RBERN Virtual Instructional Resources for Parents and Families

This list of resources was created to support bilingual parents and families for virtual learning opportunities.

Websites

Early Childhood (Ages 1 - 6)

Beanstalk

Free for the next few months. Live & on-demand classes, on a range of topics with demonstrations of craft making related to that topic. Good for home and teachers.

Teach Children ESL

Lots of free downloadable games, worksheets, flashcards, and dice for parents to play with their children.

Ages 2 - 8

PBS

Drop-down menu by age and content type: Math, Science, Literacy, Social-emotional, social skills, Character, and the Arts. Numerous fun games to play on a computer, phone or iPad.

Elementary Grades

All Kids Network

All Kids Network has a vast array of printables for home: crafts, flashcards, various elementary versions of lined paper, and other resources.

Educational video lessons on YouTube with a vast array of topics, such as space, mythology, literature, etc. Videos have closed captioning and run 3 – 5 minutes in length. Very child friendly to watch.

Storyline Online

A wonderful website of picture-books read to children by well-known actors. Each book has a supplemental curriculum developed by elementary educators aimed at strengthening comprehension, verbal and written skills for ELLs. Each book lists the suggested grade levels and running time. It can be viewed on SchoolTube, YouTube or Vimeo.

Ages 0 - 12

Ranger Rick

Nature magazines: Ranger Rick (ages 7-12), Ranger Rick Jr. (ages 4-7) and Ranger Rick Cub (ages 0 – 4). Digital editions of their magazines are free to families for the next few months.

Grades Pre-K - 5

Read Conmigo

Read Conmigo provides free bilingual children’s books in Spanish and English for family reading. The eBooks include an activity to guide reading comprehension & vocabulary development. All eBooks are compatible with most Apple iOS, Amazon Kindle, & Android devices as well as laptop & desktop computers.

Grades K - 5

Lincoln Center At Home

As a part of #LincolnCenterAtHome, the Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom brings you a daily lesson in creative art-making. Live broadcasts are every weekday morning at 10 AM EDT, a Lincoln Center Teaching Artist leads families and students in a workshop that uses simple materials found at home. Demonstrations are archived.

Grades K - 8

Games to Learn English

This is a free site for students to learn English online. There is a selection of games that students can use to practice learning English in a fun way. It is primarily aimed at ENL students, but young children may also benefit from them.

Grades 6 - 12

History.com

An outstanding collection of topics, idea books, study guides, This Day in History, biographies, videos, appropriate for research projects.

Grades K - 12

Make Beliefs Comix

Available to read and write in 13 languages. Empowers a student to express his/her ideas by creating comic strips. Has comic starters and printables. Choose from a diverse range of characters, objects, scenes, and emotions. Use talk and thought balloons. Free lesson plan. Also, read & write in free e-books.

NY History

NYC Historical Society has numerous resources. Go in under Education – teachers - Curriculum Resources. Very good for students doing research papers.

Ages 2 - College

Khan Academy

Available in 22 languages. Free resources for students, teachers, and parents. Offers all content subjects, AP courses and SAT prep. Webinars, professional learning sessions, office hours to talk with a Kahn expert. Newly added Mastery Challenges offers more opportunities to review concepts students have already worked on.

Pre-K - College

NY Public Library

Using the free SimplyE reader app, available on the App Store or Google Play, one can borrow e-books for free. Excellent for research, primary source documents and photographs.

Children - Adults

Coloring Nature

Coloring Nature is for children & adults. There are more than 675 free printable coloring pages with new pages added weekly. Coloring categories include biomes, anatomy, animals, plants and more, plus some just for fun.

All Grades

Children's Library

International Children’s free Digital Library - an online library with hundreds of free books in Spanish for children. The text box enlarges the print.

Colorin Colorado

This bilingual site is a comprehensive resource for families of English Language Learners.

NG Espanol

National Geographic in Spanish Numerous high-quality videos and articles in Spanish.

Photomath App - and Similar Math Apps

Take a picture of a Math problem with a cellphone and it will provide step by step solutions.

Pura Vida Moms

100 Spanish language resources for bilingual parents.

Reading Rockets

Sister-site to ColorinColorado. Numerous resources for parents to help their child at home with reading.

All Ages

Scholastic Learn at Home

Free resources of activities to do with children at home.

Teachers First

Numerous resources for parents of ENL students to use at home; some are good to reinforce language skills.

Ungraded

LibriVox

LibriVox makes books available, for free, in audio format. The catalog is sortable by author, title, genre/subject, and language. Over 1,000 books are available in numerous languages.

Simple English Wikipedia

For ENL students doing research papers at home, Simple English Wikipedia uses shorter sentences, easier words, and grammar than the regular English Wikipedia. Translates into over 50 languages.

The American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History – their Science website for kids is called Ology. This has games, stories, hands-on activities and videos under a number of topics. Short stories have a quiz at the end. Very user friendly.

The Smithsonian Museum

The Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC has a number of pictures of their individual museums. Click on any one of those museums for specifics: the opening page has numerous photos. Click on the exhibitions link and then “learn more” which gives in-depth information about specific topics and short, informational, easy to read paragraphs.

Audio-books and eBooks

All Ages

Audible

Free books for all ages to listen to on a desktop, laptop, phone or tablet.

Best Educational Youtube Channels for Kids

Top 10 educational sites on YouTube for children.

Book Riot eBooks for Kids

Free links for eBooks and audiobooks.

Children's Library

Free eBooks in 20 languages.

Free Audio-books for Kids

A good list of links for audio-books.

Hoopla

If your library has free, digital services, you can look at the numerous offerings from Hoopla.

Instagram Book Readings

Instagram is currently filled with kid lit authors doing book readings for free. Some of the authors and illustrators are Oliver Jeffers, Beatrice Blue, Mac Barnett.

Kate Messner Author Resources

Many read-alouds by this author, plus numerous resources are broken out by age groups.

Kate Messner Blog

Read-alouds by Kate Messner of some of her books.

Kid Lit Authors Stepping Up During Quarantine

Children's Literature authors.

Overdrive

All free downloadable books. Links to your local library.

Wizarding World

Harry Potter website, the first audible book is free to listen to.

Your Cloud Library

Links to your local library. Available in 6 languages.

Elementary

Good Night with Dolly Parton

“Good Night with Dolly Parton”, a 10 week series of Dolly reading children’s stories. Free, began on April 2 at 7 p.m. EDT; streams on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Oxford Owl for Home

Teens/Young Adult

RivetedLit

Free teen online books. Titles change by the month.

Students with Disabilities/Special Education Supports

Birth Through College

IncludeNY

NYC based organization that provides free services. The website is in Spanish and English; it provides excellent support for parents of students with disabilities. Free phone-in helpline delivers in-depth, 1;1 assistance with special education or disability-related issues to parents, young adults, and professionals. Easy website to navigate.

All Ages

LDOnline

Long established website. Very comprehensive resources and sub-links on understanding and supporting individuals with learning disabilities. http://www.ldonline.org/resources%20new/c698 (parent resources)

Virtual Tours

All Grades/Ages

The Great Wall of China

Virtual tours of the Great Wall of China in English, Spanish, French & German.

Yosemite National Park

Virtual tour of Yosemite National Park.

Zoos and Outdoor Webcams

All Grades/Ages

Eagle and Hawks Nests

Free webcams of Eagle and Hawks nests across the USA. They provide high-definition live webcams of the Bald Eagle and Hawks nesting. Wonderful opportunity to watch eggs hatch; engages the whole family in language discussions.