Ways to Learn at Home

During this difficult time, we recognize that many are trying to find ways for their children to still learn while staying at home. We have compiled a list of different organizations that are offering free lessons or platforms for this purpose. Plus, we've added a list of museums, aquariums, and other organizations that are creating virtual content for you and your family to enjoy while social distancing.

SMALLab Learning:

SMALLab Learning has made its Wink platform available to non-customers, students, and families for free during this time. Their Wink platform provides thousands of standards-aligned activities that are accessible from any computer or tablet. You can create your free SMALLab account here. For questions about setting up your account or finding content, feel free to contact their support team.

Mystery Science:

To help educators during this time, Mystery Science has pulled their most popular science lessons and are offering them for anyone to use for free. No account or login is needed to view these lessons. All of the lessons are expertly designed to engage students, achieve learning outcomes, and be easy for teachers (or parents) to use. All of the activities are designed to use simple supplies that would likely already be at home with you. To view these lessons click here.

Code.org:

With schools closed and students at home, Code.org is launching Code Break--a live weekly webcasts at 10am PT/1pm ET starting on March 25th where their team will teach children at home while school is closed. They also will have a weekly challenge to engage students of all abilities, even those without computers. Computer science is super fun for kids because it is creative and playful. Whether it’s solving a puzzle, coding art, or designing an app, computer science helps students learn by exploring rather than memorizing. Learn more about the different ways your children can learn about coding here.

Have Fun Teaching:

Have Fun Teaching is offering a relief packet for the different grade levels of pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Each packet covers writing, science, math, reading, english, phonics, and social studies for the specific grade level. These packets include worksheets, activities, songs, and videos to help your child learn while at home. In addition to their free relief packets, Have Fun Teaching also wants to offer you $5.00 free with the code FREEFIVE that you can use at checkout.

Kodo Kids:

Kodo Kids has given free access to its proprietary online training sessions. These virtual resources offer content on a variety of subjects including STEM, engineering in early childhood, and fostering adult-child interactions. These training sessions can help both educators and parents who are in need of finding ways to teach their children while at home.

Here are the codes to access the Virtual Learning training sessions for free:

•Infant and Toddler Engineering: Use the code "freeitvl32"

•Introduction to Physics with Children: Use the code "freephysics32"

•Uncovering STEM through Play: Use the code "freestem32"

•STEM to STEAM: Adding the Arts: Use the code "freesteamvl32"

•Demystifying Engineering in Early Childhood: Use the code "freedevl32"

•Nurturing Computational Thinking in Early Childhood: Use the code "freencvl32"

•Learning Approaches to Foster Engineering: Use the code "freelavl32"

•Adult Child Interactions to Foster Engineering: Use the code "freeacvl32"

•Enhancing the Environment to Foster Engineering: Use the code "freeenvironment32"

•Investigation Based Teaching Practices: Use the code "freeibtp"

Khan Academy:

Khan Academy is a non-profit organization with free educational resources for all to use, especially during this time of need. Khan Academy also is having daily (weekdays) live streams on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter for students, parents, and teachers navigating school closures at 9am PST/12pm EST. Learn more about how you can use Khan Academy as a teacher, student, or parent here.

Varsity Tutors:

Varsity Tutors is a company that combines highly-credentialed experts with an advanced technology platform dedicated to live, personalized instruction. They are the largest live learning platform in the United States and we have numerous free resources to help students and parents cope with school and summer camp closures. They have resources such as Virtual School Day, Virtual Summer Camps, Adaptive Diagnostic Assessments, and Varsity Learning Tools. To learn more about all of these amazing resources, click here.

Virtual Content Organizations:

These entities are finding ways to give you behind the scenes content for all to enjoy.

•Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens: The organization has launched "The Zoo Comes to You", an educational Facebook Live series airing weekdays at 2pm EST.

•Dry Tortugas National Park: Visit the Everglades National Park using Google Earth. You can virtually visit four of the top sites in the park. Click here to explore the park.

•Emerald Coast Science Center: We will be going live on Facebook Monday-Friday at 10am CDT with an animal presentation or science experiment as a "Science Behind the Scenes" series. We hope these videos will keep you and your family entertained, and they can be viewed at any time after the initial live video. Learn more here.

•Everglades National Park: Visit the Everglades National Park using Google Earth. You can virtually visit six of the top sites in the park. Click here to explore the park.

•Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park: The Gulfarium is sharing videos of their Animals on Adventures on Facebook, and has started the hashtag #AnimalsOnAdventures for other aquariums to share their animal videos as well.