by Eva Amurri + Eden Cale

As proud members of the barely 10% of older millennials using TikTok, we’d like to walk everyone through a very important exercise: The #PutAFingerDownChallenge. Hold both hands up and put a finger down one by one if…

…You are a parent.

…You are either now working-from-home or home and not working due to Coronavirus shut down’s.

…You also now have your kids home with you.

…You also now are expected to assist in homeschooling those kids.

…You also now are expected to come up with home-based activities for them to do when they’re not doing schoolwork to prevent your entire family from going completely insane.

If you’ve already lost a full hand of fingers, then this guide is for you!

Many of you have asked how to keep your kids engaged in learning as well as entertained during this tricky time, so we’ve assembled a list of helpful online educational resources as well as games and supplies that we have been finding clutch. We hope you’ll find them useful, too!

And in the immortal words of Shonda Rhimes…

Been homeschooling a 6-year old and 8-year old for one hour and 11 minutes. Teachers deserve to make a billion dollars a year. Or a week.

— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) March 16, 2020

Sample Schedules…

A lot of people have been asking about daily schedules for kids, so we have created four sample schedules for Preschool – 12th Grade below. For higher resolution versions of all four, click on each image.

Online Education Resources For Kids…

Khan Academy is a free online resource that offers practice exercises and instructional videos for ages 2+. For kids ages 2-7, there is the Khan Kids app, and for older kids, there are math courses from Preschool – AP Calculus, Science & Engineering, Arts & Humanities, and most recently there is even a beta program for regents reading testing from 2nd – 8th grade.

TEDed recently launched TEDed@Home, which sends you a lesson plan every morning to your inbox, organized by age group and spanning all subjects for kids 4-11 years old.

Scratch is a free online programming community that teaches kids 8-16 years old how to code and program their own interactive stories, games, and animations. Coding helps teach problem-solving and self-expression through the use of the computer and is considered an important part of literacy in today’s society. For kids 5-7 years old, there is ScratchJr, which is a simplified version of Scratch that you can buy Coding Activity Cards and the Official ScratchJr Book to help guide your kids through the app. Both projects are funded by the MIT Media Lab.

This is a great free resource for younger kids. They have educational videos, and an entire section devoted to mini science projects that you can do at home. My personal favorite is this Color Explosion chemistry project that you can do with the kiddos, and then use it to make marbleized paper!

Mystery Science has supplied a free starter list of K-5 Science Lessons that you and your kids can do from home. If you need additional lessons, you can sign up for a free parent account to access more.

Tinkercad is a free online CAD software that helps introduce kids to the world of 3D design, engineering, and printing.

Twinkl offers teacher-created printable educational resources across all subjects from Pre-K – 5th grade. You can find their hub for US school closures here.

Online Education Resources For Adults…

Below are continuing education resources for adults, or anyone that will be hoping to re-enter the workforce when this is all over or would like to learn a new skill or brush up on some old ones:

OpenLearn is the free online portal from The Open University. It offers thousands of courses, articles, videos, and audio lessons across a variety of subjects.

FutureLearn is the UK-based version of Open Learn, and it has a huge archive of educational materials from leading British institutions like the British Library, the British Museum, and the National Film and Television School.

Games + Supplies…

For Kids:

For those of you that are tearing their hair out trying to occupy your kids when they’re not doing schoolwork, here are some of the things that we ordered on Amazon that have been saving our sanity this week:

(And for those who don’t know, you can always visit the Happily Eva After Amazon Storefront for all the links to products mentioned on the blog!)

For Adults: