As educators, I think we all have our “go to” resources. These are the resources that we are familiar with and give us the best results for our students. With the transition to online learning, those resources’ formats may or may not continue to meet your needs. With so many great digital resources out there, I am always on the lookout for new and better ways to engage my students. Here are three of my favorite free go to resources that I have used and why I continue to return to them again and again.

The first is a site called TweenTribune, which is free to join for teachers/educators. This website is run by the Smithsonian Institute and has a plethora of current news articles on a multitude of subjects. There is a Teacher Resource page with a dashboard and lesson plans. Articles are available in English and Spanish and can be sorted by grade level, topic, and lexile level. Each article has a full-color picture. Teachers can create classrooms and assign articles and quizzes within the site. Students can also have their own login and will see a link to the stories and customized instructions. There are even step-by-step instructions on how to get started and the ten best ways to use the site. As a speech-language pathologist, I would have the site queued up for a session and let the student choose an article based on their interest. TweenTribune is so easy to use, it would provide an article with age/literacy level available on a topic that was interesting and immediately engaging.

My next go to site is epic! Books, a digital reading platform. According to the website, “Epic is the leading digital reading platform—built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world’s best publishers—that safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.” Again as an educator, you can sign up for free, but there is also a subscription plan that you can choose if you want access to everything on the site. Once you have a login, the site has digital books, learning videos, read-to-me, and audiobooks. You can easily search for books and pre-made quizzes based on titles, subject, and reading level. Logins are also available for students and parents. 

Finally, my last go to site is YouTube. Some schools have filters that will not allow for the viewing of YouTube videos for safety reasons. If you are using YouTube for lessons, always preview any videos you plan to use in your classroom or therapy session. With that caution, there are so many educational YouTube channels out there that make adding a video to your lesson a powerful tool for your students. As with any large site, it is easy to get lost in all the offerings. Searching the best YouTube Channels by grade, age, or subject level is a helpful way to wade through all that is available. I found this free guide YouTube Channels For Elementary Students on Teachers Pay Teachers by FlowerCityTeacher. It is a concise one-page listing that I found super helpful.

As with all of my blogs, I hope someone out there found something in this one helpful. I would love to hear what your favorite sites are. Especially the free ones! We even have a list of links to over 60 resources on our website. Lighthouse Therapy Resources Page. Feel free to stop by and look. If you have a comment or offering to add to our resources page feel free to reach out through our Contact page. Contact Lighthouse Therapy Thanks for reading.