Tuesday 17 March 2020

Online educational resources for kids at home


We have the real prospect of being at home.  Over the last school year we've found being able to access ideas for homework or about topics at a level my kids get and understand has been really helpful and we will no doubt be using them a lot over the next while.

These same resources will help us give added value to days out and new experiences by either thinking about things before we go or looking into them afterwards.  I've got a few go-to resources and as someone who has worked in primary, secondary and colleges and chatted to plenty other bloggers in education, here's a few of the things I've found.

Activity Village was recommended by Clares Little Tots and has over 23,000 resources - 1,000 for free.  It's definitely a 'keeping the kids busy' type resource that's would be great for being at home, full of crafts, printables, educational activities and games.  It's pretty educational, but then that's how many kids learn right?

BBC Bitesize is one of my favourites.  When my son needed to know about the Mayan's, Antarctica or about whatever else for his homework or holiday projects this is where I go.   It's free, broken down by country and key stage, and has a search facility.  Cartoons and interactive games explain the topics.  I love it.

Clever Tykes is an enterprise education resource.  It's based around three storybooks that provide positive role models to help children ages 6-9 be more resourceful and enterprising - something our lot could do with learning about.   Online there are things to buy but also a free online resource available for schools - which parents can then access once the school has registered.  Why not suggest it?

Enchanted Learning
 was recommended by Living Life Our Way.  It's obviously from the USA but has so many interesting topics.  From Astronomy and Botany through to Volcanos and Winter Crafts - all taken directly from it's handy topic list making it easy to see what you can look through.

IXL is an online resource for KS1-KS4 maths and English Practice. It is broken down by school year (Reception through to Yr13) then into English and maths skills which are all fun and done online. We have a subscription but you can also access 10 questions a day for free which is worth doing to keep up practice and get ideas.

Oxford Owl is at its heart a kids e-book resource for those learning to read and based around the Oxford Learning Tree levels.  You can join for free if you are a parent and you can access their eBook library plus you can access other advice, support and educational activities and games without registering.

Teach it  specialises in secondary school resources - you can access all the resources as a PDF for free by registering on the site.  The subscription levels here are for collaborating and sharing content with departments so if it's just you at home looking to print out some things then it's as good as free.

TES Resources has over 1/2 million resources so whatever you are looking into at the moment there is probably something here.  There are free things, some for members and you can also buy resources through it as one-offs too.

Twinkl - Has thousands of free resources on it from topic related mindfulness colouring sheets to cursive handwriting pages.   Twinkl is great and has it's own SEN section, but if you want access to all the resources you would usually need to sign up for a monthly membership.  Good news - to support you during this period, Twinkl is offering every parent access to all Twinkl resources with a One Month Ultimate Membership, totally free of charge.

Setting this up is really easy to do - go to www.twinkl.co.uk/offer and enter the code PARENTSTWINKLHELPS.

What do you think to these?  What other online resources do you know or would you recommend?  



The information above is correct at the time of writing. 

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