With COVID-19 causing many schools to transition to distance or online learning, parents are trying to find free online resources to extend their children’s learning at home. Below is a list of resources that parents can feel comfortable and confident with to let their children explore and learn from. Many of these resources are referred from Ontario Public School Boards, and we encourage you to delve into their extensive databases of free online resources to find grade and subject-specific activities for your children!
Online Learning Databases
- YCDSB Online Learning Database
- 160+ online learning resources that an Ontario Public School Board has compiled. For kindergarten – grade 12.
- OCDSB Online Learning Database
- 70+ online learning resources that an Ontario Public School Board has compiled. For Kindergarten-Grade 12.
- National School Choice Week
- 40+ online learning resources that are available for families during COVID-19 including Mystery Science, PBS, Typing Club, Skype a Scientist, and TED-Ed.
- Scholastic Family Resource Centre
- A selection of activities, lessons, books, worksheets available for students of all grades in a variety of subjects.
Special Education
- YRDSB Special Education Online Learning Database
- Highlighting parent resources for subject-specific learning plans such as cooking, music, arts, physical education, and more.
- YRCDSB Special Education Online Learning Database
- Highlighting parent resources for social skills, communication, sensory, daily living, self-regulation, ASD and more.
Secondary School Online Course Support
- TVO ILC Open House
- TVO ILC is the Ontario Ministry of Education’s designated partner in distance education. We help students to achieve their educational, career, and life goals by providing the opportunity to earn high school credits or a full Ontario Secondary School Diploma online. At this time, we are offering free 24/7 access to the content of any of our 144 grade 9-12 online English or French courses.
- https://lah.elearningontario.ca/
- This site is designed to provide students and their parents/guardians with access to secondary courses to review, refresh, and extend their learning. The courses provided here are not fully online courses and are not being assessed for credit. They are offered to support independent learning without the normal facilitation of a teacher.
Reading
- Sight words
- A library of sight-word printouts to work through with early readers and English Language Learners.
- Audible
- Audible is an online database of audiobooks. Children’s books are free while schools are closed.
- Crabtree Publishing
- (Free until 06/30/2020) [Username: read Password: free] Crabtree Publishing Company is dedicated to producing high-quality books and educational products for K – 9+.
- Tumble Books:
- TumbleBooks are animated, talking picture books which teach kids the joy of reading in a format they’ll love. TumbleBooks are created by taking existing picture books, adding animation, sound, music, and narration to produce an electronic picture book which you can read, or have read to you. TBL also includes National Geographic videos and games.
- Your local library’s website:
- If you hold a library card to your local library, check out their website for access to online reading libraries such as Overdrive, BookFLIX, TrueFLIX, and Hoopla.
Educational Games and Activities
- Brainpop
- Animated and engaging lessons, quizzes, and activities for elementary-aged students and English Language Learners in all subjects. Free for a limited time during COVID-19.
- Prodigy
- A curriculum aligned math video game for students in grade 1-8.
- Scratch
- Teaches young people how to code online using fun animations, games, stories, etc. Available online without a registered account by selecting “start creating.”