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St. Joseph County Public Library

Free Resources for Educators

by Leah Steinhiser, Western Branch Manager

 There are many free resources available to schools, teachers, students, and parents to enhance the learning process for those affected by current school closures and participating in elearning. This list includes some free, fabulous online educational resources currently available. 

Health & Well-Being

Supporting Students Through Coronavirus: Learning for Justice developed these resources to support student well-being and learning during school closures, and will keep this page updated as they publish new pieces.  

E.D.G.E.: This resource from Learning for Justice can help students who don’t always know how to help someone they care about who might be experiencing bullying, depression, dating violence, suicidal thoughts or other problems. 

National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Articles, videos and other resources available in both English and Spanish to help children cope with stress.

Anxiety in Teens: WebMD provides a medically based article for parents and professionals offering support and interventions for those helping teenagers and adolescents cope with anxiety.

Anxiety and Depression Association of America: The Anxiety and Depression Association of America provides a guide to help educate parents, teenagers, and professionals about evidenced-based treatment options for anxiety in teenagers and children. Founded in 1979, ADAA is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention, treatment, and cure of anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, and co-occurring disorders through education, practice, and research.

CDC: Ensuring Children and Young People’s Social, Emotional, and Mental Well-being: Beyond getting sick, many young people’s social, emotional, and mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic. The CDC provides this resource kit with helpful resources.

CDC: Talking with children about Coronavirus Disease 2019:  This link provided by the CDC has recommendations to help adults have conversations with children about COVID-19 and ways they can avoid getting and spreading the disease.

COVID-19, Teen Stress, and How Educators Can Support Stress Management Today: XQ Institute is the nation's leading organization dedicated to rethinking the high school experience so that every student graduates ready to succeed in life.

APA: The American Psychological Association: The APA provides tips for fostering children's emotional well-being during COVID-19.

Yoga for Stress: Teens: A 15-minute yoga class for teens to manage and decrease stress, created for ages 13 - 18 by Brynne Caleda with Yoga Ed.

Stories Songs & Stretches: Preschool yoga and mindfulness storytimes.

Cosmic Kids Yoga: Yoga, mindfulness and relaxation designed specially for kids aged 3+. 

5 Minute Yoga Routine for Kids: Channel Mum: It's not always easy getting kids excited about exercise, but this yoga routine will get their imaginations running wild and their bodies moving!

Educational Videos

VideoLink: Use this website to create safe links to YouTube videos you want to share with your students. It eliminates inappropriate content via unwanted links and ads that can appear with YouTube videos.

TeacherTube: An online community for sharing instructional videos and content for teachers and students.

SchoolTube: A COPPA and ADA compliant video management platform created to meet the needs of K-12 schools, providing a place for schools to publish videos for free in a tightly controlled space. An upgrade to a paid premium subscription allows ad-free viewing.

TEDEd@Home: Free daily lessons, activities, and challenges to support students, parents, and teachers.

GoNoodle: Activities, songs, and dances to work your wiggles out for grades K and up.You can sign up for a free educator account.

Imagineering in a Box: Walt Disney Imagineering partners with Khan Academy to bring you a free online program with 32 videos that brings together the diverse talents of Disney Imagineers around the world to share how they use a wide range of skills – from story development and conceptual design, to math, physics and engineering, creating immersive experiences. 

Educational Websites         

The Kennedy Center Educator Resources: Free digital resources for educators looking to infuse the arts into their educational practices.

We Are Teachers: 350+ online learning resources. This list of online learning resources is growing; some companies are choosing to make their products free for schools, teachers, and students.

Math Games: Games and apps are guided by the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The difficulty changes with the student’s strength, to try and ensure players don’t get frustrated or bored. There are ads that pop up on the free version.

Kahn Academy: A nonprofit with the mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Educators can create free accounts to support their classroom. 

Elementari: Elementari is a K-12 online platform to read, write, code, share, and remix interactive stories using professional illustrations and sounds. Turn writing assignments into something amazing with the illustrations, animations, and sound effects. Kids can even write their own choose-your-own-adventure story! Educators can create 1 class of 35 students for free.

Duolingo for Schools: You can use Duolingo to help your students learn new languages. It’s free, fun, and provenly effective. With Duolingo for Schools, teachers can easily track their students' progress, run in-class activities and assign homework.

PBS Kids: A collection of valuable learning resources for young children covering a wide array of topics.

BrainPOP: BrainPOP is currently offering free, unlimited use of BrainPOP to any school that is closed due to the coronavirus during the period of their closure.

Brainfuse HelpNow: SJCPL’s Student & Teacher Databases offers Brainfuse HelpNow, a unique tutoring and study suite designed for patrons of all ages, they help connect patrons with qualified eTutors. 

Favorite Authors and Illustrators: Kate Messner, a former classroom teacher, forever-educator, and the author of more than three dozen books for kids has put together a list of resources, including a list of authors with lessons and videos. 

SJCPL's NovelList K-8 Plus: SJCPL’s Student & Teacher Databases offers NovelList K-8 Plus with fiction and nonfiction reading recommendations for grades K-8 and teens.

Ready Set Kindergarten!: The Brooklyn Public Libraries offer videos for parents of preschoolers in many different languages to help develop reading readiness skills.

Critical Media Project: A free media literacy web resource for educators and students (ages 8-21) that enhances critical thinking and empathy, building on their capacities to advocate for change around questions of identity. Most lessons are particularly relevant to high school students.

Big History Project: An innovative way to teach foundational concepts in history, humanities, and critical thinking for grades 9 -12. Sign up for free to access content.

NOVA: Science articles and videos are brought to by PBS. 

Newsela: Access high-interest, nonfiction news content. The same content can be customized for different students’ reading levels. Access to news content on Newsela is always free. Additional content, standards, instructional resources, and insights are available for purchase with their core subject products.

Rated Reads: This website focuses on young adult books (this broad category includes middle-grade books as well as books aimed at older teens) published more recently, providing detailed information about language, violence and sexual content so you can make a good judgment about whether they are appropriate for your readers.

Common Sense Media: This nonprofit organization rates movies, TV shows, and books to help parents and educators make good choices for their kids. Common Sense Media also offers a digital citizenship curriculum for educators.

Virtual Zoo Field Trip: Visit the San Diego website’s live web cams and videos of favorite animals.

Mommy Poppins: 50+ science-y activities you can do with household items.

Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls:This website was created by a homeschooling mom, and includes LEGO, STEM, and other learning activities. 

Kahoot: A game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, work, and home. Teachers can use basic features to create, play, and host games outside of the classroom and in-class for free, paid pro and premium subscriptions offer additional options.

Bendable: SJCPL’s Online Learning Platform: This link can be found on the upper left side of SJCPL’s homepage under the blue-colored DIGITAL LIBRARY drop-down menu. You can search for a topic of interest, or search  “educator” or “education” to find hundreds of valuable learning resources.

To access all the features of Bendable, go to the “Log in'' tab in the navigation bar at the top of the app and sign up for an account by filling out the required fields.

You will be asked for a library card number. Having a St. Joseph County Public Library card is the key to accessing many parts of Bendable. But don’t worry if you don’t have one or don’t have yours handy. By entering a South Bend zip code, you will get a temporary, 30-day access to all of Bendable.

Creating an account will start a process in which a Bendable administrator will either verify that you already have a valid SJCPL card or attempt to contact you directly to be issued one.

If you do have a SJCPL card already, please use the same email address to sign up for Bendable that you used to get your card. This will speed up the verification process.

If you don’t have a St. Joseph County Public Library card, you can visit any branch to apply for one. You can find your nearest branch by clicking here.