During times of crisis, it’s important to offer extra help wherever we can. Whether you are communicating with your students, teachers and patrons via social media or email, we have curated a list of resources that can support distance learning, college admissions test prep and other at-home activities.
Support for Distance Learning
To support high schools migrating to remote learning environments and parents who are homeschooling their children, EBSCO offers free e-books, activities and lesson plans.
- Free magazines and teacher guides with ready-made lesson plans, courtesy of Cricket Media and Flipster, EBSCO’s digital magazine newsstand:
- EBSCO eBooks offers EBSCO eClassics, a collection of 25 free e-books of well-known young adult literary novels. Learn how you can gain free access.
- PrepSTEP for High Schools customers: Did you know that you can integrate PrepSTEP content with your institution’s Learning Management System (LMS)? Contact your EBSCO Sales Representative and download one of our implementation guides to get started.
- Our free scavenger hunts familiarize students and staff with the content and functionality of Explora and our school reference centers. They are also great refreshers for any students or teachers haven’t used the library’s EBSCO resources in a while.
- These free lesson plans enable educators to integrate EBSCO content into online instruction and student assignments.
- Explora and most of EBSCO’s school reference centers integrate with Google for Education collaborative tools such as Google Classroom and Google Drive. Learn more:
- Our free abstracting and indexing databases cover a variety of subjects to support educator research and professional development.
Reading and Making at Home
Help adults, teenagers and children make the most out of their time away from school and the library by encouraging them to keep up with reading and other activities. Here are five ideas:
- Encourage parents to read to their children or require their tweens and teens to keep a reading journal. Share tools to help them teach with books and keep young readers engaged. Check out NoveList’s Stop the Summer Slide tutorial for ideas.
- Does your library provide access to Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center? Direct parents to the Kids’ Crafts section to find colorful PDFs and videos on how to make puppy collages (AN 43883403), “funky fish” greeting cards (AN 64444646), origami shapes and more. The Atlantic has some great suggestions for keeping kids busy and learning while quarantined.
- Help parents teach their kids how to cook. If your library subscribes to Flipster digital magazines, send them links to the latest issues of Allrecipes, Bon Appétit, Fine Cooking and Food Network Magazine.
- Get kids into art with “Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems” from The Kennedy Center. Start with Episode 1.
- Managing stress during uncertain times can be difficult. Take time to breathe, relax and be mindful. Download and print this free adult coloring book from Flipster and enjoy some art therapy.