Non-curricular at-home entertainment items for use with our children may prove useful this week. This listing is for parents, rather than teachers! I will try to find more categories and sites for the coming weeks:
Here is a great list of 101 places people can virtually tour. These are world-famous places, both natural (such as the Great Barrier Reef) and created by humans (such as Versailles or Taj Mahal. The article has details on each one as well as information on how to do the tour. Not all of these places are ideal for children but many are, they are certainly worth spending time on!
Wild Life Cameras
Rosie’s Pen “ Welcome to the watering hole at Mpala Research Centre in the highlands of central Kenya! Watch elephants, hippos, giraffes, Grevy’s zebras, gazelles, crocodiles, leopards and many other species take a drink (or a quick dip).”
Zoos Live Streaming
Folly Farms “Our live zoo and farm webcams mean you can take a peek at some of our most popular animals, wherever you are.”
Paignton Zoo “Watch our waddle of penguins, gaze at our gorgeous giraffes, follow our farm animals and look in on our lions with our live animal cams.”
Good housekeeping has a huge set of virtual-tours streaming sites from around the world, not all suitable for children but scroll down to the zoos and aquariums. Also, from here, you can “ride” Disney’s new roller coaster!!
People.com has another huge collection of free tours, museums etc – loads of artists are included in the set
Children’s Drawing Resources
Lunch Doodles was started this week with artist Mo Willems – here is episode 1. On the right you will see all of this week’s so far! “Mo Willems invites YOU into his studio every day for his LUNCH DOODLE. Learners worldwide can draw, doodle and explore new ways of writing by visiting Mo’s studio virtually once a day for the next few weeks. Grab some paper and pencils, pens, or crayons and join Mo to explore ways of writing and making together.”
On Facebook, but publicly available. Using a hand as the start to many animal doodles.
ABCYa Paint – an online drawing and painting app
Kidmons.com – A painting online app
Basic drawing for kids is a collection of many drawing ideas and guides.
Jigsaw Sites for Children
For those people trying to entertain children whilst working at home this may be useful – no real pieces to gather up, or get lost, afterwards.
Digipuzzle – contains block puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, search puzzles, swap puzzles, turn puzzles, Sudoku, pelmanism games, word searches and more!! There is masses of entertainment, but not curricular.
CBeebies offers loads of puzzles too.
The Ten Best Museums in Singapore has some great sites of interest. Some of the sites it lists are not available but one in particular – The Singapore Art Museum has some lovely ideas for children. Go to Learn and Educational Resources. The Science Centre in Singapore has some interesting resources for learning some science at home or at school. The global warming one may be useful for slightly older pupils but there are lots of activities to explore.
I will try to add more to the non-curricular at-home entertainment sites as the days go on. Look for keeping fit in mind and body soon!