Note: Third in a series of coronavirus support emails. Sign up to receive our emails here.

We’re all homeschooling now, it seems! Fortunately, there are new free resources to help. I’m going to point you toward some, new and old, that might help you.

The thing I’m most concerned about* is that so many resources will come available at once that it will leave all the new homeschooling families sifting through a glut of stuff. This is overwhelming even for teachers. Don’t worry too much about finding the perfect thing. Try stuff out and see what you like.

For my part, I’m going to try to share resources that I know are great, or strongly suspect are great, based on others I know who have recommended them (which is the case for much of what I’m sharing today). I’m also going to lean toward free materials when I can, and materials that are especially easy to get started with. There’s a ton of great stuff out there, and I’ll try to point you toward it at a manageable rate.

But most importantly, math time can be a place to get away from the worries of the world and have some fun with your kids. It’s hard to overstate how much we all need this. A professor of mine once entered class on a day that had brought some really tough news to many of us. “Let’s all forget our trouble with some mathematics,” he said.

I’ve always remembered that. I still think it is very good advice.

Free Resources recently available

• Leslie University collected this assortment of games, songs, and activities for Pre-K through 5th grade. In English and Spanish!
• Dreambox is now offering free accounts for 90 days. I haven’t used them, but my colleague Kent Haines highly recommends them. (Though only for 15 – 20 minutes at a time — he warns again binging.)

Is there more? Of course**. But doesn’t that seem like enough for one day? No need to drink from the fire hose. I’ll be following up again soon. Take care of yourselves!

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*When I say “most concerned about,” I am, of course, referring to the specific concerns surrounding the doing of math at home with kids. I have other concerns and I am leaving them out of this email.

**Okay, if you do want more stuff that’s popped up recently and want to ignore my “don’t drink from the firehose” advice, I suppose you might like Catriona Shearer’s geometric puzzles, suddenly available in one place. They can be tough! Think high school level. I suspect these online Solve Me puzzles will be a hit, though they’ve been around for a while. But now I really will stop. More to come soon.