FREE 'isolation' resources
It’s a work in progress, but this is a list of interesting, useful and most importantly, FREE, resources I’ve found or received from contacts over the past week or so. Please message me if you come across any particularly useful resources which might help others get through this challenging time.
Libraries
Museums with digital collections
Theatre
Spanish plays: The Teatroteca is a media library created by the Theatrical Documentation Center, belonging to the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports and offers more than 1500 plays for free.
35 (of 70) easy ideas to play with children at home, adapted from Estación Bambalina
1) Bake something. We made some chocolate cupcakes the other day and some tiffin more recently.
2) Make hand shadow puppets
3) Make a video of your hand puppet show
4) Play balloon volleyball
5) Play a board game
6) Make some homemade play dough, then let the children use cookie cutters or whatever else you have lying around to make pretend cookies, cakes, pizzas…
7) Set up a home beauty salon and offer manicures, pedicures…
8) Interview someone famous. Think of some funny questions you’d ask. Practice on someone in your family.
9) Hide funny messages or quotes around the house for your family to find (and smile when they find them!)
10) Have a pillow fight
11) Redecorate (or rearrange) your bedroom. We did this on Day 1. I imagine we might try it again!
12) Choreograph a dance
13) Play hide the thimble
14) Create and record a radio programme.
15) Copy a scene from a film, but without the dialogue.
16) Set the breakfast / lunch / dinner table in a really fancy way
17) Invent a song
18) Do some yoga. We have found that Cosmic Kids Yoga is brilliant for the children.
19) Get the dressing up box out. Or just raid the wardrobes to dress up as any character.
20) Play “If I were…” an animal (choose animal) / a planet (choose planet) / a food (choose food) etc….
21) Map out your family tree
22) Make a car circuit out of all the pens / crayons / pencils in the house
23) Make a fort
24) Write a journal
25) Make paper planes
26) Make up a poem
27) Play pictionary
28) Imagine your superpower & play the part
29) Play at being hairdressers (maybe without the scissors)
30) Act out your favourite story with different voices for the different characters
31) Make a collage
32) Write a comic
33) Plant a lentil. You’ll need a little tub, some cotton wool, some lentils and water. It’s amazing to watch them grow!
34) Write a letter
35) Do some origami. We’ve made fish, cats, dogs, unicorns…
Lots of free workouts which don’t require any equipment
The popular Les Mills classes, for free
For children
Cooking
Learning apps
I just came across this on The Guardian, and a lot of these look worth a try.
Learning apps for stir crazy kids
Subject specific
Art
Help children learn & appreciate the arts
Geography
Historical photos from around the world
Cultural, historical & statistical country information
Nature
San Diego Zoo for kids
Professions
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry
(To listen, click here.)
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
this is very good, thanks for sharing it.