Virtual Resources Accessible to Anyone
Need something to do while staying home to help flatten the curve in our community? Visit these recommended freely accessible resources for something great to do right from your desk or couch, or print some puzzles and coloring pages for use away from the computer screen! Please reach out to your family, friends, and neighbors who may not have Internet access, and please reach out if there is something we could provide to make this period of social distancing easier on them: email info@nesmithlibrary.org and we will see what we can do!
Great Stuff to Watch:
- TED Talks from 12 great modern authors
- Chef Liz of Creative Feast is doing free Facebook Live classes on Monday and Friday, about cooking from your pantry! Tune in on Facebook, or view her past videos.
- The Metropolitan Opera is providing free access to Nightly Met Opera streams through their website and their apps. Each performance becomes available in the evening and stays available for the following 24 hours until the next is made available.
- Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is doing Facebook Live Home Safari videos
- Free workshops, museum tours, and puppet shows from the Center for Puppetry Arts
- Penguin Random House compiled this list of their authors who are sharing virtual content! Visit the page for updates.
- John Krasinski has begun a Some Good News channel on YouTube to highlight people coming together and other good things still happening in the world.
At Home Content from our Museum Pass Locations:
The Friends of the Library of Windham (FLOW) enable us to provide museum passes to a variety of great locations nearby. While we and these institutions are temporarily closed, enjoy this virtual, at home content they have created for everyone!
- Boston Children's Museum: Virtual museum tours, view collections online, and more!
- Childrens' Museum of New Hampshire: STEAM Online Learning video series
- Currier Museum of Art: Online collections. Visit YouTube for Art and Activities videos!
- McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center: At Home Activities
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Video Library and Virtual Tours, view Collections online, and visit YouTube for Art Lectures!
- Museum of Science: MOS At Home STEM Resources
- New England Aquarium: Daily Facebook presentations, Virtual Visit at home activities, and Tank Webcams live all day!
- Seacoast Science Center: Learning Connection, and visit their Facebook for video updates!
- Strawbery Banke Museum: Meet the Baby Animals, with farm videos and activities
- Zoo New England: Visit the Kids page for Zoo to You videos and more!
More Virtual Tours and Activities:
- Google Arts and Culture: Virtual museum tours, artist exhibits, and more!
- US National Parks tours from Google Arts and Culture
- The Frick Collection Virtual Tour
- Library Collections you can tour online: Harvard University, Library of Congress, to the Bodleian Library!
- Museum of Natural History/the Smithsonian tour
- A teacher's collection of Virtual Field Trips: from Yellowstone, to the Louvre, to Mars!
- A little bit different: test your knowledge with this Golden Girls Digital Escape Room! Recommended to open in a separate browser tab for best experience. Thank you to the Hereford County Public Library in Winton, NC for creating and sharing this awesome digital escape room!
- Play this fun flower quiz from Merriam Webster!
Print and Play Activities: (consider printing these for neighbors and family without internet)
- Printable crossword puzzles, word searches, and sudoku (download a PDF and then print for best results)
- Download this Puzzles Packet we compiled for a mixture of these puzzles!
- Download a few coloring pages from the Smithsonian, or visit Color Our Collections for even more!
- Share with your neighbors some Joke of the Day pages we put together!
- Nesmith Library is gathering stories from our community about your experience of this unique time. This collection will be made available to the public in the near future and will be retained for historical research. By responding you are giving the Nesmith Library permission to archive your story. You can visit the page with our online form to submit responses online, or Download and print this PDF, and submit a print version to the library by mail. Please consider downloading and printing copies for neighbors who may want to participate, but who do not have internet access. They can mail the response to the library or wait until we reopen. Thank you!
Reading:
- Read freely available collections from Project Gutenberg and Open Libraries, to supplement our digital reading services for library cardholders.
- We also recommend the SimplyE app from the New York Public Library, for reading freely available digital collections.
- AmericanLiterature.com's Short Stories section has free to read short stories, mainly classics.
- Become a Book Sleuth! New York Public Library has a great guide for finding a book when you've forgotten the title.
Online Learning:
- Gale is offering multiple collections for free, with resources specifically for learning more about the Coronavirus as well as other topics:
- Gale In Context: Science - Viruses
- Gale In Context: Science - Coronavirus
- Gale In Context: Coronavirus and Global Pandemics Ebooks Collection
- Gale In Context: Global Issues - Pandemic Preparedness
- Gale In Context: Health and Wellness - Coronavirus
- We have additional databases from EBSCO currently available: these do require logging in with a library card. Please email info@nesmithlibrary.org to get access, and to let us know if you try one of these databases and love it!
Looking to get involved with needed efforts during times of crisis? Consider ConnectWindham, a local initiative connecting volunteers with needs in our community, as well as NH Responds, an organization for recruiting skilled volunteers for where they are needed most.
Parents may also wish to visit our Free Virtual Resources for Kids & Parents page for more things to do with kids, and Free Virtual Resources for Young Adults for tweens and teens!
Please visit our Internet Resources for further recommended sites on a variety of topics!