Stay occupied with these free digital resources for children, teens, and adults! And don't forget to follow us on Facebook, where we're featuring different activity ideas and digital resources daily.
CHILDREN
Informational
- Ohio Department of Health Resources for Parents & Families: Provides links for at-home learning resources for youth from K-12th grade, as well a list of family activities to try at home, an article explaining how to talk to kids about COVID-19, and more.
Art & Printables
- Author/Illustrator Elise Gravel: Printable cartoons for coloring & prompts to encourage creativity. (Ex: Draw your own silly virus!)
- Crayola Coloring Pages: Just print these pages and the coloring fun can begin.
- Dav Pilkey At Home: Check back every Friday for new Dog Man and Captain Underpants themed activities, videos, and more.
- MicheLee Puppets Creative Minutes: Learn how to make a sock puppet from items you have at home.
- Tate At Home: Instructions and inspiration for different types of art. Includes some printables.
- TheColor.com: Simple digital coloring pages. Select an image, pick a color, and click on the areas you want the color to go.
Educational Activities
- Amazing Educational Resources: A growing list of education companies that are offering free subscriptions due to school closings.
- AudioBookCloud: All ages eAudiobook database. Clicking on the link should automatically log you in. Free through August 31.
- Field Trips & Virtual Classes
- Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari: Digital safaris held on Facebook Live every weekday at 3 PM, where they highlight one of their animals and include an activity you can do at home.
- Cleveland Zoo Virtual Classroom: This virtual classroom is held live on Facebook at 11 AM.
- Hands-On History @ Home: Learn about US history from History Colorado on Mondays-Fridays at 10 AM in a ZOOM meeting room.
- Monterey Bay Aquarium: Ten live cams allow you to experience the wonders of the ocean from home.
- More virtual field trips & classes: Tours that range from farms to museums to palaces and beyond, and classes on dozens of topics for different ages (including college level courses!).
- FrugalFun4Boys: Art, literacy, and STEM activity ideas for kids of all genders.
- Scholastic Learn At Home: Day-by-day projects to keep kids growing, reading, and thinking. Provides materials for PreK-K, Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5, and Grades 6-9.
- TED-Ed: Video-based lessons that you can sort by age and subject matter. Gives you the option to sign up for a daily newsletter with pre-made lesson plans for different age groups and homeschooling tips.
- TumbleBookLibrary: K-6 children's eBook database. Clicking on the link should automatically log you in. Free through August 31.
- Topics: Humanities
- Ben's Guide to the US Government: Learn about the U.S. government with Benjamin Franklin through fun, interactive digital games. Offers different difficulty levels for different ages.
- CommonLit: A free collection of fiction and nonfiction for 3rd-12th grade classrooms.
- TrueFlix: Learn about geography, history, science, and nature with free online flipbooks (Lexile levels included) and videos. Each topic also provides lesson plans, quizzes, project ideas, research links, games, and more.
- Topics: STEM
- Bedtime Math: Fun, short math activities that you can do with supplies you already have around the house.
- Hour of Code: Try a one-hour tutorial designed for all ages in over 45 languages.
- ScienceFlix: Watch, read, and explore hundreds of science topics.
- Science Mom: Video science experiments for kids, engineering challenges, mini lessons, and more.
- Scratch: Program your own interactive stories, games, and animations and share your creations with others in the online community. Ages 8-16.
- Scratch Junior: Young children (ages 5-7) can program their own interactive stories and games. In the process, they learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer.
- TumbleMath: K-6 math eBook database. Clicking on the link should automatically log you in. Free through August 31.
Physical Exercise
- Cosmic Kids Yoga: Yoga with stories, for ages 3 and up.
- GoNoodle: Apps, games, and videos that encourage movement and mindfulness created by child development experts.
- PE With Joe: Free workout videos aimed at kids.
Storytime
- Goodnight with Dolly: Dolly Parton reads books from her Imagination Library out loud once a week at 7 PM EST on Thursdays for 10 weeks, beginning April 2.
- LeVar Burton Reads on Twitter: Listen to LeVar Burton (Reading Rainbow host) read a children's book via a Twitter livestream at 12 PM EST on Mondays.
- Storyline: Streaming videos that feature celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations.
- Story Pirates: A weekly podcast where actors, comedians, improvisers and musicians take original stories from real kids around the country, and turn them into a wildly funny comedy show for kids aged 3-103.
- Story Time From Space: Videos of space-themed stories read aloud by real astronauts while they were in outer space.
- Urban Stages Outreach: Listen to children's stories, join in on sing-alongs, learn how to make crafts, and more on this theatrical group's Facebook page.
Virtual Games
- For a list of kid-friendly online games, check out our Kid Friendly Websites page.
TEENS & ADULTS
Education & Entertainment
- Art resources: Links to art contests, digital art resources, digital museum tours, art education, and more.
- Class Central: A search engine to help you discover thousands of free online courses from top universities around the world like MIT, Stanford, and Harvard.
- JustColor.Net: Printable coloring pages.
- Field Trips & Online Classes: Explore the Great Wall of China, Buckingham Palace, museums, national parks, and more without leaving your home. Take free courses to learn about a variety of subjects.
- Free Rice: Free Rice is an online internet game (also available in app form) that donates 20 grains of rice to the World Food Programme (WFP) for every word that is correctly defined. You can select a category and a difficulty level from the menu bar at the top left of the page.
- Lynda.com: Choose from a vast video library of engaging, top-quality courses, taught by recognized industry experts. Topics range from brand-new technology, business and creative skills. Requires library card login.
- Mango Languages: Learn 70+ languages online. Requires library card login.
- National Theatre At Home: Recorded plays from the National Theatre, displayed on YouTube on Thursdays at 2 PM EST. See the current planned theatrical lineup here.
- Nightly Met Opera: Each day, a different encore presentation from the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series is made available for free streaming, with each performance available for a period of 23 hours, from 7:30 PM EST until 6:30 PM the following day.
- PuzzleChoice: Crosswords, number puzzles, word searches, logic puzzles, an assortment of classic PC and arcade games, and more.
- TED.com: Short, educational, and interesting video talks on a variety of subjects including the arts, health, science, social studies, technology, and more.
- The Body Coach TV: An assortment of traditional cardio/abs/etc. video workouts for adults, as well as 10 minute workout videos for seniors and youth-focused workout videos.
Literary Links
- AudioBookCloud: All ages eAudiobook database. Clicking on the link should automatically log you in. Free through August 31.
- BBC World Book Club Podcast: Listen to famous authors discuss their best-known novel.
- LeVar Burton Reads: LeVar Burton (Roots, Reading Rainbow, Star Trek) invites you to take a break from your daily life, and listen to a great short story on this podcast.
- LeVar Burton Reads on Twitter: Listen to LeVar Burton read a YA book at 6 PM EST on Wednesdays and an adult book at 9 PM EST on Fridays via a Twitter livestream.
- National Book Festival Blog: Each weekday, the Library of Congress features a video presentation from among the thousands of authors who have appeared at the National Book Festival.
- RomanceBookCloud: A huge collection of adult romance eBooks. Clicking on the link should automatically log you in. Free through August 31.
- TeenBookCloud: YA (grades 7-12) eBook database. Clicking on the link should automatically log you in. Free through August 31.