Just For Fun

Welcome to our #JustForFun page. We found a number of fun third-party sites with engaging activities that students and families can enjoy together at home. Please note that it’s important to look at sites as a family or supervise your child’s use of the internet.

Books, Stories, and Libraries

• Students who do not yet have a Minuteman Library Network card can get an ecard using this link. Once registered, they can immediately access digital materials such as audiobooks, movies, and ebooks for FREE. Hoopla, Libby, and Kanopy offer tremendous selections. Learn more at the Somerville Public Library's digital resource page.
• Write the World is a global online writing community for teens ages 13-18 to write, share, and publish their work.
• The Art Institute of Chicago has free creative writing prompts to help jump start a story by budding authors ages 7 and up.
• Listen to staff at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture read stories and share museum objects related to the books.
• Jason Reynolds, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, uses his video series Grab the Mic: Tell Your Story to inspire kids and teens to write their own stories.
• Folger Shakespeare Library has a kids’ page with fun scripts and history, and compliments as well as insults from the Bard.
• Read, draw, watch, and do other activities with Dav Pilkey, author of the famous Dog Man and Captain Underpants series.
• GrubStreet's Young Artist Writing Program has several free virtual creative writing classes for high school students on Saturdays this summer.
• Visit the TumbleMath site to read math picture books, complete with animation and narration (User Name somerville / Password reads).
• Choose from 1000s of Audible's audio books in several languages.
• Somerville High School students can log in and read books on the Sora app on their computer or phone.
• Watch Cozy Arts Production's Cozy Corner puppet videos.

Engineering, Science, and Exploration

• STEM For Kids is offering free curriculum for grades pre-K through 10. Activities include a glider design lab, budgeting structures (learned through Minecraft), sun printing, and nearly a hundred other lessons. Registration is required.
• Watch “The Paper Girls Show,” an animated series with two "best girlfriends" who inspire each other to tackle STEAM challenges, for ages 6 and up.
• Science News for Kids has compiled COVID-19-specific content for students in grades 9-12.
• Try a STEM activity, watch a daily live stream, or check out a virtual exhibit with Museum of Science at Home.
• Space Station Explorers provides learning activities tied to the International Space Station, such as online videos, research opportunities, and hands-on projects.
• Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s Virtual Boston Harbor has videos, scavenger hunts, and other activities to engage with from home.
• Stay cool with a virtual dog sled ride in Fairbanks, Alaska.
• Build your own marble run or try other free, hands-on activities with these STEAM videos from the League of Young Inventors.
• Build a cardboard box arcade like Caine’s Arcade.
• The Harvard Museums of Science & Culture have launched new at-home resources, such as a deep dive into Extraordinary Things in their collections. There are also story times, podcasts, and many free as well as fee-based activities throughout the summer at HMSC Connects.
• Become a citizen scientist with one of these 75 scientific research projects you can do from home, such as categorizing wild beluga whales or tracking giraffes in Kenya.
• From the National Academy of Engineering, EngineerGirl has engineering design challenges to try at home.
• Try Bedtime Math for fun games, videos, and activities for kids preK-grade 5.
• Make some gooey slime or try one of these other home science experiments.
• Watch a video from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum about the invention of the airplane, or tour their “Women in Aviation History” exhibit.
• Crack secret codes and do a scavenger hunt with National Geographic Kids.
• Take an 8 day trip in under an hour for a virtual visit the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions: Part I, Part II.
• Try out some open coursework, like building your own app at MIT Full STEAM Ahead.
• Dream up and design your own theme park through a free online program created in partnership with the Khan Academy and Pixar.

Learn about communities, people, history​

• NEW 9/15. Did you know Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 - October 15? Learn about its history and the Smithsonian’s list of virtual events to celebrate it.
• Visit the National Museum of African American Heritage’s exhibit, “Sports: Leveling the Playing Field.”
• KidCitizen is a social studies learning tool for K-5 students to work interactively with primary source photographs to explore Congress and civic engagement.
• Take a virtual visit to NYC’s Tenement Museum. Try a game for grades 6-8, "Mission US: City of Immigrants," or learn how America dealt with the 1918 flu epidemic.
• Visit the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame for puzzles, word problems, and "how to measure a horse." There’s also a cowkid story time.
• Check out this short video from Smithsonian Magazine on the first written record of having ice cream for dessert.
• Learn about the U.S. government and how it works, with Ben Franklin as the guide. Includes games such as “Place the States,” and learning adventures. For ages 4-18.
• Learn about one of the more than one thousand UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as Brazil’s Atlantic Forest South-East Reserves or the Maya Site of Copan in Honduras.
• Watch from home these 13 Virtual Train Rides From Around the World.
• Visit the Library of Congress’s exhibit “Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote” to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, where women obtained the right to vote in the United States.
• Play free geography games, in multiple languages.
• Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture and its exhibit The Wiz: The Supersoul Musical ‘Wizard of Oz’, or check out their exhibit on writer James Baldwin.
• Listen to music from around the world on the Global Jukebox.
• Try a Duck Boat-themed crossword puzzle and maze, or match an invention to its Massachusetts inventor.

The Natural World

• Sign up for Earth School, a free website for students 5-18. A partnership between the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) and TED-Ed, its videos, reading materials, and activities focus on science and the environment.
• Try out the "OLogy Page" from the American Museum of Natural History, where kids can explore topics like dinosaurs, archaeology, and climate change.
• Learn about local nature experiences you can have right here in Somerville with Mass Audubon.
• Learn the science of how fireflies light up, and watch them flicker in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
• Scuba dive in the Sea of Cortez.
• The Boston Harbor Habitat Atlas has virtual tours, habitat information, and species information.
• Count Herring for the Mystic River Watershed Association during their annual Herring Migration Volunteer Counting. Appropriate for middle schoolers and older, it requires a sign in.
• Check out these fun forest, jungle, and ocean webcams from around the world:
  • Visit Stellwagen Bank for a New England Aquarium Whale Watch.
  • What are the Giant Pandas doing at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute today? Take a peek with the Giant Panda Live Webcams.
  • Watch wildlife in nature around the world.
  • Watch chimps, giraffes, gorillas, and more on the Houston Zoo Live Webcams.
  • Visit the Vancouver Aquarium's Live Webcams, including sea otters and jellyfish.
  • Watch Webcams at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or try their suggested activities, and don't miss the Live Sea Otter Webcam.
  • See the National Aquarium in Baltimore's Live Cams.
• Visit museums, zoos, gardens, and parks virtually:
  • Explore the Kids’ Corner of the Franklin Park and Stone Zoos. Learn about honey bees, giant anteaters, watch daily videos, and more.
  • Learn about coral reefs and pandas through The Nature Conservancy.
  • Learn about all types of animals from the San Diego Zoo.
  • Visit The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History exhibit halls.

​Get Moving! Get Mindful!

• BOKS Canada’s videos have active exercises to follow, like an Alphabet Relay.
• KIDDO at Home has videos to keep kids 3-8 active at home.
• Focused on workouts for tween and teen girls, try one of several FitSpirit videos.
• Try an “I Love a Challenge” video for kids 7-14.
• Active for Life offers fun tips and suggestions on how to keep active.
• The YMCA has free, online kid-specific videos of activities like yoga, dance, and cardio to get kids moving.
• Take a dance break with these KidzBop videos.
• Use materials at home, such as canned food and pillowcases, to get moving with Mike Morris.
• Mindfulness and movement activities and videos from GoNoodle.
• Follow a workout with the NBA’s Langston Galloway as your guide.
• Try some of these movement and mindfulness video-led activities for young children from Moovlee (with a cartoon monkey as the guide).
• Try a free West African, salsa, or hip hop dance class with New York’s Ailey Extension School.
• Join a member of the Big Apple Circus and his dog and learn to juggle using household items, like plastic shopping bags.
• Try yoga, especially for teens.
• Five minute workout videos for kids that can be done at home.
• Yoga and mindfulness exercises with Cosmic Kids videos, for elementary school and PreKindergarten kids.

Music at Home with Somerville Public School Educators

• Sing and dance along with the SPS Music and Theatre Arts Department. It's "Sir Duke," written by Stevie Wonder, produced by SHS Band Director Jess Destramp. It is dedicated to all of our students who are using Music and the Arts to help lift spirits and provide comfort and solidarity during this time.
• Sing along with Mr. McLean.
• Sing along with Mr. Darrell.
• Sing along with Ms. Ward.

Music at Home

• Explore the Smithsonian’s Folkways online recordings of music from around the world.
• Sing along with Sesame Street.
• Play a virtual piano.
• Write songs and share them with a friend.
• Take music theory lessons with Teoria or Music Theory.
• Online lessons for more advanced students.
• Learn the history of several classical composers, with information about their composing styles.

Music and Dance Performances

• The Oregon Symphony has musical story time videos for school-aged children.
• Listen to a virtual concert by the talented students from Berklee College of Music’s #Berklee Anywhere concert series, like this cover of “Stuck with U.”
• Watch the amazing Alvin Ailey Dance Company’s full length performances, dance clips, or follow a dance workshop online led by Ailey instructors.
• Watch and listen to the full concert, “The Music of Miles Davis---Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.”
• Take a virtual lesson with Boston Symphony musicians and watch performances of BSO musicians from their homes.
• Get an insider's look at the London Symphony Orchestra and its performances.
• Watch free performance streams from The Metropolitan Opera.

Make Art! Learn about Art!

• Try one of the Peabody Essex Museum’s virtual drop-in art activities and guided videos.
• The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has a virtual classroom series of STEAM-focused lessons for students in grades 1-6. There’s a new lesson and video each week.
• Visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art to see the studios of 21 children’s book illustrators. The museum reopens to the public August 1.
• Learn how to draw Snoopy, Franklin, and Charlie Brown, or try these activities from the Charles M. Shultz Museum. 
• Learn how to knit with these step-by-step videos from We are Knitters.
• The National Museum of Women in the Arts’s NMWA@Home has virtual scavenger hunts, a coloring book, and more.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s #metkids has a “time machine” for kids to explore art from different time periods and around the world.
• Creativebug offers over 100 prerecorded arts and crafts classes specifically for kids. There is a 30-day free trial and it is fee-based afterward. Or access Creativebug for FREE with your Somerville Public Library card.
• Visit of one of Boston’s newest museums, the MassArt Art Museum (MAAM), and take one of their virtual drawing classes.
• Get inspired to create your own masterpiece as illustrator Mo Willems and cellist Yo-Yo Ma work together in their Small Works Project.
• Try one of these art projects from An Illustrated Guide: 5 Art Projects To Try During Social Distancing by Sarah Urist Green of PBS’s “The Art Assignment.”
• Learn about illustrating and producing comic books with author Nathan Hale.
• Visit London’s Tate Gallery and make a wave painting or some Pop Art, and pick an artist to design your school uniform.
• Learn about modern art, take free courses, and watch videos about modern artists from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
• Visit Tokyo’s MORI Building Digital Art Museum and watch immersive videos that take you inside the museum’s exhibits.
• Create your own abstract watercolor or bird's-eye view drawing, suggested by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
• Visit the Guggenheim Museum in New York, take a kid's illustration class, and more.
• Get inspiration from Somerville's own Beautiful Stuff Project's activity videos to create toy binoculars or make a treasure box.
• Draw along with children’s book author and illustrator Rob Biddulph. Try drawing a unicorn or a Gregosaurus.
• Take free online college-level classes for interested high school students.

Family Games and Activities

• The Whitney Museum of American Art has Kids Art Challenges for kids and grown-ups to do together.
• NASA at Home has experiments, videos, crafts, and games for kids and families to do together.
• The Mommy Poppins website has Boston-area destinations for families and fun home activities.
• The Mystic River Watershed Association has family-friendly activities to learn more about this local natural resource. Try to make your own river or search for our state bird.
• The Food Literacy Center offers hands-on, kid-friendly healthy cooking videos and recipes for families to try together.
• The National Park Foundation has many activities families can do together from home. Or watch their Irresistibly Cute Baby Animals in National Parks video.
• Try an outdoor family scavenger hunt.
• New England's own Green City Growers has home gardening activities for the entire family, using everyday materials.
• Try cooking together as a family with these kid-friendly recipes from Chop Chop Family.
• Games you can plan with just paper and pencil.
• Kid-friendly card games.
• Somerville’s own Candlewick Press has several activities and games centered around the Where’s Waldo? book series.
• The National Wildlife Federation has crafts, recipes, and outdoor activity suggestions on its Ranger Rick page.
• Learn how to create your own board game from PBS Kids.

Kindness and Self-Care

• Try a Mind Yeti mindfulness video. The Mind Yeti series in Spanish is also available.
• Parent and Teen has self-care resources for teens such as a Guide for Teens to Take Instant Vacations or how to Build a Teen Stress Management Plan.
• Johns Hopkins Children’s Center has coping resources for parents, caregivers, and children in multiple languages.
• Use these tips on "Talking Through Feelings: Family Conversation Starters."
• Try these 8 tips for helping children with anxiety about Covid-19.
• Check out Sesame Street’s Caring for Each Other resources such as videos, games, and art projects. For example, learn how to Belly Breathe with Rosita or learn how to Self Hug with Abby Cadabby.
• Watch Kindness 101 videos from Steve Hartman (and his kids!); he’s a veteran reporter with CBS News.
• First Aid for Feelings: A Workbook to Help Kids Cope During the Coronavirus Pandemic