The internet is full of “educational” sites that are really advertisements with a quiz stapled on. The good ones are rarer than you’d think, and worth bookmarking. This list is our attempt to collect twenty that genuinely help kids learn, and that a teacher or parent can hand over without a nervous glance at the screen.
One disclosure, because we’re not monsters: the publisher of this site also builds five of the sites below (8-Bit Academy, Coloring Squared, Coloring Squared Play, Teaching Squared and Super Fun Coloring). We included them because they belong here, and we described them plainly, but you deserve to know. The other fifteen are independent, and the ranking weighs depth, quality, cost to families and how well each works on a school Chromebook that is five years older than the student using it.
Jump to an entry (19 picks)
Khan Academy
The nonprofit that proved free, high-quality instruction could work at scale, and made a lot of paid tutoring look like an expensive hobby. Its lessons run from early math through high-school courses and beyond, with practice exercises that adapt as you go, and a separate Khan Academy Kids app for the youngest learners.
It’s rare in that it’s both deep and genuinely free. For a student who’s stuck on fractions or racing ahead in algebra, it’s often the best place to start. Teachers can assign material and track progress, which is more than most free things can say.
PBS Kids
Home of the characters kids already love, with games, videos and activities built by educators and tied to those shows. It’s easy for young children to navigate on their own and mercifully free of the usual “buy now” energy.
Its trick is that learning arrives wrapped in familiar worlds, so a child who won’t sit still for flashcards will happily practice counting or letters with a favorite character. Best for preschool through early elementary, and for parents who need twenty quiet minutes.
Scratch
Built by the MIT Media Lab, Scratch lets kids snap together blocks of code to make their own games, animations and stories. There’s no syntax to get wrong, so children can focus on logic and creativity instead of weeping over a missing semicolon.
Its huge online community means kids can share projects and remix each other’s work, which turns coding into a social hobby. It’s an excellent first step for anyone who wants to move from playing games to making them, and for parents who’d like to see a kid make something other than a mess.
8-Bit Academy
This one’s ours, so weigh our opinion accordingly. 8-Bit Academy is a free collection of browser-based games that practice math, phonics, spelling, parts of speech, typing and more, mostly for Pre-K through the upper elementary grades, wrapped in a retro pixel-art look that makes homework feel like a trip to the arcade.
There are no logins and nothing to install, and it runs on Chromebooks, laptops and tablets. Teachers can pull ready-made game lists for centers and sub plans, and the library keeps growing. It’s a good fit when you want practice that feels like play, and your students have already smelled the worksheet.
Code.org
The nonprofit behind the Hour of Code, with free courses that teach computer science to students from kindergarten up. Lessons use puzzles, characters and block-based coding, and many can be done with or without a computer, which is a neat trick for a school with a questionable Wi-Fi situation.
For teachers, it provides ready-to-use curriculum and professional development, which is a big deal if you’re new to teaching coding and don’t want to learn it alongside the kids at the same speed. A strong choice for classrooms.
ReadWorks
A nonprofit that offers a large library of free reading passages and question sets, organized by grade and skill. Teachers use it to build comprehension practice without paying a subscription fee, which means more money for the classroom’s real budget: tissues.
Its nonfiction and fiction passages are well written, and it’s easy to filter by topic or reading level. If you want solid reading comprehension material and you’re tired of being sold a “learning journey,” this is a reliable shelf.
Coloring Squared
Another of ours. Coloring Squared offers free printable pixel-art math coloring pages in which the picture stays hidden until students solve the problems, because each answer tells them which color to use. It’s a worksheet with a secret, and kids are suckers for secrets. Each page comes with a printable answer key.
Pages cover addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, place value and more, from kindergarten through about fifth grade, with themes kids recognize. It’s a handy tool for homework, centers and early finishers who need something to do other than narrate.
Typing.com
A free typing curriculum with lessons, games and progress tracking. It moves students from learning the home row to building real speed, and gives teachers a dashboard for classrooms, so you can see which student has been typing “asdf” for twenty minutes.
Typing fluently quietly pays off in every subject. This site makes practice structured and mostly painless, and the ad-supported free version covers what most students need.
Starfall
A longtime favorite for early readers, with phonics-based activities, songs and stories. Its approach is gentle and clear, which works well for children who are just beginning to connect letters and sounds, and haven’t yet decided how they feel about reading.
Some content is free and some requires a paid membership, so check what your child actually needs. For many families, the free portions are already valuable, and nothing here will make a kid cry.
Teaching Squared
Ours again. Teaching Squared is a library of free printable worksheets for Pre-K through eighth grade, with a lot of depth in the early elementary years. You’ll find math, phonics, reading, spelling and grammar, along with mazes, word searches, codebreakers and puzzle activities that will help your students pretend they’re in a spy movie.
It also hosts the Periodic Table of Phonics, a one-page way to see how English sounds and spellings fit together, and offers character-themed sheets that help reluctant learners get started. No signup required, which is a sentence that should be more common.
Duolingo
The famous language-learning app has a free version that covers a wide range of languages through short, game-like lessons, plus a green owl who has been known to guilt-trip people. It’s not a full replacement for a class, but it’s excellent for building a daily habit.
Older elementary and middle school students often enjoy the streaks and leaderboards, which turn language into a competitive sport. Parents should be aware of the paid tier and the in-app prompts, and the owl’s emotional manipulation.
National Geographic Kids
A vibrant site of animal facts, quizzes, videos and games, backed by one of the most trusted names in science and exploration. It’s a good pick for curious kids who love animals and the outdoors, and have a growing collection of facts they’ll announce at dinner.
The reading level is accessible, and the photography is stunning. It’s a good reward for finishing other work, and it’s secretly full of learning, which is the best kind.
Coloring Squared Play
The interactive sibling of Coloring Squared, also ours. Here the math coloring and the pixel jigsaw puzzles run in your browser: solve problems to fill in a hidden picture, or drag retro-style pieces into place to complete one.
It works on Chromebooks, tablets and phones, and the themes include popular games and movies. It’s useful as a center activity, a fast-finisher choice or a quiet at-home game, and it won’t make a sound unless you want it to.
Funbrain
A classic collection of educational games and books for kids, organized by grade and subject. It’s been around for a long time and keeps a friendly, uncomplicated style, like an old library that kept up with the times.
Its math and reading games are quick and approachable. It’s a good place for a short break that still counts as practice, which is the best kind of loophole.
Math Playground
A big library of math games, logic puzzles and videos aimed at elementary and middle school students. It covers everything from basic facts to word problems and strategy games, so there’s something for the kid who loves math and the one who says they don’t.
Its variety is its strength: if one game doesn’t click, another will. Teachers like it for stations and early-finisher activities, and parents like it for the three minutes of peace.
Super Fun Coloring
Also from our family of sites. Super Fun Coloring is a large library of free printable coloring pages sorted into categories like animals, holidays, vehicles, superheroes and popular characters from games and cartoons.
It’s not a curriculum site, and we won’t pretend it is. But coloring builds fine-motor skills, focus and creativity, and it’s a staple for classrooms, waiting rooms and rainy afternoons. You click a page, print the PDF and you’re done, no accounts, no drama.
Desmos
A free, elegant graphing calculator and a set of classroom activities, especially strong for middle school and above. It makes functions and graphs something you can play with rather than just plot, which is a rare way to make an equation feel like a toy.
Teachers use its activity builder to guide students through discovery-based lessons. Older students will recognize it as the tool many standardized tests embed, so they might as well make friends with it now.
Prodigy Math
A role-playing game in which students solve math problems to win battles. The core game is free and adjusts to each child’s level, which keeps practice from being either too hard or insultingly easy.
It’s very popular with elementary and middle schoolers. Note that the game nudges kids toward paid memberships, so teachers and parents may want to set expectations before the first pet shows up with a price tag.
Newsela
A platform that publishes current events and nonfiction articles at multiple reading levels, so a whole class can read the same story at their own pace and nobody has to feel bad about it. A free tier gives access to a good amount of content.
It’s a useful tool for building reading comprehension and awareness of the world. Best for upper elementary, middle school and beyond, and a gentle way to teach kids that there’s more to the news than a headline.