We just got the notice yesterday that school will be closed even longer, which means parents need to find even more things for kids to do at home. While kids have schoolwork, it doesn’t take up nearly as much time as we thought it would. We are still having to find things for the kids to do so they are not on electronics for tons of hours or “bored”. We have put together a long list of at home activities for kids that will keep them entertained and learning.

 

Learn About Animals

Aquarium of the Pacific

The Aquarium of the Pacific features webcams of different animals you would find in the Pacific Ocean. Some animals you can view are Sharks and Sea Jellies. Also take a look at the Tropical Reef Cam and the Honda Blue Cavern Cam which focus on two different underwater habitats.

Cape May County Park/Zoo

Each day at 11:30 Cape May County Park/Zoo posts a new animal video.  You can also check out the currently posted videos of the North American River Otters, the Silver Fox, and Primate Point.

California Coastal Commission

The California Coastal Commission has a list of live cams of animals that live on the California coast. These include  Bald Eagle Nests, Otter Cams, Elephant Seals, and a variety of other animals.

Cincinnati Zoo

The Cincinnati Zoo will go live at 3pm each weekday on its facebook page. On their Home Safari Resources page they have lots of fun activities for kids to learn about animals, as well as have animal arts and crafts projects. They also have lots of videos that kids can watch to learn about the animals.

Elmwood Park Zoo

The Elmwood Park Zoo has live school every weekday at 11am where they show off one of their animals and teach kids interesting facts about them. Check out their Bubby’s Club for kids that has games and activities to do with kids as well as additional animal videos.

Georgia Aquarium

The Georgia Aquarium features live webcams of its animals. Animals that you can see are Beluga Whales, Puffins, and an Indo-Pacific Barrier Reef Cam.

Kansas City Zoo

The Kansas City Zoo features some unique animal cams. They cams of  two different types of penguins, Polar Bears, and Giraffes.

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Houston Zoo

The Houston Zoo has cams of its Safari Animals. Animals that kids can see are Giraffes, Rhinos, Elephants and more.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has live cams of its sea animals. Kids can see moon jellies, sharks, sea otters and more. They are on the West Coast, so the live cams start late morning for us.

New England Aquarium

On The New England Aquarium website, see videos of animals, 360 views of different habitats and behind the scenes facts.

Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies

Want to take a look at Penguins frolicking, then take a look at Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies’ live Penguin cam. The penguins are active between 9:00am and 8:00pm.  The cameras turn off at 8:00pm each day.

San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo has live cams for a variety of their animals.  Some of the animals that you can view are penguins, koalas, baboons, apes, and more. They are on the West Coast, so the live cams start late morning for us.

Shedd Aquarium

The Shedd Aquarium website offers a 360 degree view of different sharks and their habitats. They also have a series called Sea Curious for kids which gives them information about different aquatic animals. They answer questions such as which animals are slimy, how animals are born and which animals lose teeth.

Smithsonian National Zoo

The Smithsonian National Zoo features some unique webcams. Take a look at Naked Mole Rats, Lions, Giant Pandas, and Elephants.

Zoo Atlanta

Zoo Atlanta features a panda cam that runs 24 hours a day. You can also read the Panda news which consists of interesting facts about them.

Make Something in the Kitchen

Bake Cookies

My kids love baking. Now is a great time to bake some cookies from scratch. Pinch of Yum and All Recipes have some great recipe options that you can try out.

Make a Foodstirs Box

We love Foodstirs boxes. They are great for kids and the recipes are easy to follow. They send pretty much everything that you need to make the recipe in the box. You only have to add a couple of items that you have in your fridge and pantry. Note that most of the boxes are dessert based.

Make Your Own Bread and Butter

We took a baking class and over whipped whipping cream and turned it into butter by accident. And what do you know, it tasted really good. A fun activity would be to make your own bread and butter.

Make Jello

My kids are always asking to make jello, so I thought this would be fun for the kids to make and something they can pretty much do on their own

Bake a Cake and Make your own Buttercream Frosting

While we don’t bake too many cakes from scratch, we will make buttercream frosting from scratch. It is amazing what it does to a box cake.

Get a Raddish Box

Raddish is a cooking club and curriculum for kids of all ages. In each box, kids will get three recipes that they either make with their parents or on their own, depending on age, as well as fun kitchen activities and tools.

Take a Virtual Field Trip

Mars

Explore the surface of Mars on the Curiosity Rover. As a follow-up to the video, kids can build their own Lego space shuttle and Mars Rover at home.

The Tundra

Take a virtual field trip to the Tundra with Discovery Education to have a Polar Bears experience.

Yellowstone National Park

Tour some of the main attractions around Yellowstone National Park including Fountain Paint Pot, Fort Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs and more.

Boeing

Take a virtual field trip with Boeing to see how they are working to launch the next space initiatives.

British Museum

Tour the British Museum Kids will love seeing the mummy exhibit.

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Louvre

Take kids on a virtual field trip to the Louvre. They can see Egyptian antiquities, the original moat around the Louvre, and the Decorative Arts gallery.

Great Wall of China

Take kids on a virtual tour of the Great Wall .

National Museum of Natural History

View the different exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History. Kids will like the dinosaur exhibit and the mammals exhibit. Pair with a viewing of the Night at the Museum to bring the museum even more to life or play some dino games at home with this 4-pack of games you can get from the museum store online.

Take a Virtual Class

ABC Mouse

My daughter did ABC Mouse when she was younger and now my son does it. ABC Mouse makes learning fun. Kids get to play games and go on adventures while learning. Right now you can get a free membership if your school signs up for the program. Otherwise, if you sign up yourself, the first month is free and then it cost $10 per month for an annual subscription.

Adventure Academy

Adventure Academy is for the middle school set. Students go on epic adventures while learning Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies. Kids will enjoy learning through this program. My daughter surely does. Just like ABC Mouse, you can get free access right now, if your school signs up for the program. Otherwise, you can sign up yourself for $10 per month for an annual subscription.

Coding Wizards for Kids

Coding Wizards for Kids offers fun online coding classes for kids. Students attend live online classes each week with an instructor. The program is mostly hands-on, with minimal lectures. Instructors are able to correct problems kids may have in real-time which leads to much less frustration.

DIY

DIY offers a bunch of online courses where kids can learn a new skill. There are classes in in photography, drawing, making inventions, animation, cooking, making machines and much more. Whatever your child is interested in, they probably have a class for it.

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Duolingo

Duolingo offers bite-sized Spanish language lessons for kids (and adults) to learn the language of their choice. Lessons are broken up into 5-minute bite-sized pieces that are the perfect length to keep kids engaged. DuoLingo is free to use with ads. Without ads, there is a cost of $7 per month.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy offers online courses for kids. The majority of courses focus on STEM subjects. Khan Academy also offers a Pixar in a Box course and an Imagineering in a Box course so that kids can learn about animation and storytelling.

Marco Polo

Marco Polo makes learning and discovery fun for kids. Marco Polo takes kids around the world virtually and while exploring these virtual environments they are learning reading, math, science, technology, arts and social studies. Marco Polo is available on the AppStore and Google Play.

Outschool

Outschool offers online classes for kids on a variety of topics. They offer classes for all ages. If your child is a Harry Potter Fan, you can sign them up Herbology 1: Harry Potter Plant Science. Your middle schooler needs to work on writing? Sign them up for Mastering the 5-paragraph essay. They offer language classes, art classes, gaming and coding, language arts and more. In all, they have over 10,000 classes. Prices vary by course.

Varsity Tutors (virtual day school)

Varsity Tutors is offering free live classes led by subject matter experts each day of the week for kids in grades K-12. Classes include match, science, reading, literature, writing and enrichment.

Do an Educational Activity

Kid Podcasts

Listen to an educational, but also fun, kids podcast. We recommend checking out Story Pirates, Wow in the World, Brains On!, Tumble and Forever Ago.

National Geographic Kids

National Geographic Kids is a great site for kids to learn about about nature and science. On the website, they can watch videos, play games, get science experiments and learn fun facts.

McHarper Manor

McHarper Manor will be holding free arts & crafts tutorials every Monday to Friday at 1pm. The first week of lessons included how to make watercolor animals, peg dolls and a painted canvas.

OCPS

OCPS offers a lot of free programs for kids online. My son loves Chess Kid and Brain Pop Jr. Kids can also learn to code with Hour of Code and Code Studio. Discovery Education also has lots of fun learning activities. All of these programs are available on launchpad.

Scholastic Learn at Home

Scholastic Learn at Home has 20 days of lessons for parents to do with kids. Lessons are mainly for elementary school kids, and include a combination of reading, science, art and writing.

Prodigy

Prodigy makes learning math fun. Prodigy is a math game, where kids have to answer math facts to move forward in the game.

Orange County Public Library

The Orange County Public Library offers free access with a library card to online classes such as Little Pim (language learning for young kids), Miss Humblebee’s Academy, Science Online and more. For older kids, they are offering online classes in Adobe Photoshop, Web Design and more.

GoNoodle

We can’t forget about physical education. GoNoodle offers a lot of fun videos that get young kids up and moving. Some videos even over fun ways to learn educational topics.

Do a Science Experiment

Rock Candy in a Glass

Kids will love making their own candy. This will be a sweet treat, and a fun science experiment, for them when you create Rock Candy in a Glass.

Ice Cream in a Bag

Who doesn’t love ice cream? Since you can’t go out and get any why not make your own Ice Cream at home with this recipe.

Make Your own Butter

Take it one step further from making your own ice cream and make your own butter.

Sparkly Volcano

Glitter makes everything better! Create a Sparkly Volcano using baking soda, vinegar, and glitter.

Make sure you have the right equipment for your at home science experiments. My son has this kit and he loves it.

Rainbow in a Glass

Trap your own rainbow at home. Create a Rainbow in a Glass using skittles.

Balloon Speakers

Use a balloon and test what you can hear with its vibrations in this science experiment.

Snow Fluff

Since in Orlando we don’t get real snow, why not make your own with cornstarch and shaving cream.

Crystal Snowflake

Add some snowflakes to the snow you created above. Create your own crystal snowflakes.

Homemade Play-Dough

No need to go into stores to try and find some just stay at home and make your own!

Expanding Soap

Why buy soap when you could just make yours grow?

Water Fireworks

Finally fireworks that are safe for us all. Make water fireworks at home.

Bath Salts

Make your own bath salts to add some more relaxation to bath time.

Tornado in a Bottle

Make your own sparkly natural disaster in a bottle with this recipe.

Make Your Own Quicksand

In the wild, quicksand would be dangerous but making your own at home is perfectly safe.

Create Invisible Ink

Send secret messages to your friends by making your own Invisible Ink.

Ice Cube Magic

It’s not really magic but it’s still a cool science experiment to cut an ice cube in half.

Eggshell Geode Crystals

Instead of throwing out your eggshells why not make Geode Crystals with them.

Make an Electromagnet

Find some coins or even a lost earring by making your own magnet in this at home science experiment.

Build a Fizz Inflator

You don’t need helium to fill up a balloon; you just need vinegar and baking soda for this science experiment.

Soap Powered Boat

You don’t need a motor to make a boat move. This boat is powered by soap.

Baking soda volcano

Here is a twist on the typical baking soda volcano that we made when we were kids.

Make a Levitating Orb

Make an orb levitate just like the magicians do, except this is not magic, it’s science!

Invisible Licorice

Creating Invisible Licorice might be magic or it could just be science, but your kids will never be able to tell.

Kid Safe Lava Lamps

Add a little pop to your kids room with their own DIY lava lamp.

Walking on Eggs

Normally eggs would break if we walk on them. But, what if eggs weren’t so fragile and were strong enough that we could Walk on Eggs?

Dyed Plants

Have plants absorb water with food coloring in it and see how that affects the plants color.

Magnetic Cereal

Did you know that cereal has iron in it? Using this Magnetic Cereal experiment you find out.

Glowing Bubbles

Kids will love glowing bubbles. Turn off the lights and enjoy popping them.

Exploding Lunch Bag

Kids love making things explode. This exploding lunch bag experiment will tons of fun for them.

Growing Gummy Bears

You wouldn’t want to eat these gummy bears but, it would be really cool to watch them grow.

Rock Candy in a Glass

This will be a delicious sweet treat and a fun science experiment when you create Rock Candy in a Glass.

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