Free applications that teach so you can relax
Applications with an *asterisk are my tried and true favorites!
Fetch Lunch Rush
Great For: Great for playing with multiple kids or as a family. Integrates team play and physical movement. Place mats around house and run to take pictures.
Drawbacks: Doesn't work on some devices. Must print off "augmented reality" mat pdfs.
Price: FREE
PrestoBingo Shapes
Presents shapes in real world images by giving artwork filled with shapes. Brief mini-lesson about shapes. Counting from 1 to 20 is also reinforced.
Great For: Teaching shapes and reinforcing numbers.
Price: FREE
PrestoBingo Colors
Teaches colors in real world images by giving fun images filled with colors. Counting from 1 to 20 is also reinforced.
Great For: Teaching Colors and reinforcing numbers.
Price: FREE
Intro to Math
Learning activities with simple directions that enable math connections.
Great For: simple math concept practice.
Drawbacks: Can feel a bit dry.
Price: FREE
Intro to Colors
Learning activities with simple directions that enable math connections.
Great For: An introduction to colors, shades, and drawing.
Drawbacks: Can feel a bit dry.
Price: FREE
Zearn
30 minute math lessons with short videos, interactive math models, math problems, and encouraging feedback throughout work. After mastering each lesson, kids automatically move onto the next.
Great For: Free math curriculum.
Drawbacks: Does not have App. Can be hard to work alongside students if they don't take notes.
Price: FREE
Gracie & Friends City Skate
Ride a skateboard through the city and jump to catch the groups of items representing a specific number.
Great For: Number practice.
Price: FREE
Gracie & Friends Birthday Cafe
arrange friends at tables and distribute items equally. Simple interface and repetitive nature.
Great For: Early division Concept Practice.
Price: FREE
Moose Math- Duck Duck Moose
Counting, Adding, Subtracting, Sorting, and Geometry.
Great For: Reviewing math.
Price:FREE
Park Math HD- Duck Duck Moose
Practice counting, addition, subtraction, sequencing, patterning, and comparing.
Great For: Review.
Price: FREE
ST Math
helps kids to see and manipulate math for a deep understanding of all math concepts.
Great For: Understanding what is behind math concepts. Gaining determination.
Drawbacks: Requires kids to keep going even though things are difficult. Does not give direct instruction. Kids have to puzzle through to figure it out.
Price: FREE
Find Sums
uses 10 frames and part whole models to increase addition fluency. Two levels of play build from 5 to 100. Track player progress and email reports.
Great For: Fluency practice.
Drawbacks: Can be boring.
Price: FREE
Pet Bingo
Math problems are answered by identifying correct answers on a bingo board. Once the student correctly answers five questions in a row, they earn a prize in order to care for their pretend pet. Instructors can check the report card section.
Great For: Mastering addition, subtraction, and multiplication
Drawbacks: Pretend pet can be distracting.
Price: FREE
Xtra Math
Drills students on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Daily drills take a total of about 15 minutes. Some students get frustrated with this program. I limit the time to one full session and say that scores don't matter if they try. No games.
Great For: Mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
Drawbacks: Fast paced dry memory can be boring and frustrating. Once students learn to work through frustration, this is an invaluable program!
Price:FREE
Sushi Monster
The sushi monster gives a number and kids build an equation from numbered pieces. Strengthens understanding of number relations.
Great For: Addition and multiplication fluency.
Drawbacks: Gets hard quickly.
Price: FREE
Market Bay
Use money to buy and sell items through town.
Great For: Money practice
Price:FREE
Chicken Coop Fraction Games
Kids learn and practice simplifying, adding, comparing and estimating fractions with this chicken-themed game.
Great For: Fraction Fluency
Drawbacks: Can get boring
Price:FREE
Crafty Cut
Teaches spatial reasoning with 3D shapes.
Great For: 3D reasoning
Drawbacks: No direct teaching
Price:FREE
Intro to Letters
An introduction to letter sounds, names, and writing. Simple directions that enable focus.
Great For: Handwriting practice with proper strokes.
Drawbacks: Can feel bit dry.
Price: FREE
Starfall ABC's
Brings the alphabet to life with pictures, animation, games, songs, and stories. Each letter is identified by name, sound, and words. Children tap, slide, sort, and drag objects.
Great For: Playing with sounds, stories, and words.
Drawbacks: Difficult to monitor progress or select area of focus.
Price: FREE
Intro to words
Strengthens language abilities with clearly articulated letter sounds and slow "sounding out" of images.
Great For: Sounds, blending, and writing.
Drawbacks: Can feel a bit dry.
Price: FREE
Word Wagon
Four levels of phonics instruction are practiced with 7 groups of themed words.
Great For: Site Words (Dolch)
Price: FREE
Duck Duck Moose Reading
Follow Milo the Meerkat and his sidekick Puffs through the zoo on a phonics learning adventure! Duck Duck Moose Reading has 9 different word and letter activities that help kids learn by feeding and playing with flamingos, monkeys, lions, and more. Collect animals for your habitats and make your own zoo scene as you learn more letter sounds.
Great For: Beginner Reading
Price: FREE
learn to read with Zac the Rat! Each section features a vowel sound and its related spelling. Your child will hear, touch, read and eventually master this sound-spelling through a variety of engaging activities, movies, and songs. Excellent for emerging readers and English language learners.
Great For: Sounds, blending, and writing.
Drawbacks: Difficult to monitor progress or select area of focus.
Price: FREE
The stories in this app contain a controlled vocabulary set, using the words most frequently encountered in print. The stories and activities reinforce high-frequency words, also called “sight words,” in sentences rather than in isolation. This ensures the young reader will make a meaningful association with each word and more readily commit it to memory. Includes:Plays, Fiction/NonFiction, Comics, Folk Tales, Greek Myths, and Chinese Fables sections from the Starfall website. Includes an AutoRead feature to model fluent reading, which can be disabled once your child is able to read independently.
Great For: Site words and beginner Reading.
Price: FREE
After reading about artists and musicians, making a magician, reading poetry, laughing at tongue twisters, and solving riddles, your child will agree: It's Fun to Read! With a basic understanding of letter-sound relationships, your child is ready to explore a variety of genres and topics that will expand reading vocabulary, comprehension, and world knowledge. The games and activities within demonstrate the joy of reading through rhyme, alliteration, spelling patterns, and word play. The stories can be read aloud to model the qualities of fluent reading: intonation, expression, inflection and rate. Users can enable or disable the AutoRead feature. The app includes: Art Gallery, Magic, Music, Poetry, Tongue Twisters, and Bird Riddles sections from the Starfall website. Also includes an AutoRead feature to model fluent reading, which can be disabled once your child is able to read independently.
Great For: Hearing Stories.
Price: FREE
Gives students leveled reading passages and quizzes students on comprehension. Quizzes are graded by program and student is advanced or brought to lower levels. (Some kids fail questions in order to get easier passages.) "Teacher" can also assign writing passages, but these are not graded by the program.
Great For: Practicing Reading Comprehension
Drawbacks: Video ads may be distracting to kids with focus issues.
Price: FREE (paid available)
Students need a homeschooler account (must provide proof of homeschooling) and an email for it to work. Teacher can assign articles to read and teachers have access to lessons. Grade online and grades are stored on the site.
Great For: A site to assign readings.
Drawbacks: Does not assign. Does not give lessons or comprehension questions.
Price: FREE
Complete assignments online or with offline mode, Listen to assignments with audio, Highlight and annotate, See their progress and results, Read in their student library
Great For: Assigning reading and writing work online.
Drawbacks: Does not assign. Does not Assess.
Price: FREE
Draw and Tell
Choose from a blank page, photos, or one of the app's backgrounds and start creating. Tools like crayons, stickers, paint and erasers can be used while the app records singing, talking, and moving stickers.
Great For: Practicing creating stories.
Price: FREE
Intro to words
Choose from a blank page, your photos or one of the apps backgrounds and start creating. Drag, drop and order your images to create custom story sequences.
Great For: Practicing creating stories.
Price: FREE
Quill
Teaches grammar, sentence structure, and simple writing. Has the option of doing research papers and longer writings.
Great For: Grammar. A fantastic program where you can assess and assign grammar exercises.
Drawbacks: Only a website. Dry. Catches little errors that are sometimes correct.
Price: FREE
No Red Ink
Teaches grammar and writing skills through short exercises and longer essays. Further learning requires subscription.
Great For: A place to assign, store, and track student writing.
Drawbacks: Can be difficult to manage from backend.
Price: FREE
Artic
Learn about 30+ animals and play with them in an interactive land/sea environment. Feed the animals, throw snowballs, drive an amphibious vehicle, and much more! Bring the arctic animals to life with interactive puzzles! Snap each piece in place as you learn special facts about every animal. Tap, drag, and swipe your way through the arctic landscape! There are animals to feed, seals to juggle beach balls with, and snowballs to be thrown. Try to discover all its secrets! Identifying a wide variety of animal species that live in the arctic land, sea, and sky. Learning the characteristics and behaviors of arctic animals. Understanding the arctic biosphere and its various features. Determining the eating habits of the arctic wildlife. Topic-specific vocabulary exposure and acquisition
Great For: Exposure to different animals.
Price: FREE
Play and Learn Science
Focuses on science including water, motion, shadows, and weather. It gets progressively harder as you move up in levels.
Great For: Exposure to science topics.
Drawbacks: Parent section is easy to access and get stuck in.
Price: FREE
Biome Viewer
Pick a biome to learn about animals, habitat, and other traits.
Great For: Exploring Biomes
Drawbacks: Very open ended. Can feel dry.
Price: FREE
National Geographic Kids
Has games, articles, and videos for all ages.
Great For: games, articles, and videos
Drawbacks: No app.
Price: FREE
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
virtual tours allow visitors to take self-guided, room-by-room tours of select exhibits and areas within the museum from their desktop or mobile device. Visitors can also access select collections and research areas at our satellite support and research stations as well as past exhibits no longer on display.
Great For: virtual tours.
Drawbacks: No app.
Price: FREE
National Museum of Computing
3D and virtual curated tours let you explore the world's largest collection of working historic computers. Speak to experts on the codebreaking machines of WWII, those maintaining the world’s oldest working digital computer – and more! Don't miss the unusual slide rules on cylinders.
Great For: virtual tours.
Drawbacks: No app.
Price: FREE
NASA STEM Engagement
has free resources for students and teachers to gain information and plans about space and stem.
Great For: free resources
Drawbacks: No app.
Price: FREE
Hopster Coding Safari
Create a path so woodland creatures can get from one spot to another. The path gets more complex with more levels.
Great For: Great first introduction to coding.
Drawbacks: Must pay for more.
Price: free trial
Lightbot
Kids use basic concepts of coding to create a path from pieces with different twists and turns so that robot can advance levels.
Great For: Basic coding.
Drawbacks: Can be difficult.
Price: FREE
Fix the Factory
Each level enables the student to create a series of programs and function to direct the robot to complete the task at hand. The levels are well designed, a little easy at the beginning, and the new elements are introduced well, and there's just enough time to get used to a new obstacle before another one is thrown in. Each level has four stars that players can earn: Attempts, Errors, Moves, and Time. This is not that obvious even when the level has been completed. LEGO Mindstorms fix the factory is a beautifully presented FREE computer science app that will keep students entertained for some while whilst teaching them the basic and complexities of programming even though it could be a little bit more user friendly.
Great For: Middle level coding practice.
Drawbacks: Can be frustrating to move around.
Price: FREE
Booeys
Use basic concepts of coding to solve puzzles. Use little ghosts called Booeys to guide the Lost out of strange realms in this gorgeous puzzle game! A Ghost’s Code invites you to solve a series of complex puzzles with ever increasing difficulty. Each level represents a strange dimension with new challenges to face. As the one who controls the Booeys, you hold the key to helping the Lost escape. Engage in funny banter with Booeys between levels, and learn how your work in helping the Lost can launch you on the path to a successful career.
Great For: Coding.
Drawbacks: Some stalling and glitches. Not much direct teaching.
Price: FREE
Swift Playgrounds
You solve interactive puzzles in the guided “Get Started with Code” and learn the basics of building apps in “Get Started with Apps.” You experiment with a wide range of challenges and samples that let you explore unique coding experiences. Swift Playgrounds doesn’t require any coding experience. The whole time you are learning Swift and SwiftUI, the powerful programming technologies created by Apple and used by professionals around the globe to build many of today’s most popular apps. And because it’s built to take advantage of iPad and the real iOS SDK, Swift Playgrounds provides a one of a kind learning experience.Works best on iPads.
Great For: An opening coding playground.
Drawbacks: Very open ended with access to coding games made by kids.
Price: FREE
AlgoRun
Challenges kids to solve puzzles while learning programming basics. 30 levels that teach using game mechanics. Uses conditionals and loops without making the child memorize. AlgoRun features puzzles that will teach you the basics of coding in a fun interactive way by using game mechanics derived from programming concepts such as:Sequential Instruction Execution, Functions, Recursive Loops, Conditionals, and Step-by-Step Debugging.
Great For: programming basics
Price: FREE
Scratch
A drag and drop setting for kids to learn and practice coding.
Great For: Sounds, blending, and writing.
Drawbacks: No app. Very free. Has projects made by kids.
Price: FREE
Breathe, Think, Do
Teaches coping skills and problem solving with interactive game.
Great For: Little ones working on problem solving.
Price: FREE
SuperStretch
Provides kid-friendly animations and modeling for learning 12 yoga poses.
Great For: Simple yoga practice.
Drawbacks: Can get boring quickly.
Price: FREE
Imaginary Friends Society
has amazing resources for children dealing with cancer and with family members with cancer. Videos are amazing!
Great For: Kids who are fighting cancer.
Price: FREE
Musical Explorers
Connects students in grades K–2 to musical communities as they build fundamental music skills through listening, singing, and moving to songs from all over the world. A free online curriculum available worldwide.
Great For: Music education videos and lesson plans.
Price: FREE
Musical Me
Explore elements of music and children's songs as you kids about rhythm, memory, instruments, pitch, and musical notes. Join Mozzarella the Mouse in a musical world with five activities, that teach the fundamental components of music.
Great For: An introduction to Music.
Drawbacks: Can feel a bit dry.
Price: FREE
Intro to Geo
Great For: Identifying location and names of countries.
Drawbacks: Can feel a bit dry.
Price: FREE
Intro to US
Great For: Identifying location and names of States.
Drawbacks: Can feel a bit dry.
Price: FREE
Visit historically signifcant sites around the world.
- Yosemite
- Ellis Island
- Colonial Williamsburg
- Walt Disney World
- Anne Frank House
- The Great Wall of China
- PBS: Rick Steves holidays in Europe. Includes Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and others. On Prime and YouTube.
Molly of Denali
By PBS Kids. To learn and read about Alaska and Nature.
Great For: An introduction to informational text
Price: FREE
