Independent Picks

Bring winter weather indoors with these resources about Wilson Bentley (aka Snowflake Bentley), a pioneering photographer of snowflakes. Learn about Bentley's incredible work through a Sora ebook and a video from the Smithsonian (scroll down the page for the video). You can also see snowflake photographs taken by Bentley, and print snowflake coloring pages based on his photos.

Enjoy video, audio, and online puzzle games from the team behind Highlights Magazine! Try your hand at over 30 hidden object games, with settings that range from the playground to outer space. Short joke videos will tickle your funny bone and invite you to have fun with puns and wordplay. The Highlights Hangout podcast offers even more puzzles, riddles, and jokes—along with skits, stories, and more.

Bear Goes Sugaring author Maxwell Eaton III offers some beary fun printable activities for students! Learn how to draw a beaver! Follow a maple syrup maze! Write a Bear Goes Sugaring postcard to a friend of loved one! And more! Check out the activities section of the author's website to download your very own activity kit!

Scholastic Publishing celebrated author and illustrator Dav Pilkey’s Reading Gives You Superpowers campaign during the week of March 22 to 26, and the activities are still available to download! The creator of the immensely popular Captain Underpants and Dog Man series has found unique ways to emphasize why reading is not only critical but fun! Visit Scholastic's website to download free activities, including an activity planner, comic book story starter, idea prompts, and more!

Watch this video to learn how to draw your very own Matilda, the title character from the famous Roald Dahl book. If you think you are a Matilda expert, try taking this book quiz to see just how much you know.

NYPL has plenty of digital resources to help you develop your STEAM skills! From origami to coding, discover the wide range of STEAM videos and activities available for kids! Online STEAM storytimes provide fun ways to explore topics like the five senses, movement, color, and sound! And be sure to check out NYPL’s list of new STEAM programs that will help you discover the natural world while getting creative!

Do you love Dog Man? If yes, then stop everything you're doing and go to the Dav Pilkey At Home page, where you'll find drawing video tutorials and more!

Children’s Book Week is not only a celebration of books but of connection. It's a vehicle to unite kids and adults with books, authors, and illustrators in order to foster a love of reading. Click here to access a reading challenge and here for coloring pages.

Watch over 20 episodes of read-alouds presented by the stories' very own authors.

The PBS Kids series Martha's True Stories is a great way to introduce children to interactive eBooks! A colorful online format excites readers as they learn new facts and words from these non-fiction texts. Martha's True Stories features read-along stories divided into four STEM categories: science, technology, engineering, and math. After listening to or reading the stories, review the words using an interactive glossary. There’s also a short and fun vocabulary quiz for each text. Visit the PBS Kids website to explore the variety of interactive features supported in Martha's True Stories, including moving objects and clicking on highlighted words for definitions.

View The Spanish Experiment! Check out some well-known children's stories translated into Spanish and spoken by a native Spanish speaker. Read along in Spanish or English.

Take a musical mission to Mars as astronaut Christina Koch reads aloud from space! Author Susan Lendroth's book, Hey-Ho, to Mars We'll Go, is a jaunty journey that follows five bobble-headed astronauts as they learn how to bathe in zero gravity, grow veggies in space, and entertain themselves on the six-month trip to the Red Planet. This interactive, innovative approach to learning is interstellar fun. Expect the young astronauts who experience this independent pick to sing about the science of space travel when they finish the read-aloud!

Enjoy weekday storytimes, brought directly to you by expert children's librarians. These NYPL librarians read beloved books, sing songs, and share early literacy tips.

Watch Chris Haughton, author of Don't Worry, Little Crab, conduct a live read-aloud of his book, Shh! We Have a Plan.

Visit the video library here to visit with your favorite Sesame Street friends.

The New York Public Library invites you to check out their Little Learners video series, featuring five new educational videos every single week! Little ones will be dancing, singing, and learning as they participate in music, movement, and multilingual fun!

Watch the PBS Kids videos channel, to visit with popular friends like Daniel Tiger, Pinkalicious, Peterrific, Alma, Arthur, and more!

Beloved author and illustrator Eric Carle passed away on May 23, 2021, at age 91. Carle illustrated more than 70 books for children (most of which he also wrote). His most famous title, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. More than 175 million copies of his books have sold around the world. Enjoy this video archive of his guest appearance on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, an episode that originally aired on PBS on February 16, 1998.

Explore deep Sea Learning at the Georgia Aquarium, featuring webcams of beluga whales, sea lions, and more!

Enjoy a virtual walk through the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, complete with cherry blossoms, in this extraordinary video captured by cinematographer Nic Petry.

Take a virtual stroll over to Unity Farm Sanctuary in Sherborn, MA, to view live streams of the farm! Observe alpacas, chickens, ponies, and more! Click on different cams and observe for as long as you want!