Resources During Quarantine (A snapshot in time of March - May 2020)
Whether you’ve been ordered by your city to stay the hell in your house (me!) or are social distancing, here are a few things to help pass the time.
Children’s Activities
Tom Hardy will read a week of bedtime stories starting 4/27 on BBC pre-school channel CBeebies.
Raddish Kids: This is a subscription cooking box and cooking class for kids. Teach your kids some life skills AND keep them busy.
Goodnight with Dolly: Thursdays at 4pm PST / 7pm EST from 4/2 to 6/4. Dolly Parton will read a series of carefully chosen Imagination Library books.
Do your kids love trucks? Workers in hard hats? Loud construction? Download this Labor Union coloring book.
Neil Gaiman's website features games & downloadable activities.
Natalie Morales reads “The Little Prince.”
Audible offering free children’s stories to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet.
Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems: Children’s author is offering up daily doses of school-time structured fun for the next few weeks. Episodes air daily at 10 a.m. on YouTube.
The Global Space Education Foundation is offering children’s stories read from space as well as educational demonstrations with Canadian astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason on their website.
Big List of Children’s Authors Doing Online Read Alouds & Activities.
Scholastic Learn At Home provides approximately three hours of learning opportunities per day.
Center for Puppetry Arts is offering livestreaming shows for kids. Check link for schedule.
YouTube videos from Disney Animator Michael Woodside, to teach drawing to kids.
3/19: Learn to draw Olaf from a Disney animator at 12pm PST/3pm EST.
Twitter & Instagram: Celebrities are live-streaming while they read books to kids
Josh Gad at 7 PM EST/ 4 PM PT
#SAVEWITHSTORIES - Different celebrities read books to kids every day. So far, Jennifer Garner, Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon & Natalie Portman.
Storyline Online: SAG/ATRA’s children’s literary site. Many well-known actors reading kids books. Sarah Silverman, Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Allison Janney, Betty White and many more.
Live Musical Entertainment
March 25 - 11:30am PST: Miley Cyrus will feature chats with Bebe Rexha, Reese Witherspoon, Hilary Duff and Dua Lipa.
3/21: “Live from San Quarantine” concert by Jewel at 5pm PST / 8pm EST.
San Francisco Symphony: Michael Tilson Thomas’ “Keeping Score” series — comprising nine one-hour musical documentaries and nine accompanying concert performances.
Thursday, 3/19:
Niall Horan live via his official Instagram page at 1 p.m. PST/4pm EST.
Common will be live at 2:30 pm PST / 5:30pm EST..
Indigo Girls will at 3:25pm PST / 6:25pm PST (live now, not sure of start time)
3/17: Musicians are starting to stream mini-concerts online. Chris Martin’s from 3/16 can be found here: #TogetherAtHome.
Later in the day was John Legend with sassy color commentary from Chrissy Teigen.
NYC’s Metropolitan Opera to stream nightly at 4:30 pm PST / 7:30 p.m. EST : Nightly Met Opera Streams.
Park and Museum Live Streams
Smithsonian Open Access: You can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking.
National Museum of the United States Air Force virtual tour.
Famous Museums: Virtual Tours You Can Take on Your Couch.
Virtual School Activities: A collection of sites to live webcams, virtual tours/trips, and other miscellaneous fun academic sites.
Virtual tours of 31 national parks in the US.
Theater, Dance & Comedy
Watch Shakespearean plays from the historic Globe theater in London.
Arts Centre Melbourne offers many opera, symphony and ballet performances.
See Broadway shows from home during a free 7 day trial.
3/25 The Quarantine: Virtual Open Mic: Two-hour live stream event will feature poets, emcees, actors, visual artists and other artists showing off their best work. Join via Zoom link.
Adorable Animal Content and Live Streams
San Diego Zoo Panda Cam, among many others.
CA Academy of Sciences animal webcams.
Animal Planet Will Air 94-Hour Marathon of Puppies And Kittens
Live streams from Melbourne and Werribee Open Range Zoo in Australia.
Sad Dog Diaries. If you need a laugh, I highly recommend.
Fiona, a young hippopotamus at the Cincinnati zoo, has a live show streamed daily on Facebook Live at 12pm PST / 3pm EST. You can also watch past episodes of her series.
Monterey Bay Aquarium SEA OTTER cam. Live-streaming 7am-7pm PST.
Books & Movies
Stream new films online from the Neon Theater in Dayton, Ohio. For $10.50, you get a 48-hour link to the film,
Sunday, 3/22 at 3pm PST: LIVE ONLINE Fundraising Event with Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin and “The Big Short” author Michael Lewis.
Friday, 3/20: Sundance Institute Short Film Session - 1pm-5:40pm PST. MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE.
Amazon First Reads: Prime members choose one FREE Kindle book each month.
Libraries are closing, but they have tons of online resources:
Libby: This is a free app to download books and audiobooks. Works very well and most libraries have it.
Kanopy: FREE with a library card. You can stream a limited amount of films and tv shows.
Health & Exercise
Atlanta Humane Society hosts Puppy Yoga on 4/11 at 11am EST / 8am PST.
Online functional movement classes for free - 30 days of unlimited classes. Start a free trial here: https://theoptimal.me/.
NEOU, an on-demand and live fitness streaming service is offering a 30-day free trial.
Gold’s gym is offering the GOLD'S AMP™ DIGITAL PERSONAL TRAINER classes until May 31, 2020.
The Down Dog app is offering free yoga classes until until May 1st.. Free for all students and teachers until July 1st (K-12 and college).
Free yoga classes from Core Power Yoga.
“Embodied power with D'ana Baptiste 30 min” - free yoga class.
Try meditation for free. Look for the “Weathering the storm” collection on Headspace.
The Calm app. Normally a monthly charge but now offering some free “sleep stories" and content to just generally make you….well…calm.
Pregnant? Check out this site for advice during the virus.
Sports - Stream Old Games/Matches
Spirituality
Ready to try a church service online? Check out Church Live. Need to build one for your church? Look at Church Web Works.
Karaoke
Stingray Karaoke app. Unlimited access to the entire song catalog is available until April 18, 2020. Download app or access here https://qello.com/.
Stingray Classica: Available for one month by at www.stingray.com/freemonthclassica and entering the gift code freeview.
Take an Online Class
Class Central: 450 Ivy League courses you can take online right now for free.
Udemy: With your library card you can access over 350 courses covering leadership and management, coding, design, marketing, IT operations, data science, project management, human resources, sales, accounting and finance, and productivity.
Berkeley Law: Free Webinars and More on Hot Topics in Law and Business.
Where to Donate
Like Mr. Rogers always said, you have to “look for the helpers.” Here are places helping those in need:
Save our Favs - Donations for locally owned restaurants in San Francisco, the East Bay, Marin and the South Bay
Pittsburgh Virtual Tip Jar - To support local service industry workers
Undocufund - Helps undocumented workers in Sonoma County
SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development - Assistance & Guidance for Businesses and Workers Impacted by COVID-19
Where to Get Help
Oakland Unified School District - “Grab and Go” breakfast and lunch meals will be available for all OUSD students or families and any Oakland child under 18.