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Free Digital Children’s Books

Encourage a love of reading among your students and utilize those devices at the same time, for free. Below are our “best of the best” sources for free digital/ebooks. Easily post links to stories in your Google Classroom or other online learning platform. 

Unite for Literacy offers a full range of over 400 storybooks that are designed to be relevant to families and are intentionally curated to represent all genders, races, national origins, disabilities and ages in both text and images. One fourth of the stories are in Spanish. Many of the stories have narration options in various languages. All stories can be read online without creating an account. 

Monkey Pen – 50+ free ebooks for children ages 2-9. Beautifully illustrated in pdf format.  No account creation required.  

Children’s Storybooks Online – Stories for young children, older children, and young adults sortable by age level. Link to web-based version of story. No account creation required. 

Oxford Owl – Hundreds of illustrated stories for children ages 3-11. Teacher must create an account and a class login. Link to web-based version of story. 

EPIC! Create your free teacher EPIC account.  Add your students and monitor student progress through books and related quizzes for over 40,000 books, videos and quizzes. Students can read books to themselves or have them read aloud. The books are leveled, so selection of books that are challenging but not overwhelming is easy. Students can use EPIC for free from 7 a.m. til 4 p.m. on school days, but to extend student use, have parent create their free parent account, providing an additional 2 hours a week of free reading time. For more information on EPIC, check out Mrs. Winter’s blog article, Using EPIC Books in the Classroom. 

Story Line Online provides streaming videos featuring celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Lily Tomlin, Betty White and many others reading children’s storybooks and showing creatively produced illustrations. Each book includes educator-created supplemental curriculum design to strengthen reading comprehension.  

The Library of Congress has a wonderful collection of children’s classics that can be read directly from the website. Titles include “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Anne of Green Gables,” and many others. 

Open Library is just that; a library that you can borrow books from for up to 14 days.  It contains a great assortment of books for kids of all ages and adults too.  Users must create their free account for access. 

Project Gutenberg is an online library of free ebooks that can be read online on any device. Each book has a QR code that students can scan to read the book on an iPhone, iPad or Android device. No account creation required.   

Free eBooks Children’s Classics – You can download five free e-books for providing your email address. Additional books are available by paid subscription. 

Happy reading! 

 

PODCASTS AND VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS

Whether you are teaching remotely, in the classroom, or in a blended environment, podcasts and virtual field trips are a great option.  Below are a few of our favorites:

 Podcasts

 
The Past and the Curious is a history podcast for kids and families.  History can be amazing, inspiring and relevant to anyone. We love to share the stories of Spies, funny foods, George Washington's foibles, early advancements in cartooning and ballooning and much more! A professional music score and important songs accompany nearly every themed episode.

 

Brains On is a popular, award-winning science and history podcast for “kids and curious adults” from the American Public Media.  Each week, a different kid co-host joins Molly Bloom to find answers to fascinating questions about the world.  Their mission is to encourage kids’ natural curiosity and wonder using science and history. There are currently over 100 episodes.

 

From National Public Radio comes Wow in the World, hosted by Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas. This weekly show invites curious kids and their grown-ups on a journey away from their screens, inside their brains and into the most amazing stories in science, technology, and new discoveries.

 

WBUR’s Circle Round is published by National Public Radio.  Created and produced by parents of young children, it adapts carefully-selected folktales from around the world into sound- and music-rich radio plays for kids ages 4 to 10. Each 10- to 20-minute episode explores important issues like kindness, persistence and generosity. And each episode ends with an activity that inspires a deeper conversation between children and grown-ups.

 

The Rebel Girls Podcast is a fairy tale podcast about the extraordinary women who inspire us. The show is based on Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, the global best-selling book series inspiring millions of girls and women around the world to dream bigger, aim higher, and fight harder.

 

The Story Pirates Podcast is one of the top three kids and family podcasts in the world. Downloaded over 20 million times and featuring songs and sketches based on stories written by kids, their special guests include top talent like Billy Eichner, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dax Shepard, Bowen Yang, Claire Danes, John Oliver, and Lake Bell.
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Virtual Field Trips
If you want to learn more about how to integrate online tools into your instruction, join us for our new course, Beginners Guide to e-Learning Tools for Remote or Classroom Learning.

2020 Election Resources for Students 

Our White House: Race to the Ballot.  An introduction to the steps taken to becoming a presidential candidate, requirements for the position, the evolution of the ballot, campaigns, debatets, popular v. electoral votes and much more.
Scholastic Kids’ Press – Election 2020.  A magazine written by kids on a variety of election topics.
Election Lesson Plans from Scholastic. A variety of lesson plans for K-12 on civics and media literacy, mock elections and plans aligned with children’s literature such as “Duck for President” and “The Class Election from the Black Lagoon.”
The Election Collection from PBS Learning Media. Quick connect these lessons to Google Classroom. Examples include The Party System, Current Issues and Debate Toolkits, Voting Rights and more.
USA.Gov Election Process for Kids. Video, infographics and text including an Overview of the Presidential Election Process, Electoral College, Presidential Primaries and Caucuses, etc.
PBS Kids Democracy Project. This kid-friendly animated site includes video, trading cards, and a Meet the President game.
KQED Election 2020. A media challenge designed for middle school and high school students who can create audio or video commentaries on the issues that can be viewed by a national audience. 
Memorable Moments from Past Presidential Debates. A compilation of memorable moments from past presidential debates.
iCivics Win the White House. Students can build arguments on the issues, raise funds for their campaigns, poll local voters and more in this interactive game.
New York Times Guide to the 2020 Election. Campaign and election news updated daily. 

Videos
Why Voting is Important

SCREENCASTING TUTORIAL

Click >>HERE<< to watch the free screen casting tutorial video created by instructors at Teacher's Teacher.