Sites Offering Free Resources for Children

Sites Offering Free Resources for Children

In the coming weeks, we all need to find ways to keep the kids entertained for the sake of our sanity! I’ve been inundated with emails, screenshots and tagged in numerous Facebook posts from various companies which are offering free resources for children in these unusual times. It took me a while, but I’ve managed to sift through most of these sites and can share with you my favourite sites which are currently offering free online resources and activities for children.

Mrs Mactivity

I’ve been enjoying my Mrs Macitivity membership for some time now. This is my go-to site for a range of things: when I want a creative activity for Aurelia, engage her with some maths or to practice her English skills. There are literally hundreds of different resources on this wonderful site. But the best thing about this site is that Aurelia actually enjoyed doing the activities.

So naturally, as soon as I discovered we would be learning from home, I automatically headed to Mrs Macitivty for some inspiration!

We have been working throughout the week, but kids also need fun!

Like most young girls, Aurelia likes unicorns … in fact …. she loves them! Browsing through Mrs Mactivity, we came across some unicorn related activities. Aurelia did some mindfulness colouring and created a beautiful picture of a unicorn to stick on her bedroom wall!

Aurelia also had fun creating a unicorn bracelet.

If you follow social media, you might be aware of a recent trend. Children have been drawing pictures of rainbows and placing these in the windows in their homes to cheer up other children – an adorable idea! Aurelia downloaded and printed this beautiful image of a rainbow from Mrs Mactivity and has put it in the lounge window!

Mrs Mactivity also offers some fantastic English and Maths resources. Aurelia worked through a pack designed to help children with fractions.

There is also a fractions work pack which uses lego to explain mathematical problems.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, Mrs Mactivity are offering free resources for children to assist parents with homeschooling!

Twinkl

Twinkl was recommended to me by Aurelia’s school teacher. She told me it’s a great resource for teachers and parents alike. She was absolutely right! I have downloaded and printed a whole range of different activities for Aurelia to enjoy this past week. Here are some of her favourites:

Aurelia really enjoyed playing the Snakes and Ladders Game. The game uses 2,3, and 5 times tables. The downloadable sheet came with not only the board and counters but also a dice (really useful as we realised 2 days into Lockdown that we didn’t have a dice!)

I’ve been trying to make learning times tables more interesting for Aurelia! I was thrilled to find another resource on Twinkl to help! Aurelia really enjoyed colouring in her picture using multiplication. So much so, she’s asked for more of these pictures!

This site offers ample fun activities for children. Kids really do have fun while they learn. There are lots of resources to download for free.

Oxford Owl

Aurelia’s school use Oxford Owl on a daily basis as part of their phonics programme. I’ve become really familiar with the methods of this programme since Aurelia began school. Again, given the current crisis, Oxford Owl have opened up many of their resources to parents, for free. The site does offer some printable resources, but many of the activities can be done online.

Oxford Owl is offering free ebooks, handwriting activities, help with phonics as well as maths based activities.

Master the Curriculum

I’m yet to try any of the activities I downloaded from Master the Curriculum yet, but they are ready and waiting for next week’s homeschooling! I will let you know how Aurelia gets along with the worksheets, however, I was incredibly impressed with the sheer amount of quality resources on offer!

When exploring the site, I found a whole range of different activities for parents to use during the Covid-19 outbreak. The site offers parent’s packs which contain activities to develop children’s English and Maths skills.

Teaching Ideas

Teaching Ideas was recommended to me by a friend who works as a primary school teacher. The sheer amount of free resources on this site is absolutely staggering!

I have decided to ask Aurelia to complete a mini-project while she is away from school. She decided she wanted to learn more about the Tudors. I was amazed to find a teaching pack for this very topic!

The activities within this pack are targetted at a slightly older audience, but this doesn’t matter. The work can be tailored to suit Aurelia’s age group.

The site offers resources for all different subjects including music, geography, English Maths. I have even downloaded some incredibly useful resources for sign language so Aurelia can keep this up while she is away from her sign language club at school!

Top Marks

Some of the online activities Aurelia has been set by her school are done using Top Marks. Like all children, mine loves to learn using online games. Top Marks contains some excellent games for children to really engage with. So far, Aurelia has ordered numbers, compared numbers and has even practised symmetry using this wonderful site.

Maths has really been made fun through a variety of different games which allows children to practice different skills.

You can select activities based on your child’s age group. Or alternatively, browse through the activities arranged by subject matter.

I have referred to ‘homeschooling; throughout this post. However, it is important to remember that the current situation is unprecedented and as parents, we aren’t expected to provide our children with an education that parallels that offered to them in a school setting. Rather, we must simply do what we can. Forcing children to spend hours on end working through activities isn’t the way forward. Time ought to be spent with children doing fun things, such as crafts, baking, playing games or whatever else they find entertaining.

I hope you’ve found this list useful. If you would like to suggest any other sites that offer free resources for children, please include these in the comments below.

To see similar posts, please browse through my ‘Parenting‘ category.

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7 Comments

  1. March 28, 2020 / 5:50 pm

    This is such a useful post! I knew about some of these resources; twinkle and oxford are ones we use, so it’s good to see some new things within the list.

  2. Sarah Eliza
    March 29, 2020 / 6:08 pm

    Such a useful post for parents right now! My mums a primary teacher and I know she’s using a lot of these herself for the kids. There’s also some museums doing virtual tours which I think is so fun! And, of course Joe Wickes’ daily PE everyone’s talking about!!

    • Lellalee
      Author
      April 1, 2020 / 10:37 am

      Thank you for sharing Sarah. Do you have a blog? xxx

  3. March 30, 2020 / 11:34 am

    It’s fantastic that there are so many free resources out there to keep children entertained during this time. I think the rainbows in windows is such a lovely idea, I always enjoy looking out for them when I go on my walks. Aurelia’s rainbow is so colourful and pretty, I love the positive message too! Thank you for sharing Ashley, hope you are all doing okay <3 xx

    Bexa | http://www.hellobexa.com

    • Lellalee
      Author
      April 1, 2020 / 10:22 am

      Thank you Bexa, we’re doing well thank you – I hope you are too xxx

  4. Deb's Decorative Life
    April 7, 2020 / 7:40 pm

    These free resources are so very valuable. We need to keep the kids learning, having fun and entertained with projects during this stay home time.

    • Lellalee
      Author
      April 21, 2020 / 5:54 pm

      Thanks Deb xxx

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