Free audio story access from Amazon and other free online educational resources
Amazon has
cancelled the subscription of books and audio stories for children and students
of all ages as long as schools are closed, 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 children.
All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet using
the following link https://stories.audible.com/start-listen.
Collins is giving free access to its online learning platform, Collins
Connect, for the length of the school closures. The platform is for both primary
and secondary schools and is home to learning and teaching resources for a
range of subjects including English, maths and science at all levels, as well
as international curricula. It includes more than 300 e-books from its Big Cat
reading programme, activity sheets, a times tables practice tool, revision and
PDF downloads of many of its titles. Collins is adding resources daily to the
site.
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/collins-makes-hundreds-books-and-resources-available-free-1196451
Octopus is launching a Meet The Author series on Instagram. Twice a week an Octopus author—across all subjects, including cooking, health, mindfulness, fashion, design and gardening—will introduce themselves and their book, and answer five questions that they feel readers would most want to know.
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/octopus-launches-meet-author-series-instagram-1196458
BBC to offer pupils missing school daily TV tuition aimed at different key stages, including GCSE and A level.
https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-bbc-works-schools-offer-tv-lessons
Families and children can now easily discover a wide range of entertaining and educational shows and films, with the launch of a new children’s experience on BBC iPlayer, including older shows returning to iplayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/iplayer-children
NewsGuard has temporarily removed the paywall from its browser extension in order to make its anti-misinformation tool free to help address the urgent COVID-19 ‘infodemic.
https://www.newsguardtech.com/coronavirus-misinformation-tracking-center/
Lots of free activities involving drawing, reading and listening are available via libraries4schools:
These include free daily audio stories from David Walliams reading from The World’s Worst Children, Neil Gaiman (& friends) reading Coraline and The Graveyard Book (click on Videos) and Cressida Cowell reading from How to Train Your Dragon. There are drawing activities, relating to Roald Dahl, Chris Riddell and Nick Sharratt (Jacqueline Wilson’s illustrator), amongst others.
They are worth checking out!