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At-Home Activities

Your personal growth doesn't need to stop!

Many people with chronic illness are too ill to work or attend school, even on a part-time basis. That doesn't mean that your personal growth has to end because you are largely home bound.  You may be able attain your goals from the comfort of your recliner. Here is a collection of resources to help you to continue your education, learn new skills, or embark on general self-improvement projects. Some of these websites teach marketable skills or allow you to work toward your degree. You can develop the skills you need to get paid work that you can do at home on your own schedule.  While we understand that everyone is at their own stage of illness, we hope that you can find something here that meets both your interests and physical capabilities.  

At-Home Educational Opportunities

  • Khan Academy    FREE unlimited access.  This site provides excellent videos for learning any subject.
  • DuoLingo   FREE unlimited access.  Thirteen language options are offered.
  • American Sign Language  FREE. Learn to sign from this amazing resource. 
  • First Aid and CPR Certification    FREE.  You can learn these skills in a completely online program. Complete with quizzes, you can gain certification in first aid and/or CPR from the comfort of your couch.
  • Brain Pickings FREE. Inspiring blog that will inform and help with personal growth.
  • Luminosity FREE. Brain games and brain training to improve memory and concentration.
  • Investopedia FREE. This site teaches you about financial trends to help you become a financial guru.
  • Memrise FREE. Learn something new every day in small lessons designed to keep you engaged with languages and vocabulary.
  • Psychology Today FREE. Improve your own mental health by reading a variety of articles about psychology.
  • Spreeder FREE. Online speed reading course that helps improve reading comprehension as well.
  • TED FREE. Ideas worth spreading about working smarter, what success is, and a wide variety of other interesting topics.
  • Project Gutenberg FREE. More than 50,000 free e-books!
  • Freebooksy  FREE. A list of free books that you can download and read at your convenience.
  • Amazon's Free Kids E-books  FREE.  A list of free books that you can download and read at your convenience. 

Crafting from Your Bed or Recliner

  • iMORE   FREE.  This site lists many good DIY and craft apps: Pinterest, Etsy, Makr, and more.
  • Instructables FREE. DIY site with videos and instructions to build all sorts of things.
  • Digital Photography School FREE. Great tips to improve your photography skills!
  • How to Make Jewelry  FREE.  Try your hand at making a variety of beautiful pieces to enhance your look or start your own small business.
  • Appcrawlr. FREE for most apps. This has a variety of crafts, health and fitness, games, books, medical, sports and other categories for you to explore.
  • Craftsy. FREE to join and for some courses.  Online classes from the craftiest people around.
  • Favecrafts.  FREE.  Crafting in a variety of areas including jewelry making, needle craft, painting, and wedding crafts to name just a few.
  • Free Online Sewing Class For Beginners. FREE.  This site includes a combination of written tutorials and videos to help you learn to sew.

Building Skills

  • AllRecipes FREE. You can find recipes on almost anything, or type in your list of ingredients and get ideas of what you could make for dinner tonight.
  • eHOW FREE. Learn a wide variety of skills with step-by-step instructions by experts in the field.
  • wikiHow FREE. This is an interactive site in which you can learn from others' experience or add your own tips to help teach others how do do something.
  • HowStuffWorks FREE.  Broaden your horizons with answers on a wide variety of topics.
  • Linux Foundation  FREE.  Linux is the computer operating system used by the Internet.  Many online jobs require knowledge of Linux. 
  • Codecademy  FREE. This course teaches about web design and making your own apps.  Many companies are looking for people who can do these things!
  • Stack Overflow FREE. Question and answer platform for computer programmers and those wanting to learn computer programming.