Resources
Use this guide to help your child develop the skills they need to enter Kindergarten.
Learn how zookeepers train giraffes and other hoof stock to participate in their own care with our partners at the Blank Park Zoo.
Learn all about the endangered eastern black rhinos with our friends from the Blank Park Zoo.
oin Abby Brown and her friend as they figure out the necessary materials and the chemical reaction that creates slime.
Abby Brown and her friend make a breakfast favorite while exploring acids, bases and physical reactions.
Abby Brown and her friend apply their geometry skills by making geometric snowflakes using toothpicks and marshmallows.
Whether children are directly or indirectly exposed to violent events, there are ways to help them feel safer and more secure.
Introduce children to community helpers to help them feel safe in times of crisis.
Abby and her friends learn about the different types of fowl that might have been eaten at the first Thanksgiving.
Learn about the uses for the different parts of a deer and how a deer might have been food at the first Thanksgiving.
Everything you need to help children grow smarter, stronger and kinder!
Get ready for the start of school with some of our favorite back-to-school resources!
Learn to creative ways to think, solve problems and complete tasks in more organized ways with Work It Out Wombats!
Come play and learn in the PBS KIDS Lab, the lab where every new technology is an opportunity for learning!
With this engaging collection, students can watch short videos and play online games that incorporate problem solving!
Use these flexible resources to support learning anywhere: videos, interactive lessons, printable activities and more.
Inspire the love of learning with these great resources from PNC Grow Up Great!
Learn ways to advance early learning skills for children ages 2-8 with this Ready to Learn library of resources.
Ready Jet Go! helps your PreK-3 students to develop a love of learning for all things related to the planet Earth.
Engage your preschoolers in fun learning experiences in math and problem-solving with these activities from Peg + Cat.
You can create almost anything if you have a maker mindset! Learn what it means to have a maker’s mindset.
Learn how new materials can be created quickly when a catalyst is used to create a chemical reaction.
Make friendship bracelets out of beads and thread to celebrate your friends and family.
Learn about the phenomenon of wax resistance as you create secret messages to leave for friends and family.
Help young learners practice caring for others and their community with this fun activity
What is pollination? Let’s learn more with the help of the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden.
Come along and learn how to make a butterfly garden with us and the Blank Park Zoo.
Use this PEEP curriculum to help preschools explore how containers and tools make water move and flow in different ways.
Use this PEEP curriculum to help preschools explore and identify the sounds around them.
Use this PEEP curriculum to help preschools explore how a shadow’s shape, size, position, and appearance can change.
Use this PEEP curriculum to help preschools explore the way things roll and slide down ramps and hills.
Use this PEEP curriculum to help preschools explore how plants grow.
Use this PEEP curriculum to help preschools explore different colors and investigate different shades of the same color.
Explore these social emotional activities with your young learner inspired by your child's favorite PBS KIDS programs!
Explore these literacy-based activities with your young learner inspired by your child's favorite PBS KIDS programs!
Help young children practice their social emotional skills with this fun memory game.
Packed full of fun puzzles to solve, this book has mazes to navigate, things to find, artwork to color and differences to spot.
Getting key ideas and details is one way to reach a student with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD).
Story Retelling with AAC is one way to reach a student with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD).
This collection features strategies for literacy instruction meant for students with significant cognitive disabilities.
Kids try to get their friends to guess their favorite book titles without using any words, only drawings and actions.
Discover how to make unique stories using just people, places and things.
Explore an active way to tell stories with Abby Brown and her friends.
Abby Brown and her friend make a gratitude turkey showing all the things they are thankful for.
Work alongside Jessica and Eduardo from the Des Moines Art Center to make tissue paper marigolds.
What do you know about Day of the Dead? Explore Día de los Muertos with our partners, the Des Moines Art Center.
Explore the Hispanic tradition of Día de los Muertos with the help of our partner, the Des Moines Art Center.
Pretend to be detectives and figure out the case of the mystery shape.
Explore counting and animal knowledge with your child by creating ladybug art.
Keep your kids busy for hours. Paper rockets zooming in front of your nose and chasing you around the house. What fun!
For an afternoon of clean, green and science-friendly fun, try making these ice boats with your kids.
Push, slide, bounce! Explore the science of how things move with your child with this exciting game.
Investigate different objects and predict which shapes will balance and which shapes will fall.
Have fun with some kitchen science. Investigate with your child what happens when you heat materials and then cool them.
Explore patterns and pattern games with your child with this fun pasta necklace.
Part science project and part cute craft, create potato sprout people of your own.
Playing graphing games using stickers from your favorite fresh fruits is a fun activity that gets the family involved.
Let your child take the driver’s seat practicing number recognition in this simple math game, Fire Truck Number Hunt.
Make a cool bracelet with this multiplayer game that develops counting fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills.
Treasure hunts are a fun way to build early math skills as well as improve social skills like following directions.
Build your child’s science vocabulary and understanding of measurement with this simple experiment.
How many textures can you find at your house? Race the clock or race a friend with this printable scavenger hunt.
Help your child explore the concept of wind with their very own DIY sailboat.
Help your child practice early math, science and critical thinking skills with this fun sorting activity.
Have your child “spy” sight words, letters, numbers or math problems in this super squishy learning activity.
Learn how zookeepers train sea lions with our partner, the Blank Park Zoo.
Learn more about how Iowa is helping to save coral reefs from our partners at the Blank Park Zoo.
Explore asterisms with us and our guide from the Science Center of Iowa.
Find the Big Dipper in your backyard with help from our partner, the Science Center of Iowa.
Learn to explore Iowa’s sky at night with help from our partner, the Science Center of Iowa.
Have a young child heading off to school next year? Prepare them for the adventure with these fun, free resources.
Design a bird feeder to hang in your backyard, just like Abby and her friend Augie.
Make art with your children while exploring how making mistakes can help us learn something new.
Aquí encontrará excelentes actividades para hacer con su hijo en el camino.
Here are some great activities for you to do with your child on-the-go!
Explore the science behind tornadoes with this easy activity.
Investigate ways to create different pitch, tones and sounds by creating your own glass bottle water xylophone.
Understand how a volcano forms and what causes it to erupt in this classic science fair experiment.
Learn how birds eat, and what tools you would need to eat like a bird.
Investigate the science of color while learning and using the word “hypothesis.”
Listen to the sounds around you and play a sorting game.
Trace blocks and have your child match the pieces to the shapes.
Can a paper bridge hold rocks? Work with your child to find out the answer to that question with this fun experiment.
Think flexibly and use working memory to develop early math skills with this fun block sorting activity.
Combine two things that every kid loves, shapes and robots, to make this cute shapes robot craft.
Apply geometric skills in a fun way by creating these shape necklaces made out of empty milk jugs!
Check out this simple tutorial on how to build forts for kids out of newspaper.
Build your own winter wonderland by turning cardboard boxes into a gingerbread village!
Decorate your house for the holidays with these beautiful and easy cotton swab snowflakes!
Teach your child about money and saving with this cute piggy bank craft for kids.
Make beautiful spring butterflies out of recycled toilet paper rolls.
Practice early math skills with your child as you “Race to the Finish!” in this probability game.
Transform a recycled plastic bottle into a simple homemade bird feeder.
We know we can hear sound, but did you know you can see it too? Help your child make sound waves move with this activity.
Let nature inspire art when you upcycle plastic soda bottles to create fun and festive fireflies for display or play.
Build a toy boat with your child by reusing old materials from around your home.
Why do some things float and some sink? Learn about sinking and floating with this easy activity that freezes toys.
A fun way to practice measurement skills with your child is by building a house for a favorite toy.
Put your nose to the test! Kids investigate and distinguish between different objects and materials using their nose.
In this fun activity, explore the fractions of 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 while eating delicious pizza.
Why does fog look grey and feel wet? Answer this question about the weather using scientific inquiry with your child.
In this activity, your child will build a thermometer to show when the temperature is warmer or cooler.
See the wind at work! Make a pinwheel and explore the wind’s wind-erful power!
Use your design thinking and science inquiry skills to determine the best kind of structure.
Grab a grown-up and some friends! Each team will build a structure and then try to knock down the other team’s structure.
Grab a grown-up and some friends for this building game. Can you stack a tall, stable tower?
Using scientific inquiry skills you and your child will learn more about sound and how it works.
Make an instrument that anyone can play—a kazoo—and get the buzz on sound vibrations!
What do you think will float? Test out your predictions using items from around the house and the printable table.
Use your scientific inquiry skills to learn more about simple machines.
Make a pinball machine that can shoot a marble and send it zigzagging down an obstacle course.
Build a catapult using a lever, and power it with a rubber band, and send a marshmallow flying through the air.
Spark great conversations about the science behind elasticity with this chemistry and craft project rolled into one.
Can you match the PBS KIDS character with his or her shadow?
Use scientific inquiry and engineering design skills to learn all about ramps.
Design a crazy roller coaster ride for a marble—but make sure it doesn’t fly off the track.
With a couple tools and your know-how, you can figure it out your height and weight using measurements.
Curious George is using markers to measure his desk.
Use this resource to help children investigate how measurement can be used to describe, compare, and sort materials.
Grab a grown-up to make a chocolate mug cake in less than five minutes. No oven needed.
Make the Cat’s hat and a Measuring Snail to measure and compare all sorts of things.
Learn how magnets work and why some items are attracted to magnets and others are not.
Talk about how caterpillars have many legs and feet to hold up their very long bodies.
Use the Insect Match cards to play Memory, matching the picture of the bug to its name.
Scatter the sight word bugs on the table. Read a word out loud and have your child “catch” the bug by swatting the word.
Uses your engineering and design skills to puzzle out how bridges are built and work.
Can you build a bridge out of cardboard that won’t collapse under the weight of a pile of books?
Young learners can practice letters and early geometry skills with Alphabet Patterns from our Ready for School toolkit.
Help your young learner practice letters and numbers with the writing mat from our Ready for School toolkit.
Abby teaches kids about weather. Kids learn to observe and evaluate the weather.
Learn to measure the temperature of hot and cold items and make predictions.
Ruff uses his new service to help kids looking for a way to keep their mini-golf tower from tipping over in the wind.
Help Sally, Nick, and the Cat in the Hat make some sounda - pa - looza's for the concert.
Join Sally, Nick, and the Cat in the Hat as they travel to Gongolia to find the missing note to Sally's song.
Visit Toborrowland with Nick and Sally, and help them pick up and sort items to put back into the borrow truck.
Join Sally, Nick, and the Cat in the Hat as they visit Toborrowland and learn all about sorting.
Create the right type of structure to carry as many pennies as possible in water.
Join Sally, Nick, and the Cat in the Hat as they learn about why certain objects float and others sink.
Simple machines have few working parts. They make our work easier and help us move things.
Join Nick, Sally, and the Cat in the Hat as they learn about simple machines and how they can make our work easier.
Discover the simple machines that can be found at the playground.
Join Nick, Sally, and the Cat in the Hat as they learn about what makes a ball bounce.
Quack and Peep find a flashlight and have fun making shadows.
Explore the shadows made by objects in Chirp's collection.
Play with shadows; control the weather; and send objects down a ramp.
George must figure out how to build a ramp so that Hundley, a little dachshund, can get out of a basement window.
Explore kitchen chemistry as Ruff Ruffman learns that mixing the right ingredients is important.
Sing along with Cat as he sings a fun song about what a magnet can and can't stick to.
It's Magnet Mania - a day when the gang spends the whole day playing with magnets.
Hands-on challenges that focus on the engineering design process.
Use math skills to help George count the bugs to find out the answer!
Use math skills to help George count the bugs to find out the answer!
The Wild Kratts are all hyped about fireflies because they are having a firefly-themed picnic.
On this Science Trek, host Joan Cartan-Hansen and her guests answer students’ questions about insects.
Abby teaches kids how to identify an insect. You’ll also learn how some insects are very helpful to humans!
Help the Dragon to get across Spansylvania to make it to a birthday party.
Teach your students about what it takes to build a successful bridge.
Join Nick, Sally, and the Cat in the Hat as they learn about bridges and what makes them work.
Explore Iowa history topics including politics, civil rights, industry, agriculture and conflicts.
Go on an educational exploration of Iowa’s natural environments and environmental challenges.
Build engineering and design skills using ramp and path structures.
Notice what is around you and learn to be curious as you record your observations.
Explore ELA strategies for instruction for students with significant cognitive disabilities.
Explore the Hispanic tradition of Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) with us.
Visit stages and venues that showcase diverse performing arts.
An educator's guide to social, emotional and character development curriculum.
Five-day thematic, multimedia activity math activity plans designed for afterschool programs.
Help young children learn to manage emotions with Daniel Tiger’s Life Lessons from our Ready for School toolkit.