We Are Teachers Now
Schools are closed. Kids are home. Fortunately, for the working moms of PILOT, work is not closed. For this we are grateful. However, this does introduce a very new concept for both of us, we basically became teachers overnight. To complicate matters, the only students in our classes are our own children.
Our schools and teachers are doing their best to provide school work and educational packets to be consumed at home, but let’s face it that they too have been caught off guard and are scrambling to find the resources and a way to get those resources to our kids. We both admit, day one (two, and maybe three) of “home schooling” consisted of abnormal amounts of screen time and video games. But, now it is time to buckle down and provide some educational structure to the days and weeks ahead.
After “Week 1” of navigating the new reality of our roles as workers, parents and now teachers, we want to share an amazing list of resources for school aged children, from K-12! Thank goodness there are so many great companies out there that are providing schools and parents with special offers and/or free access to their products for the time being. This is proof that we are all in this together!
Have other resources to share? We’ve included a quick and easy way below that you can help us update this list and continue to share resources together.
-Beth Gatsik & Amy Shade, Working Moms of the PILOT Crew
Online Learning Resources For Elementary Age Kids (K-5)
ABCmouse Early Learning Academy
This comprehensive program covers a wide variety of subjects for students aged 2-8 (Pre-K through second grade). It offers more than 850 self-guided lessons across 10 levels. A companion program focuses on teaching English as a second language for this age group.
This MMO game gives kids something other online learning resources may lack: a sense of community. Students up to age 13 play games to learn across a range of topics (math, reading, social studies, science, and more), while also creating their own online persona and interacting with others in the game.
BrainPop offers in-depth learning on topics across the curriculum for upper elementary and middle school students. Each topic includes videos, quizzes, related reading, and even coding activities. Teachers have access to planning and tracking resources too. They also offer BrainPop Jr., specially designed for younger kids.
Breakout EDU uses online games to bring the fun of escape rooms to learning across the elementary curriculum.
Students can create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage for free. Canva is optimized for Chromebook and fully cross-platform.
edHelper is online service that provides printable worksheets to teachers and homeschooling parents.
Turn writing assignments into something amazing with the illustrations, animations, and sound effects available. Kids can even write their own choose-your-own-adventure story!
Epic!
A digital library for kids 12 and under. You can instantly access 35,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes & more.
These online learning resources for younger students are easily differentiated for students of different ability levels.
This program is designed to teach elementary-aged kids the computer skills they need. It’s specifically aligned to learning standards in the UK, but the skills apply to students everywhere.
This library of science and social studies articles allows differentiation by reading level, so you can use these articles for various age and skill levels.
Legends of Learning offers 2,000 3rd through 8th grade games and simulations correlated to state standards. Teachers create playlists of games based on standards and students work through completing each one, while the teacher receives real data from each student. Using their various assignment options, teachers can create custom playlists, or have a playlist built for them with a top-rated game.
This popular differentiated learning site provides instruction across a wide array of elementary subjects. Teachers and districts can receive online training on effectively using the site.
Mystery Science offers digital video mini-lessons for science subjects K-5.
Authentic news content turned into learning materials that are classroom-ready.
PebbleGo offers safe, interactive online research resources on topics selected by their teachers for students K-3
Get game-based learning in math for kids from first to eighth grade. The site offers lots of how-to articles to make your distance learning effective and fun.
This British company’s site hosts games and creative learning opportunities for elementary level math, spelling, and writing. Teachers can set daily tasks for students, create a blog, and find other ways to communicate.
ReadingIQ is a comprehensive digital library offering books, magazines, comics, and more for kids from ages 2-12. It’s a smart replacement for library time right now and makes it possible for teachers to monitor what and how much their students are reading.
Scholastic created the Scholastic Learn at Home website to provide students with approximately 20 days worth of learning journeys that span various content areas. Students get approximately three hours of learning opportunities per day, including projects based on articles and stories, virtual field trips, reading and geography challenges, and more.
Twinkl has a library of over 630,000 educational resources which they are offering for free to everyone! Teachers, parents and students can click on the link above and enter the code CVDTWINKLHELPS to gain complete access to their entire online library.
Tynker offers a complete online computer coding curriculum for students K-8. Teachers can get free lessons, projects, and more on the site.
They specialize in K-8 social studies, life science, geography, and ancient civilization curriculum content. Their website has online learning videos and quizzes along with a list of the national and state Standards that the videos align with.
Missing storytime already? Vooks is a kid-safe online streaming library of read-aloud animated storybooks.
A nonprofit organization dedicated to math achievement for all with activities for achieving math fact proficiency.
Online Learning Resources For Junior & High School (6-12)
Albert is an online practice and assessment resource for core topics grades 6-12. Teachers can assign modules and track student progress. Albert’s online learning resources include practice questions for a wide variety of AP programs too. It’s best used as a companion to other online teaching methods like web conferencing since it’s meant to review information students have already been learning.
This is a terrific resource for middle school and high school science teachers. Each issue provides a new collection of articles on chemistry topics that students will find engaging and relatable. The back-issue online library offers interesting downloadable articles on all sorts of chemistry-related topics, while the Teacher’s Guides help you direct your students as they learn from their reading.
DeltaMath is a website that allows teachers to assign math practice content to their students from middle school through AP calculus. Students get immediate feedback as they complete the problems.
From the US National Library of Medicine, Genetics Home Reference provides consumer-friendly information about the effects of genetic variation on human health. Great research resource for student reports.
Find more than 7,000 videos in 13 subject areas to share with your students. Teachers can set up playlists for their students too.
Mangahigh is a popular game-based site for math online learning resources. It covers algebra, geometry, statistics, and more.
From the University of Colorado Boulder, PhET provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations. We extensively test and evaluate each simulation to ensure educational effectiveness. These tests include student interviews and observation of simulation use in classrooms.
VidCode is an online coding and computer science curriculum specifically for teens. It teaches JavaScript, web programming, design, and more.
More Learning Resources For Any Age
Actively Learn works seamlessly with Google Classroom and provides thousands of engaging texts, videos, and simulations across ELA, Social Studies, and the Sciences paired with thoughtful instruction that challenge students and foster deep learning and critical thinking.
Century was designed as an intervention tool to identify and remedy gaps in a student’s education. It uses artificial intelligence to tailor the learning experience to the learner, much like an actual teacher in the classroom would.
This collection of online learning resources covers pretty much every topic. Lessons include reading, activities, videos, and more to engage students. They also have free online textbooks.
ClassHook offers quality media clips on every conceivable topic. Pre-curated playlists make it easier to find what you need for the subject at hand.
This site offers literary and non-fiction reading passages for grades 3-12. Teachers can assign reading and follow-up questions, and track student progress..
Curriki provides teacher-vetted, open-resource lesson plans and materials on a wide array of subjects. It’s a good place to find online learning resources for students to use at home.
Discovery Education provides online textbooks, multimedia content, and professional development support for virtual classrooms and teachers.
EP Classroom provides a wide range of customizable online learning experiences. Their site notes that teachers in China and other affected areas have already been using their resources with great success for the last few weeks.
EVERFI offers courses for K-12 on real-world topics like mental health, financial planning, career readiness, and more.
This no-frills site requires students to show their work on math problems, step-by-step. When it’s time to grade, you can take a look at their work to see exactly where things went wrong and correct problems quickly.
Turn learning into a game when you create online quizzes and learning experiences. Use their extensive question bank, plus upload your own as needed.
InferCabulary is a web-based, research-backed, device-agnostic, K-12, fun, game-based, visual approach for teaching nuanced vocabulary that simultaneously improves students’ critical thinking skills. InferCabulary is the opposite of rote memorization of definitions—they mimic the act of avid readership so students deeply learn words and improve comprehension.
Watch a video on a subject, then use the teacher guide for discussion, take a quiz, or use the other online learning resources provided.
Do you Kahoot? Teachers have loved this fun online quiz game platform for years. Here’s why we’re into it.
Kami is a PDF and document annotation app for schools. Think of it like digital pen and paper for interacting with your students.
Khan Academy is well-known for providing an incredibly wide range of lessons for students at every level. Chances are you’ll find at least some of what you need for your virtual classroom here.
Kognity has turned traditional textbooks into interactive online experiences with videos, animations, and automatically-corrected assessments.
Listenwise teaches students to be better listeners, using podcasts and comprehension questions and quizzes.
This is the only online learning management system for teaching music at all age levels. Band practice might be off the table for now, but students can still work on theory, notation, sight-reading and more.
Choose from a wide range of prepared interactive lessons for all grade levels, or create your own if you can’t find what you need. Assess students on the spot and get real-time feedback from them too.
This site uses curated PBS videos along with lesson plans, interactive materials, and more to cover lots of subjects in an engaging fashion.
Schools that have already closed for weeks note that students quickly become lonely outside the classroom. PenPal Schools not only lets you engage your own students, but those from around the world, on a wide variety of subjects.
Rozzy Learning has engaging lesson plans and other resources for science, social studies, math, and STEM for K-8th grade.
Seterra offers online geography quizzes. You can also create your own custom quizzes.
This brand-new virtual classroom platform integrates PowerPoint, Zoom video webinars, and Slido quizzes into one streamlined package.
SMART Learning Suite is a virtual classroom platform that easily integrates everything you already have on Google Drive or in Microsoft documents. You can add videos and other online resources as needed.
Twinkl has a library of over 630,000 educational resources which they are offering for free to everyone! Teachers, parents and students can click on the link above and enter the code CVDTWINKLHELPS to gain complete access to their entire online library.
Varsity Tutors offers expert live instruction for students of all ages. All of the below resources are offered free of charge.
Virtual School Day: Nearly 200 free, live K-12 classes available all day long intended to help parents fill their children’s day with enriched learning.
Virtual Summer Camps: Free half-day summer camps are a week long, with enrichment-based classes in subjects like foreign languages, chess, theater, coding, Minecraft, how to be a detective, photography and more.
Adaptive Diagnostic Assessments: Measure a student’s proficiency and identify strengths and weaknesses in hundreds of subjects. Get an effective learning plan along with free tools to improve.
Varsity Learning Tools: More than 250,000 free practice problems in over 200 subjects. Also available as mobile applications.
These online learning resources are specifically for those who teach French, Spanish, and ESL. Students get audio and video, interactive writing and speaking exercises, and more.
Remote Learning & Virtual Classroom Platforms
Book Creator is an easy-to-use tool that helps you create fun and engaging online books. They have lots of suggestions for how you can create and use books with students at any level.
This platform gives teachers the ability to create online lessons, boards for students to share their thoughts and work, and collaborative learning spaces. It provides teachers the ability to easily communicate with kids and parents, too.
Not using ClassDojo yet? Now’s the time to start! This school communication tool makes it easy to stay in touch and track student progress too.
This platform helps teachers create and share online lessons using their easy tools. The ability to offer differentiated paths within the same lesson is a nice feature.
EdModo
Communicate with students, share documents and assignments, and provide collaborative space with this platform. EdModo also offers good resources for helping you understand how to make distance learning work for your students.
This site lets you create interactive online lessons using a video clip of your choice. It provides accountability and tracking for student progress, too.
This platform allows teachers to create technology-enhanced online math assessments from a huge question bank.
Create interactive lessons and collaborative spaces for your virtual classroom with these real-time tools..
Students and teachers record short videos to document and share their learning on a subject. It’s kind of like social media for learning, and it’s a great way to stay in touch.
Many teachers have already started using this readily-available resource for their classrooms. These tools are going to become even more valuable as schools convert to distance learning. There’s a lot to explore here, but most of it is easy to use, so don’t be afraid to dive in.
Get the most out of Google Classroom and other Google tools with this platform. They offer webinars and other resources to help teachers create and manage the best virtual classrooms.
Parlay
It’s hard to hold class discussions with no class, right? That’s where this site comes in. It provokes and encourages thoughtful conversations among students online.
Pronto is a communications hub that connects people via chat and video. It’s one option for hosting a virtual classroom.
Keep your music students practicing at home with this online music classroom. You can track student progress, and they’ll get instant feedback from the online tools.
Companies across the world use Webex to keep their teams in contact remotely. They offer lots of tools that are ideal for taking your classes online.
Project your lessons in group settings with zoom. You can even record the sessions for students who need to review later. This video and audio conferencing tool has a chat functionality where students can ask questions as you teach
Resources For Talking To Your Kids About The Coronavirus
Child Mind Institute - https://childmind.org/article/talking-to-kids-about-the-coronavirus/
Harvard Health Blog - https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-talk-to-children-about-the-coronavirus-2020030719111
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