Free educational websites for children
81There are a number of useful free websites, which are interesting for children’s education, giving them additional practice or to support you when homeschooling. They can add variety and fun to learning and complement the school books. A few words of caution before you start putting your small child in front of a computer:
- While educational software can enhance your kid’s learning , they are not the solution to learning difficulties, those need to be addressed very specifically.
- Online education via websites or educational CD-ROMs can support learning but cannot replace the more traditional ways of learning how to read, write and do math.
- Further please remember that the use of computers at the early age does not only have benefits but also a few pitfalls.
Benefits and Pitfalls
- Early computer literacy - benefit or curse?
Computer skills are vital, kids learn quickly, and educational software can support learning. However, early computer literacy and continuous use of computer aided learning has some side effects to be taken into cosideration.
It is advisable to have a close look at the sites your self before presenting them to the children to ensure they are what you are looking for and stay in control of your kids’ online education. Depending on age and stage kids will need some initial help on how to use the software to their benefit as well.
Free educational websites supporting the primary curriculum
- BBC - Schools
High quality online learning resources for kids at home and at school. Find interactive activities and online games for pre-school, primary and secondary students. - ENCHANTED LEARNING HOME PAGE
Enchanted Learning creates children's educational web sites and games to stimulate creativity, learning, and imagination. It is not free, but one year only costs $20, worthwhile for homeschooling or extra support. Some activities are free to test. - PrimaryGames.com - The Fun Place to Learn! - Free Games for Kids
Fun website for teachers, parents, and kids featuring free educational online games, coloring pages, interactive e-books, holiday activities, musical postcards, crafts, educational worksheets, and more! - Worksheets
This website offers pdf worksheets for download in the areas of Math, English, Geographym developed by a small gorup of software designers, programmers, artists, teachers and parents.
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Free websites sites for English
- Learn to Read at Starfall - teaching comprehension and phonics
A free learning website to teach children to read. Perfect for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Contains exciting interactive books and phonics games.Very good for keystage 1 / first grade or pre-school. - Stories from the Web
Learn to read for older readers at key stage 2 or grade 2. - GRTR - Home
Get Ready To Read provides preschool teaching ideas, reading resources, online reading games, pre-reading activities and preschool learning activities.
There is no substitute to reading books, which can be fun, supports reading comprehension and sharpens the eye for spelling and grammar. To start raising an interest for reading with your small child, you can establish a routine of reading to stories to your child. This will train your child to listen to your words, follow them, increase his vocabulary and eventually make him want to read for himself. Get a library card and let your child choose her favorite books to read. Many books are also available together with a CD to read along.
5 little monkeys
Free websites for Math
- Count On
Good math website to train math problems and logical thinking. - Aplusmath.com
Interactive educational math activities for grades K-12. Includes math games, educational worksheets, flashcards and more. - Online Math Games - Free and for Kids
Games to train basic and more advanced math operations. - Free Math Worksheets @ MathSlice
mathslice.com - free math worksheets for grade 1 grade 2 grade 3 grade 4 grade 5. Worksheets available for middle school and high school students. Math games for children.
You may want to control a bit how your child is using the websites. While these sites contain excellent exercises to train what the children learn at school, there is no guarantee that your child will actually do those exercises. The above sites also contain games, which are often more attractive to play but less effective for learning.
Free websites for other subjects
- Primary History index - links, information and resources for Primary School history study - SchoolHi
A teacher created site containing online games, lessons, links, worksheets and quizzes relating to the National Curriculum for History in England. Useful resources for all history teachers around the world! - ALA Great Websites for Kids
Portal developed by the American Library Association linking good websites for children. - Educational Websites For Kids - The KidsKnowIt Network
Free children's learning network covering various topics, offering online resources and information.
Search engines for kids
- Ask Kids
kid's search engine with a schoolhouse section, favorite movies, educational games and links to other learning websites. - Kids Games, Kids Movies, Kids Music, and More - Yahoo! Kids
Yahoo Kids! is the ultimate web guide for kids! Features fun and educational resources for kids with educational games, animals, music, jokes, movies, news, astrology, TV, science, e-cards, reference, and more.
These search engines which are safe to use for kids and teens. If you have young children, they may need help in choosing the programs which are appropriate for their age. For older children they provide a good space to search for their papers, play some games.
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Thanks Duchess OBlunt, I am happy if it helps.
As FYI: there is an educational web portal at: http://www.webinfocentral.com with plenty of free resources, in particular focused on Math education.
Thanks for adding this portal, DrABELL. It looks very useful for a bit older children.
Thanks for the heads up on some good sites. There are so many out there it's hard to know where to start so this will help a lot. I didn't realise there were kids search engines - I will check them out! Cheers, Chloe
Thanks for your comment, Chloe. There is an awful lot of stuff out there, and not everything is useful.
Fantastic resources. Thanks for the hub!
Thanks, cashemere,I am glad you like it.
Loved this hub! I will find these links very useful for our homeschooling. Another site I use for math, but they also have other subjects, is www.worksheetworks.com . :-)
Thanks Sadie Jane for your comment and the tip. I have added it to the list for the benefits of our readers.
Great resources Sadie, here's one I found for free spelling help - http://www.spellingcity.com. It makes spelling fun!
Thanks for sharing the spelling site with us, Allmaya!
Thanks for this page. Games play such a big part in children's development these days they are worth looking at seriously.
Medically themed games are a good way of developing children's interest in science. They key into a whole range of interests from the understandable desire to explore how the human body works to altruistic impulses to care for others.
I dropped an URL of one of my kids favorite sites into the box above but if you are looking for games purely for educational purposes it is worth checking out the Edheads site. It includes teachers notes and suggested activities to go with the various highly detailed games such as 'Virtual Knee Surgery' and 'Virtual Hip Replacement'. There are similarly valuable anatomy games at Anatomy Arcade with teachers notes etc.
Also I would recommend the Enchanted learning site for younger kids that you mention. It is well worth the 20 dollars.
The 'Stories from the Web' site that you mention is great for kids and certainly worth exploring. It saves a lot on the costs of books as well as being convenient.
For practical health education, I would recommend sites like the American Association of Dentists or The Nobel Prize health games page. It is amazing what you can learn online.
this is great thanks for all of the websites as a mother of 5 and a part-time I am always looking for extra help. This is very vaulueable thanks again.
Thanks for the website ideas. Another fantastic, interactive website for kids is www.loving2learn.com.
Great resources. Thanks for the Hub!
Playing these games may not make your kid a financial genius but it will help him to have a better understanding of his personal finances and how they work. Being smart about money will help him succeed in the future, and who knows, he may be your retirement plan
this is so fun ! but it is also educated
The websites listed above are great tools for children to move forward in their education. Not only do many of them enhance quality learning, but they also familiarize children with the importance of staying active in reading and writing. If you find the above links useful then you might want to take a look at Forest Trail Academy, an online school that truly cares about giving children a superb education.
Thanks to all for your encouraging comments. I am glad you like the websites and wish you lots of fun and learning experience.
The internet is becoming more popular each year for educational needs. It's a great resource for students of all ages. Forest Trail Academy is an online school that reaches out to all students' needs. FTA truly puts the student first!!
Really Helpful! Great Research and Presentation. Thanks so much.
Everyone with school age kids should check out: http://www.formulaconversion.com/ It is a great metric to english conversion site, but unlike others it shows you the algebraic steps to go from one unit to another. Nearly 4000 conversions and growing.
Thanks for your comments! Formulaconversion looks interesting for students.
great
i hope this will help my child
Duchess OBlunt Level 4 Commenter 2 years ago
This is a hub I will be sharing! Well done and insightful. Thank you for taking the time to find this information and put it all together.