How to occupy your children at home?

[ collaborative list]
How do you keep your kids busy at home with the great content you can find on the net ?

Last update (40th) — Thursday, April 9 @7:00 a.m.

#Nota. To make it easier for you to navigate through the list, the last shared links will now be in bold and green and those that were shared just before in bold and black .

Child illustration @kness

Why did you make a collaborative list?

Because of the Coronavirus, schools are closed until further notice. So we’re going — parents and families — to have to take care of the children at home ! I’m lucky to be able to workfrom where I want. So I’ll be home with my children. But, I will not be able to be totally available for them (because >> work).

At home, there will be reading, creating stories (how do I add useful to pleasant?!) , a bit #Netflix (why Disney isn’t available yet, huh? Why?) , board games, video games, manual activities. And then there will finally be a little boredom, because boredom is good, it makes the mind wander.

But I think it’s also an opportunity to keep my kids busy at home with top things. Like everything that creators of great content make available!

Only here it is: I waste a lot of time searching and getting lost in the meanders of the internet. Each of us knows a nugget that deserves a look or an ear. And if we put them together hard thispage? That would be pretty good, wouldn’t it? A little solidarity between parents ♥

I propose to enrich this list every day with your comments and suggestions. How to contribute? Please comment on this article or send me a message on Linkedin or by email. Let’s create together the ultimate list of intelligent content found on the Internet to keep our kids busy at home.

#covid -19 #paques To spend a great time with my children, I wanted to offer them something other than an egg hunt. So, I designed a treasure hunt called The Quest for the Chamarred Egg. The objective? Collect a basket filled with chocolates 🍫! Thought for 6-10 years old, simple to set up for parents. It’s obviously free.

The best podcasts for kids

Fullstories to be listened to

• Another story (up to 10 years old): 29 books read brilliantly, from 8 to 20 min.
• Music stories by Elodie Fondacci (up to 7 years old): 63 episodes, from 4 to 10 min.
• The great story of Pomme d’Api (up to 6 years old): 18 stories, from 4 to 10 min.
• A story and Oli (up to 7 years) — 43 stories, from 8 to 13 min.
• Three Tintin stories of 24 minutes each!
• Asterix and the Zizanie of France Culture — 59 minutes.
• High voice (up to 10 years) — 145 fantastic episodes.
• The stories to listen to from Short Edition (there is also plenty of reading).
• Dreamblower offers a few stories to listen for free (the rest pays but the free stories are very nice).
• Kidstory — already 19 tales of 5 to 15 minutes available.
• It’splaytime offers revisits the great classics by mixing French and English, from 6 years old.
• On Arte Radio, Guillemette offers 7 fictions with a sound atmosphere with little onions of 2 to 12 minutes for children.
• Albin Michel and RTL have launched Read-moi un histoire to offer children the daily reading of a book from the Albin Michel Jeunesse collection
• In the land of monsters, from the Musée d’Orsay, offers 5 awesome stories imagined by Claude Ponti around the nice monsters of Léopold Chauveau.
• The secret mountain offers 3 very nice stories of 10 to 25 minutes to put in every ear!
• Radio Canada offers the adventures of a wicked villain, El Kapoutchi.

Containment logs made by children.

• With Home Sweet Home, Elisa, 8 years old, gathers testimonies from other children to learn how they live the situationthat we are going through. A must to listen to. And if it makes you want to participate, you can send him your testimony!
• Covidkids is the logbook of a family that tells of their confinement.

Listen to the latest P’tite Story

Les P’tites Stories, my podcast, up to 10 years old. There are over 80 stories from 1 to 20 minutes. Every week there are 2 new ones 😊

Listen to more P’tites Stories

Podcasts to grow

• Imaginaires Promenades at the Musée d’Orsay offers 13 fascinating stories to discover works from the Musée d’Orsay (from 8 years old).
• Hey, info! by France Info and Astrapi (up to 10 years old): already 13 episodes that decipher the news with thechildren.
• Myths and legends (up to 10 years old): already 12 episodes to discover myths and legends from around the world
• The odyssey (7-12 years old): already 25 episodes of 10 to 18 minutes to discover the life of the great figures in the story
• Little Curious (up to 10 years old): more than 150 one-minute answers a question that a child can ask you.
• Bloom — 14 thematic playlists filled with audio capsules to peck (rather for children under 8 years old).
• Teeth and dodo: 75 episodes of 3 min to learn things while brushing their teeth (for children under 6 years old).
• Les P’tits Bateaux: More than 50 episodes where 4 or 5 children’s questions are answered each time (up to 10 years old).
• The chip in your ear: more than 38 episodes, from 5 to 35 minutes, to open your horizons (up to 12 years old).
• Bamboo Radio: 49 8-minute episodesto talk about ecology (up to 10 years).
• Mom I missed the news, the podcast news for 8-12 years old, already 14 episodes available.
• And here, give the children the floor, for 8-12 years old.
• Wild, an animal podcast with little onions, 1 episode per week of about 20 minutes, up to 10 years old.
• The RTS offers a ton of podcasts to grow (rather from 10 years of age).

100% English podcasts

• 6 minutes English to listen on Deezer, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• Children Stories in English for children made in BBC.
• Smash Boom Best! If your kids are comfortable in English a “who’s best” that offers awesome debates between adults and children.

For the youngest (from 1 year old), there are two ca-non sound books: Sing a Song with lots of nursery rhymes in English and I LearnEnglish.

Audiobooks

• Whisperies offers 800 animated stories and audiobooks for free to download on iOS or Android.
• Audible offers free access to a bunch of audiobooks, to listen in French but also audiobooks in English, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese.

The best albums to listen to

• All albums of Aldebert.
• All albums of Weeper Circus to listen on Spotify or Deezer
• All albums by Henri Das to listen on Spotify or Deezer
• Tatatum of little songs to mimic body awakening.
• In the fashion of our home, the nursery nursery rearranged.
• 60 musical nursery rhymes.
• Prince Tudorpah’s journey to listen on Spotify or Deezer.
• Pitt Ocha of the Barback Ogres atListen on Spotify or Deezer.
• Zut albums to listen to on Spotify or Deezer.
• Steve Waring’s albums to listen to Spotify or Deezer.
• Pierre Chêne’s albums to listen to Spotify ou Deezer
• Sophie Forte’s albums to listen to Spotify or Deezer.
• Albums of Alain Schneider to listen to Spotify or Deezer.
• Jacques Brel tells Peter and the Wolf & Babar’s story about Spotify or Deezer.
• WOLF stories to listen to on Spotify or Deezer.
• Hello Maestro to learn a lot about Spotify or Deezer.

Radio Pomme d’Api (for children under 6 years old): a free and ad-free web radio with lots of content – songs, stories, nursery rhymes…

Comics and books to read for free

• Bamboo, Dupuis, Delcourt and Soleil offer severaltheir free reading comics on the Izneo website or app. My three favorites? Rat and ugly animals, The Big Bad Fox and Frnck!
• Dargaud offers several of these comics for free reading on his website. My favorites? The world of milo and Pico Bug.
• Octopus Fiction offers 4 novels to devour.
• Flammarion Jeunesse regularly offers books to read for free (there are also stories of Father Beaver to listen to and activities for children!).

My favorite reading

Following the episode of the Ptite Bookstore, many of you have been asking me more tips reading. I selected 15 books & comics from my library, classified by age .

Discover my selection

The best videos to watch when you need to keep kids busy at home

To learn things

The French comedy offers an appointment for children every day at 5pm, on their Youtube channel.

• It’s not a wizard: do we need to present this show?
• Once upon a time life: the mythically magical cartoon!
• 1 day a question: in the vein of Petit-Curieux. 749 videos (yes, this number is crazy) that answer a simple question in less than 2 minutes.
• Little Malabar: a great series that invites children to discover and better understand the great natural elements.
• It’s okay! An educational and slightly wacky series to make you love fruits and vegetables and raise awareness about the diversity of food.
• The teacherMoustache explains a lot of things in an ultra funny way — depending on the episodes, from 8 to 10 years old.
• The web series “My Oeil” of the Centre Pompidou, more cannon videos about creation and creativity.
• The ocean school offers a very well made video every day about the sea and the underwater world.
• The Quelle Story videos to learn a lot about the big names who made history.

To entertain yourself

• The Junior newspaper of Arte: madly awesome.
• Simon’s cat, this cat is really awesome.
• The complete Fère Castor (from 4 years old).
• The little mole, timeless, speechless, for all ages!
• Children’s Films offers a selection of short films for all ages.
• The school of leisure offers several of its books filmed on its Vimeo channel. Myfavorite? My valley of Claude Ponti.
• Benshi offers 1 month free trial. It offers more than 200 movies including lots of animated films, totally awesome. There is something for all ages, from 2 to 11 years and for all tastes!

For pre-teens is the largest

• France TV Slash is full of great content.
• Hugo Deciphers analyzes the world and the story as nobody.
• Nota Bene: a gold mine full of videos that unleap the story.
• Max Bird digs a lot of subjects with a lot of humor.
• E-think is perfect to stimulate your curiosity.
• Florence Porcel to learn a lot about the planets of our solar system.

Channels in English

• For the youngest Sesame Street, perfect to learn English.
• Peppa Pig, in English!
• Five storiesby Eric Carle.

For Larger

• Ted Ed tackles all the topics and it’s really exciting
• Crash Course Kids for animal and scientific content
• National Geographic Kids

The best school resources available for free

• Maxicours: gives free access to all of its courses, Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm (thanks to them!).
• The CNED offers a great platform for kindergarten and primary, middle school and high school.
• The fundamentals of the Canopé Network are canonical, especially for content related to French and mathematics. And if you want to find yourself better in all their contents, check out this super clear page.
• Sondo opens its library of accessible/inclusive content, they’re lots of books and textbooks at your fingertips!
• Biblio Manuals, Mon espace e-éducation and Hachette, Belin, Generation 5, Magnard offer access to all textbooks. There is also LeLivrescolaire.fr that offers lots of them!

The best educational resource sites

Epopia is on top. Already because they make all their 190 teaching sheets available free of charge! Then because it’s a mail-order role-playing game! Perfect for reading and writing your child. They offer 5 adventures. Maybe this period of confinement is the right time to try?

• Calculation @tice to simply practice mental calculus.
• Gomaths also allows you to practice mental calculus and calculation techniques.
• Educational software: a ton of educational games sorted by level. Mainly for primary school, the site also offers resources for kindergarten andcollege.
• Ortholud to learn French.
• The fun exercises of conjugation, reading/understanding, geography of Pit and Pit (28 days of free access whereas normally they are free only 7 days!).
• Feathers: a hot app to develop the pleasure of writing. It’s bloody well done. There is a free trial and most importantly, it’s free for teachers and their students.
• Easy French: a must to review its fundamentals.
• The dictation of T5 world: really cool.
• Lumni (formerly France tv éducation) brings together an impressive collection for students from elementary to high school.
• For the little ones, Grapholearn is a nice little app to learn how to read.
• Educadroit offers a mix of articles and videos for elementary school students as well as high school students to explain their rights and theirexplain the law more generally.
• Jacotop offers math and French challenges for all levels of primary school.
• Orthodidact proposes every day the dictation of the confined! To revise his French in a playful way.

Learn languages

• Qioz to learn swaddling with films, series and documentaries. Honestly, great.
• Pili Pop, an app to learn English or Spanish.
• Holy Owly, an awesome app (you got it?) to learn English. With the FamilySupport code you get one month of free trial (as opposed to usually one week).
• Super Simple Songs is full of English songs.
• The British Council proposes a site full of resources for children to learn English
• Duolingo offers a great program to learn a lot of language (rather fromfrom 8/9 years) — free with ad.
• Petite Mandarin offers free access to its 5 levels of Mandarin learning.
• Kokoro Lingua offers 4 free videos to learn English and if you wish to subscribe you will receive a 25% discount.

The best activity sites

DIY

• Milestory: a ton of ideas to do with your family or on your own.
• The DIY corner of Anna and Clara offer plenty of activities to do with the family (or alone for adults).
• Pirouette Cacahouete offers one DIY per day.
• Petite Bateau, offers two playlist of activities to do for children, It is me who did it and the Tuto Ecolo.
• Toysfab offers lots of DIY and DIY for all children.
• Merci Wednesday offers free, weekly, ecological workshopsand creative to do as a family.
• Midnight in the stars offers a great way to approach creative workshops with children.
• The creation workshop La mine offers two creative workshops to do at home really nice (there will probably be more)!

Bending and Cutting

• Creativity Park offers lots of super beautiful folds to print (you have to create an account but then it’s free).
• Build Paper Toys with Quelle Story.
• Fold N Fly offers THE ultimate database for making paper airplanes! There are even videos to follow the folding and patterns to print so as not to be mistaken!
• Paper Matrix offers madness motives to do with family or alone for pre-teens, teenagers in need of occupations!

Theselection “experiments”

• Curiokids offers a scientific (and risk-free) experience every day to do at home.
• Wiki resourceful is full of experiences to do at home.

Coloring Pages

• Claire and Hugo Zaorski offer coloring pages from their beautiful book Captain Jim’s Journey.
• Kness offers Pokémon inspired coloring pages.
• Lucky left hand offers great coloring.
• The Brussels Youth Literature Centre gives access to an incredible number of colouring drawings by great Belgian illustrators.
• Draw me a story offers coloring works of art.
• Coloring to print is a mine of coloring with children’s favorite heroes.
• Wakatoon offers lots of coloring pages that you can then animate thanks to their app!
• Nane offers several coloringfree of charge
• Nicolas Barrome offers a coloring page entitled “Fight the virus” and another intutilated “Home Sweet Home”!
• Geoffrey Berniolle regularly offers colouring pages inspired by Nantes.

Boulet, this awesome comic book author, proposes a game to draw for-mi-da-ble: HYBRIDES. He gives all the explanations on his website or on instagram.

Mining activities

• Treasure Hunt offers plenty of free treasure hunts that will keep the kids busy for a good time.
• Kids: a gold mine of activities and games to print.
• The head to shape: another gold mine.
• The kids’ court is full of ideas.
• Tidou: lots of games to print (and other things).
• The City of Sciences offers great activities to do at home.
• Pandacraft offers 1 great activity per day.
• Natagoraoffers an activity book with articles, games, DIY.
• For the youngest, the leisure school offers top activities.
• Spirou offers a really nice activity every day.
• Tray Marmots offer plenty of games to print.
• One day a game brings together an inexhaustible list of activities.
• Auzou offers lots of activities for children with the heroes of their youth books!
• Milan offers tons of free resources: history, challenge, game, there are for every taste.

The formidable Penelope Bagieu, has launched a great challenge: draw your home Corona. You can participate by visiting this site.

The best resources for physical & meditative activities

To meditate

• Petite Bambou opened its “smile and anxiety” program in free access soDownload the app and its meditation program for children is also in free access.
• Quiet and attentive as a frog (the reference book for meditation for children) offers free resources to download.
• On his Youtube channel Pascale Picavet offers great moments of meditation and guided relaxation for children.
• A love to nature offers plenty of relaxing audios for children.
• The Rite of Tales offers stories that invite children to meditate.
• My magical moment offers an hour of wellness ritual every day for 4-12 years old.

To keep fit

• Lucie Woodward will offer live performances on Youtube several times a week with Parents/Kids sports sessions from 30 to 40 minutes. Follow her on Instagram so you don’t miss anything.
• Steve, an EPS teacherhas embarked on a daily video series: every day you will have a moment of sport to share. Go to his Youtube channel.
• Active Pause Wixx offer several very funny, dynamic and easy to follow awesome dance videos.

To do yoga

• Downdogapp is free until July 1st — you will find yoga exercises and sports routines (rather for pre-teens and older ones).
• One day a game offers yoga cards tip top.
• This great video presents a Yoga exercise for kids.

Enjoy cultural places at home

• Little Mo to explore a selection of works from the Museums of Orsay and Orangerie.
• Get lost in Google Arts and Culture.
• Not necessarily for the youngest (and again!) The Opéra de Paris offers all its shows infree consultation!
• One minute at the museum offers videos to discover works of art with words and kids’ jokes.
• With Questions d’enfants, the Louvre Museum offers a collection of short videos for children aged 3 to 10 (and it works great on the older ones!).

Other ideas for caring children at home

I will create categories as I go

News at home

• Kidsmatin offers free access for 60 days full of news and news!
• PlayBac Presse offers free of charge for 15 days the PDF version of its newspapers (The PetitDaily, MyDaily, L’Actu, Leco). Mélanie BOTTIER JALANS explains how to enjoy it in a great post.
• Wow news offers positive news in EnglishAND in English (and that’s great for progressing in languages or getting acquainted), up to 12 years old.
• Le P’IT Libé offers 3 months of subscriptions for 1€!

Bayam, Bayard’s app becomes free. It offers loads of awesome content (and lots of animated films, like “big holidays”!) . And if your children are fans of Mortelle Adele reserves them a daily surprise during this period of confinement!

And also

• Peat Pont offers these 75 issues in PDF format, ideal for football fans!
• The “I’m bored” box: 60 ideas to answer your children if they tell you “I’m bored” (it also works with grown-ups).
• The same thing about Papa positive!
• Quipoquiz: THE smart and fun quiz site, to do alone or together.
• A generator of drawing ideas orof stories.
• Colori offers two things: a kit to learn about technology and code without screen and lots of exercises extracted from their notebook create with Larousse! The extracts are to be downloaded here and the elements to be cut there.
• Music Crab: a free, super nice app to learn how to play music
• Botaki: the app is free. Available on iOS and Android. It offers plenty of content to learn more about the plant world.
• Isabelle and her friends: great stories to read, if you don’t have enough at home 🙂
• Super cute coloring pages from Sow Ay.
• With the BNF comic show app, you can use the app to create a comic book, it’s really super well done.
• Chef Bambino offers every day an idea recipe, with pedagogical content around. You’ll know what to eat at noon in addition to learningthings to your children!
• It was a story with lots of tales and stories to read and listen to in French and English!
• Biboche offers great audio tales on its website (rather for children under 7 years old).
• Lulu and Kroy offer daily series stories where the reader is also an actor in his adventure. There’s a week of free trial.
• Clara DESRUES musician intervener in school offers access to the resources of her interventions (from cycle 1 to cycle 3).
• Ludiklife offers a list of 365 challenge ideas!
• Club Citeo offers lots of activities and games to sensitize children and the whole family to recycling. They have a goose game, the recycling race that’s top.
• Ebookids offers tons (1400!!!) stories to read for all ages.
• The stories to read and create from Dipongo, free forthe epidemic is crazy — they are right!
• Familiscope has set up a nice folder full of contents designed for the whole family.

There must be more content! Feel free to share your nuggets and your good tips to keep kids busy at home, I will update this list as often as possible.

Subscribe to our newsletter

During containment, you will receive every week the latest ideas that I found as well the latest episodes of P’tites Stories.

First Name

Last Name

Sign up

A nugget to share to enrich this list? Comment!

Do you like that list? Support us by listening to one of our stories!