The Best Free Educational Websites to Entertain Your Kids during Quarantine
Schools are closed all around the world, grocery store shelves are empty, and Amazon shipping estimates for nonessential items are months out! This can be a terrifying time for your kids to be stuck at home, but if you’re looking for a great way to get their minds off of what’s going on, these free websites can help! These educational websites have kid’s activities and entertainment for your kids to do during quarantine!
If you are suddenly faced with homeschooling your kids for the rest of the year, this article on how to keep your sanity when suddenly faced with homeschooling might help.
The Best Free Websites to Entertain Your Kids During Your Quarantine
Take a virtual field trip to a national park
As many national parks have started to close their parks to the public, getting outdoors is nearly impossible! However, you can still virtually visit many national parks! Yellowstone and some of the larger parks have given the option to visit virtually so you can still visit these parks online. Google has amazing 360 tours of national parks.
National Parks Virtual Tours:
- Yellowstone National Park Virtual Tour
- Bryce Canyon National Park Virtual Tour
- Carlsbad Caverns National Park Virtual Tour
- Hawaii Volcanos National Park Virtual Tour
- Kenai Fjords National Park Virtual Tour
- Dry Tortugas National Park Virtual Tour
Listen to a celebrity book reading
Celebrities are doing storytimes while we are all stuck in quarantine. Many of them offer bedtime stories and other opportunities to learn from home for free!
The Save with Stories Instagram page has dozens of celebrities reading stories aloud for kids!
The Storyline Online YouTube channel also has amazing recordings of storybooks read aloud by celebrities.
YouTube
There are so many great YouTube channels for kids out there! Whether you need something for your remote learning classroom, or to keep your kids entertained, you can find tons of free videos on YouTube.
My kids are especially partial to the kid friendly science YouTube channels. Several favorites are:
Do a science experiment with Bill Nye
Bill Nye is offering free demos of science experiments on his website! You can have your kids do fun experiments with a great teacher! You can also find his videos on YouTube if you’d prefer to watch them there.
Virtually tour your favorite museums
During this quarantine, many museums are allowing virtual tours through Google or their website. Your kids can discover art museums, natural history, and many other types of museums out there. Google Arts & Culture has an impressive list of free virtual museum tours.
The Louvre even has several virtual tours your children will love! Egyptian antiquities was my family’s favorite!
Listen to Stuff You Should Know podcast
The Stuff You Should Know podcast is fantastic for kids! If your child is too young to have their mobile device, they can listen to this podcast for free online.
Take a virtual tour of a farm
Did you know that even farms are offering virtual tours right now? You can find free tours of grain farms and all kinds of other farms online right now! This Canadian farm website has more than 10 virtual tours available! A quick google search will bring up a long list of other virtual farm tours as well.
Watch animals during the live stream
Zoos and aquariums all over the world are offering free live streams of their animals while the zoos are closed. You can see everything from giraffes to manatees without ever leaving your couch.
We love the live streams from the San Diego Zoo! These are always the first ones my kids want to check. They have a large list of animals on live stream, including giraffes, penguins, baboons, tigers, and more.
The Smithsonian National Zoo also has several live streams, including the pandas, lions, and elephants!
The National Aquarium also has a reef live stream.
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Listen to free books from Audible
Audible for kids is free for families right now, so take advantage! You can listen to audiobooks on any device or from the computer. This is an excellent way for your kids to relax and unwind while staying inside.
Explore the surface of Mars
Science360 is allowing kids to explore the surface of Mars! This is perfect for a solar system unit study or a fun way to pass the time at home. If exploring Mars isn’t your thing, you can have astronauts read stories to your kids instead!
NASA science offers Mars Now which shows the current location and communication activity of all the landers, rovers, and orbiters at Mars. While the Space Place allows kids to explore Earth and space – don’t miss the Mars Rover Game!
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover at Namib Dune is an amazing sight!
Mars for Kids will teach kids all about Mars with over 20 fun ways to learn about and explore Mars.
Scholastic Online
Scholastic has made much of its resources and curriculum available for free with day-by-day projects to help keep students reading, thinking, and growing while our countries schools are closed.
Hopefully, these activities will help calm your child’s nerves and help entertain them educationally during their time in quarantine!
If your child is using a tablet for educational and recreational time you might want to consider these 20 educational apps for for your child’s tablet.
If you need some screen free activities to keep your kids busy, be sure to check out this big list of at home activities for kids.
