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Many companies and independent providers are continuing to support teachers and carers by making their resources free during the COVID-19 outbreak, or recommending sources of free resources. Here are some suggestions which may help you to create either home learning packs or put links to E-learning on your school’s website. Twitter and Facebook are also regularly updated with links, ideas and resources to support schools and parents/carers in the current climate.
Google worked with educators across the country to create Classroom: a streamlined, easy-to-use tool that helps teachers manage homework. With Classroom, educators can create classes, distribute work, mark it and send feedback, and see everything in one place. With Classroom, teachers and students can sign in from any computer or mobile device to access homework, learning materials, and feedback. Classroom is free for schools and included with sign up for ‘G Suite for Education’. Like all Google for Education tools, Classroom meets high security standards.
Find out how to sign in to Google Classroom
Easyclass is a platform that allows educators to create online classes whereby they can store the lesson materials online; manage tasks, quizzes and assessments; and provide students with feedback all in one place. With no advertisements and a process for inviting and managing students in classrooms, Easyclass addresses the fundamental concerns of privacy and safety. The content created within the online classes can be viewed by the class members only. Our services are truly free and will remain free.
Top 20 list of discounted or free resources for home learning. Some are exclusively for schools but many are for everyone.
Engaging learning games, animated movies, and activities. Designed with relevance, depth, and humour to encourage kids on their unique learning path. (US Grade 1=Year 2 in England/Wales)
Access Amazing Educational Resources
A wide range of links to sites with either full or partial free access.
To support primary teachers, parents and pupils through school closure, the Historical Association have put together a selection of open access resources to help you through this period:
School Radio offers a range of primary History resources for KS1 and KS2 pupils arranged in clip libraries that include a mix of both audio and video clips and supported by Teacher Notes.
Schools History is a bank of general and topic-specific history resources that are designed to be engaging and interactive. Teaching the Egyptians? Why not set pupils the task of planning a Pharaoh’s party!
Explore the globe with National Geographic’s primary resources.
You’ll find stories, features and interviews from around the world, which are ideal for KS1 and KS2 teaching ideas. From peculiar places to wild weather, National Geographic Kids has teaching resources that support a range of curriculum-aligned Geography topics. Guide pupils in evaluating evidence of climate change, or uncover the relationship between the weather and the water cycle.
Covering everything from the Amazon to volcanoes, our resources will support your lesson planning and help you deliver exciting and engaging Geography lessons in accordance with the National Curriculum. We also have Geography fun facts that are great to use for Foundation Stage (EYFS) learning.
Spanning significant historical events, as well as people and places of local and global significance, National Geographic Kids have it covered. There are resources to help your pupils take a leap into the lives of the Romans, Ancient Greeks and Anglo-Saxons, not to mention key world history resources for pupils to examine and evaluate.
Geographical Association is designed to support primary teachers and pupils at this unprecedented time and offer the chance for all pupils within a household to work together to enjoy a range of hands-on geographical activities that require minimum use of screens and/or paper. Each resource offers a range of practical ideas that can be conducted at home, whilst encouraging pupils to think more widely about the world and their place in it. The activities attempt to limit, where possible, the need for adult input whilst maintaining rigorous academics and remaining engaging and enjoyable.
Children everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids. All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet. Explore the collection, select a title and start listening. It's that easy.
Some authors are offering online read alouds and activities on social media such as Facebook and Instagram – note that a few of these are now out of date. However, there are several subscriptions to free e-books and other e-learning resources.
This great website encourages children to have a go at writing their own texts. It’s a highly versatile tool which is very motivating for budding writers who enjoy working online and being in charge of their own publications! Use Google Chrome. Teachers need to set this up beforehand for their class. 90 days FREE use of premium features due to COVID-19.
Access Outdoor Learning Resources
Of particular interest will be the 100 ideas for outdoor literacy (KS1 and KS2) and Phonics Outdoors
Epic are offering FREE worldwide access for Educators and schools to high quality books. Families and parents can sign up for a 30 day free trial. There’s a really good range of non-fiction short texts as well as story books.
Fun Phonics YouTube channel provides videos to help parents and professionals make learning fun!
Revising grammar through song.
Access handwriting practice exercises via Pinterest
Try these early handwriting practice sheets for youngsters! Free to download.
This site provides tables of phonemes and tricky words, rather than actual activities to do. However, the resources may be helpful in terms of your understanding of how words can be organised by the sounds of letters or letter combinations. Try to avoid just copying out lists of words. It’s better to say the sounds out loud and to talk about the letter patterns within words. Then children can write some words with similar sounds or spellings, and read them back to themselves. Remember to go back over yesterday’s work too!
A brilliant website with enjoyable, educational activities which go with the book the child chooses. Simply click on a topic and age group, then click on a book to discover the activities. You’ll need a copy of the text, so either choose one you have at home, or go to Amazon.co.uk to order your copy.
Despite the name of the website, this includes English activities too, separated into year group packs. You can find the reading texts towards the end of each pack. You’ll need to be able to print these off, for both reading and writing. Grammar, spelling and handwriting are included! (This does not include the Reception class.)
Home learning phonics videos (Phases 3-5): Simply scan each QR code using a free QR code reader app and it will take you to the online learning video.
Access Oliver Jeffers’ Online Storytime
Author, Oliver Jeffers, will be reading one of my books every weekday, and talking about some of the things that went into making it. We are all at home, but none of us are alone. Let’s be bored together. See the recordings on his website.
Once Upon A Picture is a collection of illustrations, digital art and animation accompanied by writing prompts.
Watch our grammar playlist for a clear explanation of lots of key grammar terms – handy if you’re helping with grammar homework or your child is preparing for the Key Stage 2 SATs test.
One picture. One teaching resource. Everyday. Starting with a weird, wonderful and/or thought-provoking image, you and your pupils will be inspired to write creatively. There are 365 images to choose from leaving no chance for boredom! With images that capture alternative viewpoints of fairytales and interesting set ups with superheroes to animals losing their habitats in safaris and rainforests to mythical creatures causing madness and mayhem as well as many many more, the writing opportunities are endless! If the image itself doesn’t spark a thousand ideas, simply scroll down and use the activities we provide. Use them as they are or as a starting point for something even bigger.
A free online storyboard creator, which provides super images and ‘scenes’ which children can drag and drop into their storyboard. There’s a free trial, so that you can see what’s on offer. Also, you can create two storyboards per week for free, or upgrade for more advanced features (which is payable).
Games organised by topic and year group from Reception to Year 6.
Sumdog works closely with teachers and pupils to create an experience that genuinely engages pupils with practice, while providing the tools that inform teachers and enable them to adapt and support improved educational attainment. Includes spelling and grammar activities.
A range of free resources to engage pupils in practising key skills if they need to work from home, organised by year group from Year 1 to Year 8.
Poetry competition (deadline 31st March)
Super home-learning books for Early Years, KS1 and KS2, packed with activities which support phonics, reading and writing. The Early Years resource is full of opportunities for learning, to be led and supported by an adult at home. Tip: some children in KS2 may be better suited to the KS1 booklet. Have a look and consider which one is more appropriate to their reading stage.
Each day you'll find a new set of daily activities to get involved with. Qualified Twinkl teachers will provide book readings, live lessons, positive news updates and more. We'll be bringing you activities from our partners too, to help fill your days and offer some much-needed variety. Activities will be listed the day before - giving you enough time to get prepped and set up for the next day's learning.
Typing Club offers the experience of learning to touch-type for free for individuals and schools.
Support, advice and resources for parents to develop their child’s literacy skills.
In response to sudden demand for non-screen learning, we’ve adapted our engaging after-school math activities for your kids to enjoy at home. Below the activities you’ll also find links to our research-proven app and fun videos.
Colouring by numbers (or rather calculation) sheets
The Jr. Addition sheets would be excellent for KS1 pupils; they are set out as specific addition facts for pupils to learn.
These Star Wars free printable colouring pages provide hours of entertainment while supplementing math instruction. Colour Darth Vader, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, and more with these free Star wars Colouring pages. Other characters available on the site including Disney characters, Harry Potter, superheroes, etc. which would be excellent for KS2 pupils.
Outdoor learning can be found on the Creative Star Learning website.
Of particular interest will be the 100 ideas for outdoor numeracy (KS1 and KS2)
A small selection of free online games
Ten Frame Mania is an excellent game to allow KS1 pupils to see how numbers are shown on ten frames and gain a greater understanding of place value:
How Many is a game that encourages pupils to subitise. The later stages show objects as arrays which will help with multiplicative understanding.
Expresso is a challenging game for all pupils in KS1 and KS2.
The free online lessons from the previous lockdown are on this page via YouTube: one aimed at children in Y3&4 and another for Y5&6. Each video will help children to build the skills needed for the main task. Then children will complete the main task – a challenge or short series of questions – working individually or with adult support. These tasks can also be downloaded from this page by clicking the relevant links. Answers will be provided!
Underneath each video is a short description of the key calculation skills for each lesson. Children may benefit from practising these skills before watching!
REMINDER- these videos will not link with the content which the pupils will be learning currently, but could be used as consolidation lessons for pupils.
A series of games that can be played with children aged 5-8 are found here. These are great, easy-to-use games.
Other samples and free resources from Gareth Metcalfe can be found here.
Games organised by topic or year group using US grading system (US Grade 1 = Year 2 in England/Wales)
Maths activities separated into year group packs and organised into weeks.
Activities can be sent home for pupils to tackle at home. The activities work flexibly, so children could use whatever resources they have at home. Activities are as accessible as possible and are designed for children to tackle independently.
You might be a child wanting a bit of extra help; a parent wanting to understand the methods taught in school today (lots has changed since you were at school!) or you may be a teacher, looking for ideas on how to help the children in your own classroom. Amber will introduce a new topic every week, with examples and questions for you to try yourself.
Maths.Life takes the 'work' out of homework for everyone! "It isn't homework - it's homeFUN."
Videos specifically designed for parents to support the teaching of concepts rather than procedures.
Videos for teaching concepts and procedures: https://mathvisuals.wordpress.com
Math Flips: flashcards with a problem on the front and a similar problem on the back (instead of a problem and an answer) to encourage relational thinking rather than answer-getting. https://mathvisuals.wordpress.com/math-flips/
The materials, strategies and activities are based on the need for children to be fully involved in their learning; to have fun, and to enjoy and achieve while developing their mathematical skills.
Some resources are premium however there are lots of free ideas and games on the site.
25 Fun Maths Activities And Games For Kids To Do At Home For Free!
Access NCETM Primary Video Lessons
Short videos produced to provide primary school pupils with interactive lessons while they were learning at home. Within each concept, they are set in the suggested order. Most lessons are between 15 to 20 minutes long, each ending with suggested follow-up tasks.
Teacher guides accompany the lessons giving details of the features of teaching for mastery. PowerPoints of the lessons are also available and include the same content as the video lessons, allowing teachers the flexibility to adapt and deliver the lessons themselves as part of their own teaching sequence.
Two player times tables games without the pressure. Available online or as printable documents.
Are you teaching maths in Reception or Year 1? These hugely popular materials to go alongside CBeebies' Numberblocks programmes might give you ideas for how they might be used in lessons. https://www.ncetm.org.uk/classroom-resources/ey-numberblocks-support-materials/
All Numberblocks videos are currently available on BBC iplayer.
The engaging, curriculum-aligned math platform. No cost, ever. Easily motivate students to learn and practice math. Accessible at home or in class!
Games organised by topic and year group from Reception to Year 6. A basic free account will allow access to content on the website.
Problem solving games using bar models to represent the calculation.
These resources have been selected as they are suitable for pupils to do at home.
Free Maths Hub access is available to all teachers and school staff but you need to register. Please note, you will need to use Google Chrome, Edge or Safari to access the Maths Hub.
Each day you'll find a new set of daily activities to get involved with. Qualified Twinkl teachers will provide book readings, live lessons, positive news updates and more. We'll be bringing you activities from our partners too, to help fill your days and offer some much-needed variety. Activities will be listed the day before - giving you enough time to get prepped and set up for the next day's learning.
Previous Problem of the day questions which can be downloaded and given to pupils.
Daily Home Learning Lessons for Years 1-9. Every lesson comes with a short video showing you clearly and simply how to help your child complete the activity successfully.
This fun app offers over 30 foreign languages to choose from. There are a variety of different games to play that will test your writing, speaking and reading skills. Cost: Free, Age: 4+
Endless Spanish is an iPhone/iPad app that is perfect for introducing the Spanish language to kids. Animations and puzzles make learning Spanish super fun for kids! Cost: Free, Age: 4+
Little Chatterbox for Kids on iPhone/iPad is a language app that is unique because it features videos of older children to teach younger children how to form words. It’s perfect for kids but adults can benefit from it as well. 8 different languages are offered. Cost: Free, Age: 4+
FunEasyLearn helps you learn languages easily, quickly and for free. (Android)
PSTT have produced guidance on recovery planning following school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regional Mentor, Kate Redhead, looks at a step-by-step approach to addressing missed learning, with strategies for ensuring coverage of both knowledge and skills for each year group:
Science resources organised into topic area and year group, including many opportunities for working scientifically. They provide tips for teachers, highlight common misconceptions and offer further suggestions for use in class.
To easily identify resources which can be used at home, look out for the note: *suitable for home teaching* in the name: https://www.stem.org.uk/primary-science
In addition, STEM learning provides a host of other resources linked to computing, science through stories, mathematics etc...: https://www.stem.org.uk/resources/curated-collections/primary-0
The National STEM Club provides an opportunity for young people, families and schools to take part in club sessions provided by STEM Learning. Schools and families can engage in practical and hands-on STEM activities that support curricular learning within a club style environment., boosting understanding and knowledge of STEM topics.
