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Top Ten FREE Educational Websites for Kids
- Emily Boyd
- Jan 23, 2019
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 15, 2020
So much of learning comes from practicing. As a teacher or a parent, it is easy to run out of problems and texts that students can use to practice the skills they need to learn. The endless search for enriching practice can feel like an epic time and money waster as you pay for website subscriptions or another worksheet on teacher pay teachers. These are a few websites that I find very meaningful and enriching. These sites don’t just provide more practice, they do it in an engaging and motivating way. Here are a few FREE websites that are GREAT for kids!
This is a math website where kids are exploring a fantasy world as wizards. They can find each other and battle by casting spells. The only way to cast a spell is by solving a math problem. Kids can earn money through solving math problems and go to new locations in the magical world...it is really fun for kids. For teachers and parents it is a great way to help expose kids to rigorous math problems that are leveled for the student. The kids start by taking a placement test. The difficulty of questions goes up or down depending on how many tries it takes for the student to get the problem right (the website also provides help tools and pictures to assist students if they get the wrong answer so they can have things explained when they miss them). At any time the eductor can go on and see the students progress, the questions missed and how long they spent on each question. The educator can also assign a standard to the students and give them practice on a specific skill for a specific grade. It is a very motivating way to have kids practice skills right at their level or get computer help as they practice a standard taught in class.
This is an endless library of articles with vocabulary and comprehension questions. So many interesting nonfiction texts on a huge variety of topics. You can search for an article by topic or by skill (compare and contrast, sequence...ext.). There are paired texts so students read multiple texts and answer questions from both. It is a great way to test students on a particular strategy or skill, prepare students for tests or simply use as an engaging way to provide choice to students, while giving them good practice with comprehension and vocabulary questions. There is an especially big variety in nonfiction texts.
This website is like the netflix of books. There are lots of books to choose from on a wide variety of topics. Some books are audio, others just the text and some are the text with a “read to me” option. This is a great way for kids to get exposure to more text and to read along with audio in order to read books that would typically be a frustrational level. There are also videos that kids really enjoy...so make sure that you’re clear about what the kids may work on while on Epic. Overall, a very engaging website that gives more reading choices to kids.
This is full of math and reading games for kids to practice for grades 1-5. What makes this website so great is the variety of skills that the kids can practice. There are so many different areas for the kids to practice (like grammar and spelling, which is sometimes hard to find free resources for) and the games are engaging as well. It is a great way to allow student autonomy or to give students lots of practice on a difficult skill without them losing interest
dThis website is great for gathering information. There are lots of pictures and videos, as well as texts, about a wide range of topics. I like that it has so many resources other than reading, because students can build their schema on a topic before reading and then use what they learned to make connections as they read.
I like this website as a way to reteach students who need to fill in the gaps with phonics and math fluency. It is mostly meant for younger grades, but is good for any child who needs practice with skills used in younger grades and I really like that it can be done independently, even by students who typically struggle with independent work. Many of the games are great for independent work for pre-k and kindergarten and is a great resource to use at home to help teacher early literacy and math skills.
Both of these websites have games for almost every elementary math skill. It is a wonderful way to have kids practice skills until they really remember how to solve the problems, while still being motivated because of the fun platform in which the problems are presented. I also really like the videos for each math skill at the bottom of each page. I sometimes will even use them as an engaging way to model who to solve a specific math problem, because it is so clear and understandable.
This website has videos of famous people reading a book of their choice. I really enjoy it, because it is a good model for students to see actors and actresses reading. I also love the music and images they put with the video. This is a great way to introduce new books and to get students engaged.
This website focuses on practice problems than games, but is still engaging for students and teaches kids when the get the wrong answer. The website has a better version if you want to pay for it, but it has 15 practice problems for each math topic in each grade. The reason the website made the list is because of how comprehensive it is for what kinds of math concepts students should know in each grade level. It’s a good rule of thumb for parents who want to see how there student is doing in any given area.
This website has free typing lessons and free typing games. This is a great way to give kids a headstart in a lifelong career of using computers. Although it may not seem like a necessary focus point, it is certainly worth putting on this list, because it will help kids all throughout their life, even in elementary school. I like this particular website because it takes kids through the proper way to position their fingers and helps them practice this correctly from the very beginning.
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