Here’s a cool collection of online resources of games, videos, audio and all the things kids actually enjoy learning with.
For Kids
Video/audio (require little reading)
- LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then releases the audio files back onto the net for free. All the audio is in the public domain, so you may use it for whatever purpose you wish. Categorized wonderfully to make finding what you need easy.
- LearnOutLoud.com is your one-stop destination for audio and video learning. Browse over 20,000 educational audio books, MP3 downloads, podcasts, and videos. Categorized wonderfully to make finding what you need easy.
- Mangomon special education games are online games that help with reading and math.
- Neok12 has a collection of free online educational videos, lessons, quizzes, games and puzzles. Topics include Physical Science, Life Science, Human Body, Earth & Space, Social Studies, Math, English and Fun. I recommend watching the videos first to make sure they are good quality. I watched one on the American Revolution that might have been educational, but the quality was poor and I couldn’t tell what was happening.
- Math Playground is an action-packed site for elementary and middle school students. Kids practice math skills, play logic games and have fun. There aren’t as many math games for basic math like addition and subtraction as there are for decimals, fractions and percentages. Also the videos aren’t exciting and fun like the games are.
- Starfall is a great site for beginning readers. There are great activities for kids just starting out. It helps reinforce phonemic code with visuals and sounds.
- Funbrain has lots of educational games to help kids with a variety of subjects and several just-for-fun games too.
- National Geographic Kids has lots of videos, stories and activities. This is more of a look and discover site. If you are looking for something specific to help teach a certain subject, you may find it hard to find exactly what you are looking for here. But it is a fun site for kids to go to and learn while playing. I recommend National Geographic Kids over Discover Kids because there’s much more to do.
- The History Channel web site has many free videos of their shows. Be sure to watch before showing to your kids because not all are for kids. Because this is not a strictly kids’ site, there are commercials to worry about before videos. This site also has games and a few other interesting features.
Some reading needed (audio or video may also be included)
- Despite the name, some of the stories on Online Audio Stories are only available as text on the screen. You can click on the “audio only” to see the vast selection of children’s stories available as audiobooks. There are a lot of children’s classics, myths, fables, nursery rhymes, fairy tails, and poems.
- The Exploratorium site covers science, art and human perception. There are plenty of videos on this site that bring the subjects to life. This is also a good site for parents to pick up some lesson plan ideas.
Reading required (mostly text)
- Science News for Kids has a lot of really good articles on a variety of science topics, especially recent discoveries and science news.
- BioKIDS helps children learn about the animals on the planet. It provides plenty of photos of the animals along with information about their lifestyles and habitats. It’s a good site for doing research for reports.
- Project Gutenberg is the place where you can download over 30,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle, Sony Reader or other portable reading device. Their audiobooks partner site is LibriVox (listed above).
- Shahi is a visual dictionary that provides photos from Flickr, Google Images and Yahoo Images along with the written definition of a word. I must warn you that sometimes the images that pop up aren’t what you’d want a younger child to see because they do come from the Internet. Tread carefully.
For Parents
- Guided reading lesson plans provides tips on using guided reading to teach reading comprehension as well as other subjects to struggling learners.
- Science buddies has many science experiments to help you enhance science lessons or to use for science fairs. Categories are broken down into Physical Science, Engineering, Life Science, Behavioral & Social Science, Earth & Environmental Science, Math & Computer Science and Other. They are even further broken down by grade.
- Math Projects Journal has lesson plans for teaching pre-algebra, algebra and geometry in multi-sensory ways to help make the lessons more memorable and fun.
- A to Z Teacher Stuff is a teacher-created site designed to help teachers find online resources more quickly and easily. Find lesson plans, thematic units, teacher tips, discussion forums for teachers, downloadable teaching materials and eBooks, printable worksheets and blacklines, emergent reader books, themes, and more.
- Discovery Education has free lesson plans written by teachers for teachers. Classroom Resources has hundreds of original lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school students. Borrow them as-is or use them as a base to develop your own lesson plans.
- The Science News for Kids Teacher Zone provides lesson plans that go along with the most recent articles as well as a long listing of more websites that might be useful for parents or teachers.
- Adrian Bruce’s Educational Teaching Resources has fun educational games (that can be printed) and more to help parents and teachers create fun lessons for kids.
If you know of any other sites that should be listed here, please list it in the comments section below.