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Civic Newsfeed Powered by Countable
| 6.16.20

Eat, play, stretch: free, fun things to do online while you’re social distancing – what are yours?

How are you keeping yourself occupied during COVID-19?

By Josh Herman, Countable News

Even if you’re a reclusive shut-in like this writer, you may be losing your sanity ("Going all Shining") over your ordered or elective stay-at-home strategy to combat COVID-19.

Below, you'll find some of the best activities we've discovered - or enacted - in our quest against boredom.

And we want to hear from you. Let us know how you're combatting corona by staying at home—we'll be running another piece with your ideas soon.

Stay healthy out there.

Kids

  • Caribu lets you set up a virtual playdate for your at-home young ones. It’s basically FaceTime with on-screen activities like drawing, playing games, or group reading. Usually $7 a month, it’s free for the moment. 
  • Audible is offering free stories for kids.
  • Tynker is offering free coding courses during school closures. Maybe your child will build the next Countable app?
  •  Scholastic is offering a free digital learning hub that's intended to "support virtual learning plans."
  • “Frozen” actor Josh Gad is reading to kids on Twitter each night.

Learn

College classes

  • Yale University is offering its most popular course for free on Coursera, and it arrives just when we need it most. Click here for Dr. Laurie Santos’ “The Science of Well-Being.” (For more Santos, check out her podcast mini-series “The Happiness Lab.”)
  • You can find more than 400 free, online classes at ClassCentral.com.

Art

Podcasting

  • Zencastr allows you to make your own podcast, free, during the coronavirus outbreak.

Move & Stretch

  • Peloton is offering a 90-day trial of their app, which includes workout classes in a variety of categories, whether or not you own their expensive bike.
  • Gold's Gym is offering free access to its app Goldsampuntil the end of May. It includes more than 600 audio and video workouts with DJ mixes.
  • Headspace, one of the most-popular meditation apps, is offering free access to all K-12 teachers, school administrators, support staff, and healthcare professionals. Their “Weathering the Storm” collection is available to everyone.

Read, watch, listen

  • Hoopla is a digital library. You can borrow movies, TV shows, comics, and more for free.
  • Each morning, we’re letting you know all the free concerts you can watch during Couchella 2020.
  • Use Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, or Marco Polo to video chat with your loved ones.
  • Universal is charging $20 to watch films still in theaters, like "The Invisible Man" and "Emma." 
  • BroadwayHD is offering a seven-day free trial of its service that screens some of the best musicals.
  • The NHL is making all games played during the suspended 2019-2020 regular season available to stream. Similar offerings from the NBA and NFL can be found on NBA League Pass and NFL Game Pass.

Play Classic Video Games

  • RetroArch (https://www.retroarch.com/) is a collection of emulators (software that “emulates” game systems), all nicely packaged up in a TV-friendly interface. All you need to do is provide the games (we can’t condone infringing on copyrights, but if you were, you’d do it here.) Whether your childhood involved an Atari, Nintendo, Genesis, N64, Playstation, or any of the others, your favorite game is probably here.
  • RetroArch, while beautiful, can be difficult to navigate for newcomers. For a simpler solution, head to PlayEmulator.com.