Online Educational Resources
This list can be adapted for children at any age
Hello preschool families, it’s Ms. Christine! I have put together 10 awesome educational resources to explore at home. This list consists of virtual tours, live webcams of animals, virtual places to visit and activities to do at home.
Museums
Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose
The Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose is offering a virtual museum on their website . With activities to do at home such as soap bubbles, spa water, treasure maps, and bubble domes. They also have videos to check out as well!
The Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour
The Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian has made a virtual tour available on their website. You are able to go into the rooms, look at the exhibits and read the information to learn more about each topic. Have fun learning and exploring!
Animals
San Diego Zoo
https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/index.php/animals
The San Diego Zoo is offering another great resource for kids. They have live video footage of their animals. Which include apes, pandas, polar bears and so many more. They have science and craft activities to do. Some examples of activities are, sound science with a balloon, a zebra puppet and a tissue paper butterfly. Again, those are to just name a few. There are so many more things to explore on this site.
Monterey Bay Aquarium
https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is another great resource to check out. They have live cam footage of their animals such as sea otters, sharks, and penguins. The best way to utilize this at home would be to do a lesson on a certain kind of animal and then have them watch the live video as a supplement to that lesson. I hope you enjoy it!
Outer Space
NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/stem-at-home-for-students-k-4.html
On the NASA website there are so many educational resources to do at home. They have astronaut coloring sheets for the younger kids. There are projects with videos on how to do them. The projects include a cloud mobile, an Apollo moon capsule craft and an edible spacecraft. They also have puzzles the children can do. There are videos on how to make rockets and then how to launch it. Lastly, they have some fun educational computer games the children can play. I hope you enjoy and learn alot from this site. Have fun!
Google and NASA
https://accessmars.withgoogle.com/
Google has teamed up Nasa to give you virtual footage of mars. You can move the camera to explore around the surface of Mars. This would be great paired with a lesson about Mars beforehand so the child gets the most out of the experience. Have fun exploring!
Places
https://www.thechinaguide.com/destination/great-wall-of-china
The Great Wall of China
With this resource you can take a tour of the Great Wall of China. This would be great to do with a lesson on when it was built and why. Teach your child about the historical significance of this landmark. Then go and explore!
The Son Doong Cave
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news-features/son-doong-cave/2/#s=pano60
Come take a virtual tour of the Son Doong Cave. This is the largest cave in VIetnam. Again, this would be best in conjunction with a lesson on the place beforehand so your child gets the most out of the experience. Have fun exploring!
Ancient Egypt
Learn more about ancient egypt with this site. They have resources to learn about Kings and Queens, hieroglyphs, pyramids, temples and so much more!
The White house
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-white-house
Come take a virtual tour of the white house. Make sure to do a lesson with the kids about the White House beforehand. Have fun!
Yosemite National Park
https://www.virtualyosemite.org
Learn about and explore the Yosemite National Park. When you are looking at the screen you will see red marks. When you click on those red marks it will take you to that location of the park and it will have a little blurb on the side with some fun facts about that part.
Hope you have fun learning and exploring!
Christine S.| Lead Teacher