Educational Resources for Parents Who Educate Their Kids at Home
I know it is unusual times we are facing when your kiddos are at home with you 24/7 and bored stiff (during coronavirus or beyond). You may feel lost, confused, and overwhelmed by the information overload, news, and lack of socializing. Besides that, your kids are off from school for who knows how long, and you may be worried about their lack of learning.
During this time, parents need to display extra patience, become more versatile, and brainstorm ways to cope in a crisis. I am here to help you with creative online resources to entertain your children and keep their brains from turning to mush.
If you haven’t already, listen to my podcast:
CORONAVIRUS - COPING WITH EDUCATING YOUR KIDS AT HOME.
I share my tips from almost a decade of homeschooling and being with my six kids at home most of that time. Also, I share how I coped during moments where we could not homeschool due to illness and relocation, and my kids still thrived in their education when they went back to school.
Please note: This list is filled with resources I have used, and some I have not but heard were good from others and through research.
Mega List of Educational, Recreational, and Islamic Resources For Kids To Learn From Home
My older kids use some resources almost daily to learn and stay up to date on deen, life, and knowledge. It has been a big help for me as a mom to have these fantastic resources at my fingertips.
1. YouTube Educational Resources (For Older Kids and Teens)
Merciful Servant - Islamic, short videos packed with amazing learning about life as a Muslim.
Smile2Jannah - Current news, politics, and some humor.
Sci Show - Great science videos.
Kurzgesagt In A Nutshell - Science videos.
Oversimplified - History videos.
Ink of Knowledge - Islamic education.
2. Online Educational Resources
Qalam Institute - Currently free Islamic classes for kids and teens
Zearn - Learn math.
Khan Academy - Free education on academic subjects.
Prodigy - Math Adventure Game.
Typing.com - Learn typing.
Brainpop - Learning on many topics and subjects. We love this so much we’ve had a subscription for years.
Google Arts & Culture - Explore museums, art, and culture from around the world.
Your Story Hour - Family-friendly radio dramas about historical figures and true-to-life adventures.
Mystery Science - This website has lots of videos on a variety of science topics.
Circle Time - Interactive videos to help you bond with your child between 0 to six years.
Curriki - Free online content for children in kindergarten to grade 12.
Freckle - Online content for math, English, science, and social studies.
PBS Learning Media - Free educational videos on a variety of subjects.
Scholastic Learn At Home - Fun educational videos for children from pre-kindergarten to grade 9
Storytime Online - Videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books.
Outschool - Classes on topics such as drawing, video game design, character-themed classes (like Harry Potter writing), and others.
Star Fall - Teaches through play, with hundreds of games in categories such as reading, writing, math.
Brave Writer. You can sign up your children to help them with their writing skills.
Hands-On As We Grow. This site is for parents with toddlers. The site has play plans to keep your little ones busy.
Find and use existing lessons on a variety of topics. A great resource for any teacher, homeschooler, parent, or student.
This subscription site to make learning to read fun with games, songs, and engaging rewards.
Features a selection of free activities, videos, printables, and interactive online resources on a variety of math and science topics.
The NASA website’s For Students section includes a great free catalog of articles, activities, videos, and games for students in grades K–12 on topics related to STEM, aeronautics, and space exploration.
More than 45,000 free eBooks, including a large collection of classic children’s literature, so it is a fantastic resource on a budget.
Engaging videos of experiments and science fair projects.
Free math videos, lessons, and activities as well as progress reports and resources
More than 3,000 science and math activities and an award-winning, free resource for teachers and parents.
Free games, videos, and interactive activities in all K–12 subjects.
Free resources for parents, teachers, and students, including lesson plans, homework help, and videos.
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) such as those offered by Coursera and edX can be a great way for high school students and advanced learners to challenge themselves with college-level coursework. Courses from world-class universities such as Harvard, Yale, and MIT are open to anyone, anywhere for free.
This site offers articles, curriculum reviews, and other learning resources for homeschooling kids with autism, ADHD, learning disorders, and other special need
3. Educational Apps
Miraj Audio- Amazing kids Islamic audiobooks.
Hoopla App - Free ebooks and audiobooks connected to your library card.
Overdrive - Free ebooks and audiobooks connected to your library card.
Audible- Ebooks and audiobooks and free during school closures.
Duolingo - Free language app is available for iPhone, Android, and the web and offers fun and engaging lessons for a variety of languages.
4. Homework Support
Easy Spelling Aid + Translator & Dyslexia Support
Easy Spelling Aid + Translator & Dyslexia Support is a helpful educational app for kids who need assistance with learning how to spell words
Number Line, by the Math Learning Center
Number Line, by the Math Learning Center is an educational app that helps kids use a visual strategy to find answers to many kinds of math equations and problems.
Useful productivity tool and educational app that helps kids quickly get the answer to math problem
Dyslexia Keyboard is worth its price tag as one of the best assistive keyboards on the market. Features include impeccable word prediction, voice-to-text, spell check, grammar check, and read-aloud both in context and in the editing window.
iWordQ US is an educational iPad app that is a simple text editor. Users type or dictate paragraphs, essays, reports stories, and assignments into a document, just as they would in word processing software on a computer, but the app includes reading, writing, and speaking modes that can help kids with learning and attention issues.
Meet the Insects: Village Edition
Meet the Insects: Village Edition is a comprehensive digital resource that teaches kids about insects that commonly live in neighborhoods and towns, or "villages."
Oribi Writer is a paid, educational iPad app enabling users to type or dictate their words and thoughts into a word processing document. After a user types each letter, number, symbol, or emoji from the on-screen keyboard, it'll say the name of it out loud, and it reads the entire document aloud to help users edit for grammar and spelling more independently
Shape Lab is an open-ended sandbox tool that allows kids to freely explore geometric shapes. Kids can use the interactive screen to create shapes, manipulate them, and investigate their properties.
SimpleMind+ Intuitive Mind Mapping
SimpleMind+ Intuitive Mind Mapping is a useful educational app that organizes thoughts, plans, and creative ideas into visual notes using customizable, color-coordinated diagram
Write Ideas is a free educational app that offers kids access to templates that may help improve their writing abilities. Each template includes at least a dozen questions that kids answer to get help writing letters, book reports, essays, articles, short stories, and other customized writing assignments.
Flashcards Deluxe is a paid educational app for kids and adults to create custom digital flash cards that are helpful for studying and learning new information
Geo Walk HD - 3D World Fact Book is an educational app loaded with useful information about 500 people, places, plants, and animals
Speechify - Text to Audiobook is an educational app that reads uploaded text out loud. Users can snap a photo of a book, document, image, contract or worksheet to convert it to audio.
Meet Science: Light and Sound is a science tool that teaches kids about light and sound through lessons, mini-games, and simple experiments. Cute characters appear throughout the lessons, making science more kid-friendly.
Meet Science: Magnetism and Electricity
Meet Science: Magnetism and Electricity is a comprehensive science resource that helps kids learn about magnetism and electricity through lessons, experiments, and mini-games.
Arloon Geometry is a comprehensive learning tool that teaches and assesses kids' knowledge about three-dimensional shapes. Kids can explore different shapes' attributes as they rotate and unfold them into flat figures or use the augmented reality feature to explore them in 3-D.
Earth Primer is an interactive textbook about Earth. Kids can swipe through the pages and interact with most graphics to learn about our planet, exploring features such as volcanoes, sand dunes, mountains, and much more.
Shapes – 3D Geometry Learning is a reference tool that kids can use to explore over 20 solid figures. Interactive features include the ability to zoom in and out on a figure, to unfold and fold it to study its net (a cut-and-fold pattern), to fill in its sides with color, to rotate it, and to highlight its features.
Ultimate Dinopedia: The Most Complete Dinosaur Reference Ever
Ultimate Dinopedia includes a section on meat-eating dinosaurs that contains graphic illustrations of dinosaurs killing and eating others. Younger kids might also be frightened by pictures of some of the scarier-looking predators.
ClaroPDF Pro is a paid educational app for kids and adults that modifies PDF documents and makes content in documents accessible by being read out loud.
Mathspace is an app with a bank of lessons and practice problems for kids in grades 6 though 12.
MindMeister (mind mapping) is a collaborative brainstorming tool that requires an internet connection to utilize all the features.
myHomework Student Planner is a very helpful educational app kids can use to enter individual homework assignments and track deadlines by class or calendar date.
Quizlet can be a great free study resource for their kids as long as it's used appropriately.
Photomath – Camera Calculator is a resource that kids can use to solve mathematical problems. Simply point a device, such as an iPad, toward a problem. The device's camera then scans the problem and produces the solution within seconds.
yHomework - Math Solver allows kids to input math problems and view fully solved solutions. For problems beyond arithmetic, the app highlights and explains each part of the process.
Arloon Anatomy | The Human Body helps kids learn about the structure and function of the human body. It allows kids to immerse themselves and explore the body before assessing what they've learned.
HowStuffWorks.com is an award-winning educational site that provides historical information about many age-appropriate topics (these topics include, but aren't limited to, animals, culture, automobiles, politics, money, science, and entertainment).
Journeys of Invention: Science and Technology from Past to Present
Journeys of Invention: Science and Technology from Past to Present is a comprehensive resource that teaches kids about some of the major developments in science.
Symbolab Calculator is an educational app that provides users with answers to complicated algebra, calculus, and trigonometry problems. You can use it to solve simple addition and subtraction problems, but it's a more useful app for tweens and teens who will benefit from using the app to check their work.
Tinycards -- Learn with Fun, Free Flashcards
Tinycards -- Flashcards by Duolingo is a free flash card app made by the developers of Duolingo that turns memorization-style studying into a game-like experience.
Curious - the game of lifelong learning
Curious - the game of lifelong learning is a subscription-based learning app that challenges users to earn daily "CQ points" by watching videos, taking quizzes, listening to audio lessons, reading articles, and more.
Desmos Graphing Calculator is an assistive tool designed to help kids understand complex math concepts by graphing them to a coordinate plane (a graph with an x-axis and a y-axis).
PhotoStudy - Live Study Help is a math, physics, and chemistry homework tutoring app, as well as an ACT/SAT prep source. For a fee, students can take a photo of their homework problem and then access 10-minute tutoring text chat sessions with a "vetted STEM Study Expert" within 30 seconds of the request.
LitCharts is an educational app that offers free literature guides. Embracing the same mission as SparkNotes, a resource many students turn to for help with assignments, LitCharts offers easy access to information on over 400 books. LitCharts also provides summaries of each chapter with a side-by-side analysis and explanation of themes.
Literary Analysis Guide is a solid reference-style resource for literary devices. Examples offered are from literature targeted to a high school audience.
Math Interactive is an illustrated math reference resource for teens. Created by students, it provides definitions, articles, interactive illustrations, and examples in more than 20 subjects including geometry, functions, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, and more.
Mathway is an app as well as a website that lets users plug in math equations and tap "Evaluate" to find solutions.
With OTTER VOICE NOTES, teens speak into the app on the device to record their voices. The audio content is transcribed into typed text, which can be listened to over and over again in their voice.
Socratic - Math & Homework Help is a homework-help app that uses strong text-recognition technology to search the web for solutions to homework questions taken with a device's camera or entered manually with the keyboard.
As the name suggests, the app is a digital book about our solar system -- including facts about the sun, planets, moons, asteroid belts, and more.
Study.com is a subscription-based learning resource that includes more than 35,000 lessons for students, teachers, parents, and tutors.
Studytracks is a test review and study app that sets lecture notes to hip-hop beats. The free version of the app includes a few "tracks" that cover early U.S. history, grammar, and math, and users can buy a subscription to access further notes about history, math, science, the SAT, and the ACT.
Yup - Math Tutoring App is a subscription-based tutoring service using live tutors, available 24/7.
Shakespeare in Bits: Julius Caesar
Shakespeare in Bits: Julius Caesar is a comprehensive guide that lets kids read the play, watch an animated version alongside text, view scene summaries and analyses, and take their own notes all in one place.
Arloon Chemistry - Laboratory of compounds | Apps for the classroom contains content intended for high school and college chemistry students. Kids will create virtual 3-D structures of chemical compounds.
Homework help source: Commensense Media
That’s it! I hope this list helps you during this difficult time and is not too overwhelming. Stay safe and at peace.
Salam, I’m Zakeeya!
I believe that making our homes a safe haven for our families, as well as being a wife and mother, brings us great blessings, contentment, and benefits to society as a whole. Since 2011, I've been dedicated to assisting Muslimas in finding tranquility in their roles, taking better care of themselves, and achieving inner peace. Our journey in this world is not an easy one, but I pray the tools and guidance I offer will help you face life's challenges with more gratitude and mindfulness. Join me as I share wifehood, motherhood, homemaking, and lifestyle solutions that make life more fulfilling for you as a woman! Read more about me here.
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