I can’t imagine how hard it is right now for parents with children.
When can we go back to school? When can I see my friends? I don’t want to stay home, I want to go out!
Seeing how gutted all those poor little ones were when those parents pulled the ‘back to school’ April fools prank out of the bag was a real reality check. Nevertheless, I know at this moment in time it must be a real struggle to keep the kids amused, get the brain cells growing and the creativity flowing.
So to help soften the blow, I will be throwing together a home-school package of resources that I really hope will help you get by day to day.
To begin the series of resources I have scouted a huge list of Free Online sites that will sort the day by day lessons. Due to the worldwide COVID-19 crisis, some of the services below are offering free services whilst all schools are closed so this is a great opportunity to take advantage of the premium resources out there!
E-Learning For Kids – Providing us with digital primary education for free
BBC Bitesize – Age range: suitable for children aged 5 – 16
BBC Bitesize offers resources for a broad range of subjects from KS1 through to GCSE. “Lessons” are delivered to younger children through engaging videos and games and older children can access concise notes followed by tasks to test their knowledge. Bitesize has resources specifically tailored to the curriculum for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, too. Best of all, because Bitesize is created by the Beeb , it’s completely free.
“Beginning Monday 20 April, BBC Bitesize will publish daily online lessons for all ages. We’ll also have a new dedicated TV channel full of learning content, podcasts on BBC Sounds and loads of educational video on iPlayer.” – BBC
Save My Exams – Age range: children aged 15 – 18
Ideal for GCSE and A-level students, Save My Exams offer past papers and mark schemes for all major UK science and maths exams – for free. Your child can access relevant papers from their exam board as well as free sample worksheets. For £6.99 a month, or £24.99 a year, your child can access all of the available worksheets with questions grouped by difficulty or topic.
Duolingo – Age range: suitable for all ages
Duolingo is the perfect tool for on-the-go language learning. Although mostly geared towards adults, the picture-based vocabulary games are also great for teaching kids the basics of a language. With loads of languages available, from French and Spanish right through to Hawaiian and Scottish Gaelic, you’ll be a linguistic guru in no time.
S-Cool – Age: GCSE to A-Level
If your child is studying for GCSEs or A-levels, look no further than S-Cool, the largest revision site on the web for these crucial exams. Pretty much all the most popular subjects are covered in depth, broken down into topics with detailed overviews followed by multiple choice and exam-style questions. Best of all, it’s completely free – you just have to register on the site.
Quizlet – Quizlet is a website that provides learning tools and games to help revise anything from poetry terminology to musical notes. Just like flashcards but more interactive and fun. You can use cards other users have already made, or make your own set specific to what your child needs to learn. Its nifty world map also shows you who else is studying on Quizlet.
Carol Vorderman’s Maths Factor – Made free in light of the Covid-19 outbreak and schools being shut. This site is fun, interactive and the bonus is that it’s run by Countdown’s very own maths legend.
Wonderopolis – Wonderopolis sends subscribers a new ‘wonder’ to discover each day, posing questions as weird and wonderful as “Why don’t spiders get caught in their webs?” and “Who invented time?” Then there are quizzes to test your knowledge and vocabulary on the wonder, and links to resources if you want to find out even more.
Khan Academy – Challenge your teenagers with Khan Academy, a not-for-profit website that promises “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.” Offering video tutorials on everything from maths to cosmology, your child will be able to get help on a subject they can’t quite grasp, or just learn about something that piques their interest.
Atom Learning – Atom Learning is an online KS2 teaching and learning platform. As part of our response to COVID-19, they’re now hosting free online lessons in English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, and all lessons are hosted by professional teachers. Sign up now to access their timetable for the week.
Seneca – revision and virtual learning for A Level and GCSE. A website dedicated to older children, Seneca has tonnes of free resources, including some particularly useful dedicated sets of the toughest exam questions and topics to get your teeth into. There is also a premium version available.
Many more free home learning resources for you to check out:
Oxford Owl – educational activities, online ebooks, and support for parents (Supports kids aged 3-11 year)
Phonics Play – a very popular site who have decided to make their resources free in response to the coronavirus crisis
Twinkl – Primary school resources from early years to KS2
Topmarks Education – online teaching resources for fun learning
Teach Your Monster To Read – a fun game to help children with phonics and the art of reading
Corbettmaths – resources for the new 9-1 GCSE maths syllabus
Teachit Maths – KS3-5 maths resources with free print-at-home PDF sheets
Maths is Fun – a great resource full of handy real-life demonstrations of maths problems
CoolMath4Kids – a whole host of maths games and brainteasers for all ages
Mathster – free downloadable maths worksheets
EdShed – An excellent educational resource including a Spelling Shed, Maths Shed and Literacy Shed. “In response to school closures due to COVID-19 we have extended our free trials to 30 days and are offering free renewals while closures continue. For an extension or a new trial, please email support@edshed.com – Our trials include FULL system access”
BrainPOP – free access to a range of primary and secondary resources during school closures
Crash Course Kids – This is a brilliant YouTube channel with videos covering lots of topics for scientific lessons. For those kids that learn best by watching videos this is perfect
Science Channel – A fantastic science YouTube channel – this time for slightly older kids
National Geographic Kids – a source of entertaining and educational content from around the world
Sublime Science – 101 free and fun science experiments to try at home – find your science projects here
Peekaboo Kidz – A range of fun informative animation videos to help kids learn about a variety of topics
SchoolScience – some outside-the-box real-world science news (Primary school to age
Funbrain – a collection of fun, educational games that your children will actually want to play – Up to ‘8th Grade’
Highlights Kids – available on the web, on YouTube and as an app
Mystery Doug – five-minute engaging educational videos – “Free, easy science for remote learning – To help educators during this time of coronavirus, we have pulled our most popular science lessons and are offering them for anyone to use for free.”
Art For Kids Hub – a family run YouTube channel of art activities for kids
Tynker – computer coding courses for kids aged 5+ (great for Minecraft fanatics!) – FREE ACCESS to PREMIUM coding courses drawing school closures
Sir Linkalot – The App – spelling and vocabulary work for KS2 on an interactive (and very well-animated) app “Challenging times call for us all to work together. So we’ve decided to give schools, parents & carers access to our App for 12-weeks (from March 20).”
Enjoy, Really hope this helps!
Download a Fun Colouring Template Here! – Thanks to the NHS – Thanks to Love Writing
Lots of Love,
