movies out of images, build maps and develop their block-based coding skills. BrainPOP focuses on K-12th grade children.
Carmen Sandiego: You remember our girl from back in the day? Well, she’s been given a modern-day makeover and is here to kick ass. Download the free printables to solve word puzzles and unscramble secret messages by answering questions about geography.
Classroom cereal: Work on your grammar by learning to proofread short stories.
Club Oasis is a neat online STEM website for kids, educators, and parents where you can take live classes, learn coding, and join labs.
Club SciKidz: Activities and videos for kids on topics in science and math, including daily science experiments.
Crash Course: Courses in sociology, computer science, film history and mythology are offered for starters.
Desmos: Students can use online tools to visualize math problems, create interactive tutorials and play math games with kids from all over the world.
Discovery K-12: Pre-K to 12th-grade lessons and activities in these areas: language arts, reading, math, science, history/social studies, performing arts and physical education.
Dreamscape is a fun and engaging reading game kids can play for a more immersive experience.
DuckDuckMoose: An app for tablets for preschool to kindergarten students that features award-winning educational apps.
Duolingo is a free app that teaches your child second languages so they can yell, “Mooooooom!” in an assortment of tongues.
Education Perfect Currently used by over 1 million students across 1,800 schools, as a cloud-based software, EP enables schools to deliver curriculum-aligned lessons and assessments remotely. By allowing teachers to monitor and measure how students are engaging with their learning in real time, teachers can maximize their efficacy – even in a remote setting. Free unlimited access for schools until May 1.
Epic! reading app is free to parents for the rest of the school year if you can get a digital invitation from a teacher or school librarian. They can sign up free to provide access to their students.
Fun Brain: Activities, games, reading and more are available for grades pre-K through eighth grade.
Khan Academy published this list of schedules and free online resources they’re offering for kids in Pre-K-12th grade.
I Know It No, it’s not just an annoying thing your kids say, it’s actually a popular math practice site for students in grades K through 5. There are over 500 common core aligned math lessons. You can create class rosters, assign lessons, and track student progress. There is an easy-to-navigate interface that lets students get started quickly with easy-to-understand explanations and helpful hints. Free access for 90 days (can contact for an extension if closed longer).
Into the Book: Elementary school students can practice reading comprehension.
iTunes U allows anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to learn from a large collection of free education content in public courses from leading schools, universities, museums, and cultural institutions.
Mathcelebrity.com: Check your math with Mathcelebrity.com.
Mystery Science: Video lessons science lessons that will inspire kids to explore our world.
NaNoWriMo: If your child is looking to write the Great American Novel, here’s a website for you.
NASA Kids’ Club: NASA has hundreds of photos and videos of planets, space, and more, available to view for free.
National Geographic for Kids: Don’t worry, your kids won’t be seeing any animals “doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Look for games, videos, lessons and “cool stuff.”
New American History: Help your kid become that obnoxious history snob who wears turtlenecks at parties. Learn from history materials aimed at grades 4 and up.
Outschool is a website that offers a wide range of cool live, online classes, and they are now offering $100 worth of free classes for kids ages 3-18.
PBS Kids offers a free weekday newsletter with activities and tips parents can use to help their kids “play and learn at home.”
Ranger Rick: The website is free to all visitors through the end of June. The digital editions of the magazines are all free to the public for the next few months.
Scholastic rolled out an amazing “Learn at Home” program which offers 3 hours of classes that will keep your kids busy for up to 4 weeks for pre-K and above.
ScratchJr: Kids can create their own interactive stories and games.
Science Friday: Elementary to high school students can get lessons in physics, chemistry, earth science and biology.
Starfall: Math, reading, art and music is available for students in kindergarten through third grade.
Swift Playgrounds (macOS and iPad): If you’ve ever wanted to learn to code Swift, now is your chance. Swift Playgrounds teaches you how to code Swift through fun and intuitive games.
The FAB Lab: Watch STEM videos with Crazy Aunt Lindsey.
Toy Theater: No, this isn’t Five Nights at Freddy’s where the Chuck E. Cheese-like robots from hell try to devour your soul. Toy Theater is a fun website with math, art, reading games, and zero murdering.
Tynker is the #1 coding platform for kids – Tynker fuels creativity in thousands of schools and powers the imagination of 60 million kids worldwide. In the platform you can access 40+ aware winning block & text-based courses and over 3,700 learning modules. Tynker is broken down into three age groups: Ages 5-7 (voice instructions); Ages 7-13 (drag and drop coding); and Ages 13+ (real world coding). For teachers looking to utilize this platform, webinars are available to help you use the features in a remote learning environment. Free Access to the entire Platform until May 2020.
Vizzle: If you have a child on the autism spectrum you can get specialize lessons from Vizzle. Fo shizzle.
VmathLive empowers students to master math content at their own pace in a motivating online environment. The learning is structured so students work sequentially through the lessons and can earn badges, trophies, and points. Complimentary trial offered through July 31, 2020.
Wonderopolis this website teaches your kid all about the wonders of the world so they’ll leave you alone in one of the wonders of your house – the bathroom.
MOVIES/TV SHOWS
Netflix Party is a new way to watch Netflix with your friends online. Netflix Party synchronizes video playback and adds group chat to your favorite Netflix shows.
VIRTUAL TOURS OF INTERESTING DESTINATIONS
Into the Map: For the world traveler, a way to create maps and explore the world’s geography.
MetKids: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a dedicated kids section on its website, complete with videos, an interactive map, and a “time machine” that brings the viewer to different art pieces in the museum.
WILDLIFE/ZOO LIVE CAM/VIRTUAL TOURS
Aquarium of the Pacific Peep sand tiger, zebra and whitetip reef sharks on the Shark Lagoon webcam at the Long Beach aquarium, and then click over to the kelp forest of Honda Blue Cavern, which is modeled after Blue Cavern Point off Santa Catalina Island.
Cape May Zoo: Zoo employees will conduct a virtual tour every weekday, starting at 11:30. Each tour features a short clip of a different animal and an education lesson about it.
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden: The zoo employees will highlight different animals at 3 p.m. each day on their Facebook page.
The Deep Sea: Scroll to the very bottom of the ocean with the help of this interactive visual about the deep sea.
Duke Farms Eagle Cam: Take a look at the bald eagles at Duke Farms in Hillsborough.
Jenkinson’s Aquarium Penguin Cam: Check out how the penguins are doing at Jenkinson’s Aquarium in Point Pleasant by viewing the livestream on their website.
Ocean County Parks & Recreation: The naturalist staff will broadcast some of the department’s animals in the Nature Center displays in the future. Check the Facebook page for updates.
San Diego Zoo: Check out one of the zoo’s various live webcams, from koalas to tigers.
Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute: The National Zoo has live webcams of its naked mole rats, giant pandas, and more.
LIVE MUSIC
Broadway HD also has about 300 classic musicals, plays and shows, according to Cosmopolitan. BroadwayWorld is also posting clips of stars singing songs from popular shows.
The Metropolitan Opera is streaming nightly. Click here for the schedule.
READING/STORY TIMES
Comic Chameleon: If you’re a webcomic fan, it’s high-time you check out Comic Chameleon. It’s got a curated selection of some of the top webcomics out there, like Questionable Content, XKCD, Dinosaur Comics, and Girls With Slingshots.
Englewood Public Library: The library is hosting a children’s music event (ages birth to 5 years old) every day at 10:30 a.m. on Facebook Live.
Jersey City Public Library: The library has a video story hour on weekdays at different times, so check their Facebook page for upcoming times.
JSTOR: University and college students will probably be familiar with JSTOR, the academic resource that contains a plethora of ebooks and journals. Now, JSTOR is making its entire library accessible to the public — without academic credentials.
KidLitTV: Videos of children’s books are read aloud, along with musical performances.
Montclair Public Library: The library is livestreaming its virtual story time on certain Wednesdays at 11 a.m. Check their Facebook page for more information.
New York Public Library has over 300,000 e-books and audiobooks available for free.
ProjectGutenberg: A free library where kids can download or read online more than 60,000 free eBooks.
Rahway Public Library: The library is hosting toddler time and pajama story time at 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. on certain days on Facebook Live, respectively. Check their Facebook page for more information.
Readworks.org is a donation-based service offering K-12 reading comprehension content. They recommend a donation of $25, but you can access everything for free.
Scribd: Scribd is now offering a 30 day free trial with no credit card requirement. They host over a million titles, including e-books, magazines, audiobooks and more.
Wattpad: If you’re a fan of underground literature, it doesn’t get much more unknown than Wattpad. Wattpad is a community that allows writers to publish new content across different genres, giving them a platform to have their works read.
ART
Beanstalk: The company is offering its interactive kids classes for free.
The Art Assignment: Weekly PBS videos, hosted by curator Sarah Urist Green, that explore art and history.
PRINTABLES
All Kids Network: Thousands of printables for kids, from color by number sheets and hidden pictures to mazes and coloring pages.
Coloring Nature: Hundreds of nature printables, including animals, habitats, gardens, wildflowers, and more.
Education.com: Free printables for kids, including crosswords, dot to dots, and more.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
GoNoodle: Free movement and mindfulness videos created for kids.
Little Twisters Yoga & Emotional Wellness: Don’t forget your child’s emotional health. What about yoga?
Headspace: Science has proven that a meditation practice can reduce stress and anxiety, so there’s no better time to start than now. Headspace has made several of its meditation collections free due to the ongoing pandemic. (Healthcare workers can also get a full subscription for free.)
Peloton: Peloton may be known for pricey fitness equipment, but its app actually offers a slew of different audio and video workouts across that you can use without the fancy bike. The company is offering a free 90 day trial to new users.
OTHER FUN KIDS ATTRACTIONS
Affinity by Serif: Serif is making its suite of creative apps, including Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher, free to use for three months.
America’s Test Kitchen: Recipes and activities are available for kids for free.
I’ll be making a post soon about fuss-free kids activities and crafts that don’t absolutely suck, so be sure to keep your eyes open for that, but in the meantime, if you have another free resource for kids, let me know in the comments, and go follow my hoe ass on Pinterest!
