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The coronavirus pandemic has led almost every US state to close schools, some for the rest of the academic year, in a major disruption to the public education system. The closures have impacted nearly 55 million public school students nationwide so far, according to data from Education Week. And now that kids can’t attend class in person, many parents are seeking out online resources, apps and games to keep their kids’ minds engaged at home.
Here are several free or discounted online learning resources for pre-K-12 students to complete from home to keep up the learning (and to save you from yet another viewing of Frozen 2 on Disney Plus). If you’re looking for even more, this post also has an extensive list of education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings.
All-around curriculum
Scholastic
Scholastic’s free Learn at Home program includes 20 days’ worth of curricula to help students continue learning even when school is closed. The daily lessons for pre-K through grade 6-plus include four separate learning experiences, built around a story or video. Kids can do them on their own, with their families or with their teachers. The lessons last up to three hours and can be completed on any device.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a free online learning platform that offers practice exercises, instructional videos and a personalized learning dashboard for students to learn subjects including math, science, computer programming, history, art history and economics from home. It also has specialized content from NASA, the Museum of Modern Art, the California Academy of Sciences and MIT. In light of the recent school closures, Khan Academy released daily schedules for students in pre-K through grade 12 to follow from home.
Outschool
Outschool is offering free live online classes for students ages 3 to 18 affected by public school shutdowns, conducted over video chat. The 10,000-plus classes cover topics in English, math, social studies, science, coding, health and wellness, music, art and world languages. You can search courses by length (ranging from one class to a full semester), format (live online or flexible schedule), subject, age range and day or timeframe.
Varsity Tutors
Varsity Tutors is offering a free program called Virtual School Day, which includes live, online classes and educational resources for K-12 students. Students can receive more than 30 hours a week of live online instruction, with classes led by tutors with experience in the course topic and virtual learning. Core classes include math, reading, writing and science, while enrichment classes include topics such as history of the national parks and careers in science.
Calvert Homeschool
Calvert Homeschool is providing three months of its homeschool curriculum for grades 3 through 12 free of charge to parents and guardians. The curriculum includes videos and interactive lessons, as well as free placement tests for students.
Peanuts Worldwide
The company behind Snoopy and Charlie Brown is offering free educational materials so students in grades K-8 can learn STEM, languages, arts and social studies alongside the beloved Peanuts characters. Lesson plans were created by curriculum specialists at Young Minds Inspired, as well as in collaboration with NASA.
Comcast Xfinity Education
If you’re a Comcast Xfinity customer, you can now find nearly 2,000 hours of programming and thousands of free titles, to give kids and parents more access to educational programming by grade level. Access all of these options by doing a voice search for “education.”
New York City Department of Education
New York’s Department of Education released a free 10-day curriculum for multiple subjects for every grade level pre-K-12. While it’s aimed at the New York City public school district — the largest in the nation — the materials are general enough to apply to a range of students nationwide.
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Early learning activities, videos and games
PBS Kids newsletter, video and gaming apps
PBS Kids launched a new free weekday newsletter with activities and educational games for students ages 2 to 8 to do from home. The PBS Kids video app is also available on mobile, tablet and connected TV devices, and offers on-demand educational videos and a livestream of PBS Kids 24/7, with no subscription required. Plus, the PBS Kids Games app includes nearly 200 educational games that can be downloaded to play offline.
MarcoPolo Learning
MarcoPolo Learning is a digital learning platform with a Steam-based curriculum for ages 3 to 7. You’ll find more than 400 video lessons and 3,000 learning activities for young learners. The company is offering free access for the next three months.
Learning to read and reading comprehension
ABCmouse.com, Adventure Academy and Reading IQ
The company Age of Learning is providing closed schools free home access for students to ABCmouse.com, Adventure Academy and ReadingIQ. ABCmouse.com is a comprehensive curriculum for pre-K through grade 2. Adventure Academy is an educational massively multiplayer online game for elementary and middle school students, with thousands of learning activities covering reading, math and science. ReadingIQ is a digital library and literacy platform for children ages 12 and under, with thousands of books to choose from.
Audible
Audiobook service Audible has a large collection of free streaming audiobooks for kids, including JK Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Read more: Audible adds Harry Potter, Beedle the Bard starring Jude Law, Bonnie Wright
Storyline Online
A children’s literacy website from the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Storyline Online streams videos featuring award-winning actors reading children’s books with illustrations. Each book includes a supplemental curriculum developed by an elementary school educator, which aims to improve comprehension and verbal and written skills, particularly for English-language learners. Celebrity readers include Viola Davis, Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, James Earl Jones, Betty White and dozens more.
Time for Kids
Time for Kids launched a free digital library to bring the school-based publication for elementary and middle school students into homes for the first time. The first issue will be a special report on COVID-19, and will include resources for teachers and families to facilitate conversations about the virus, and help young people better understand it.
Epic
Epic is a digital library for kids age 12 and under, which is offering free remote access worldwide through June, based on teacher request. Students will be able to access Epic’s digital library collection of 40,000 books, audiobooks and videos. Teachers and libraries can assign books and monitor progress.
Rivet
Rivet is a free, AI-based kids’ reading app and website created by Google’s Area 120 experimental workshop that encourages reading practice with 3,500-plus free leveled books for kids. The books are designed for developing readers ages 5 to 10. It’s available in the App Store, the Google Play Store and the Amazon app store, as well as on the web through Clever.
Marvel Hero Tales
Based on Marvel Comics, Marvel Hero Tales is a storytelling game app designed to help develop language and reading skills for kids age 7 to 11. Characters such as Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel help players improve their vocabulary and language by creating their own comic books. Developer Kuato Studios is offering a 30-day free trial of the app now.
Wonderscope
Children’s reading app Wonderscope is free for the remainder of the school year to encourage students age 6 and up to learn from home. The app uses augmented reality to encourage kids to read aloud as they adventure alongside a range of diverse characters. Wonderscope is available on iOS.
Achieve3000
Digital education company Achieve3000 is offering free, differentiated online learning resources for educators and students in grades PreK-12. Find all of the free remote learning resources on their website.
Writing
The Moth
Twice a week, storytelling nonprofit The Moth is putting out a video with a story and a teaching guide. Students can listen and discuss what they’ve heard with parents or teachers, and find reflection questions and journal prompts. Find each story on The Moth’s site.
Math
Prodigy Math
Prodigy Math is a free online math platform used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators, which reinforces math skills through video game-style play. For $5 a month for a yearly subscription, parents can get their students extra in-game features, benefits and rewards, as well as access placement tests, learning goals and progress reports.
Beast Academy Online
The Art of Problem Solving is offering a free month or a $15 discount on a monthly or yearly subscription to Beast Academy Online, an interactive, web-based math program that helps students ages 8 to 13 deepen their understanding of math. The program features comic-book style illustrations to keep students engaged.
Science
Mystery Science
Amid the school closures, Mystery Science has opened its most popular science lessons for grade K-5 for students and parents to access free. Lessons range from short mini lessons that are completely digital, to full lessons that include a hands-on activity. All are designed to use simple supplies that families likely already have at home.
Minecraft Education
For Minecraft fans, Microsoft added a new Education category to the Minecraft Marketplace that players and parents can download free through June. The education tools let players explore the International Space Station, learn to code with a robot, visit famous Washington, DC landmarks, and learn what it’s like to be a marine biologist. Each “world” to explore includes lesson plans like creative writing activities, build challenges and puzzles.
Coding
CodeSpark Academy
The K-5 coding platform CodeSpark Academy is offering three months of free access for parents and students, to help kids learn to code while home from school.
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Language learning
Duolingo
Duolingo is a free language learning app that helps kids (and adults) learn a language through short, game-like exercises and motivates you to continue learning with a “streak” feature that tracks the number of days you’ve reached your point goal. You can also subscribe to Premium for $10 a month for an ad-free experience and downloadable lessons.
Read more: The best language learning apps of 2020
Babbel
Language learning app Babbel is offering its services free to all K-12 and college students through mid-June, to allow students to use their time at home productively. The app is offering three months free access to its app and platform for 14 languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Dutch, Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian and English.
Rosetta Stone
Longstanding language learning platform Rosetta Stone is offering more than three months of free language learning to all K12 students worldwide. Rosetta Stone has more than 20 languages to choose from.
Lingvist
Online language learning platform Lingvist is offering all of its tools free of charge until July 31. Educators, parents and tutors can access the vocabulary, statistical learning tracking, course creation tools and a blended learning guide free, for teaching Spanish, French, German and Russian.
Busuu
Language learning platform Busuu is offering free live language lessons to students age 5 to 14, which stream through its YouTube channel. Live lessons in English, Spanish and Chinese are currently available. And more are coming soon, according to the company.
Droplets
Droplets, the app for kids from language learning platform Drops, now includes new features for distance learning and virtual classrooms for students age 8 to 17. Through the Droplets app, teachers can create an account where up to 50 students can make profiles. Droplets offers 37 different languages, and lessons can be as short as five minutes.
AP classes
Fiveable
Fiveable is a free social learning platform for high school students and teachers focused on Advanced Placement test preparation. It offers live streams, trivia battles and Q&A forums for students to connect with teachers across 15 AP subjects within English, STEM, history and social sciences.
Art
YouTube
Outside of formal art classes on platforms like Outschool (mentioned above), students and parents can find a number of free art lessons and tutorials on YouTube. Author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka is hosting daily drawing classes and animator Mo Willems is hosting daily cartooning classes. The Art Sherpa has a number of painting tutorials on YouTube as well.
DIY projects
DIY.org
For crafty kids, DIY.org offers thousands of courses and projects with how-to videos for ages 4-13-plus. Project and course topics include drawing, photography, science, music, Lego-building and Minecraft-video making. Kids can make their own videos on the platform to share with others, which are closely monitored by the site (and parents get a notification any time their child posts something, too). DIY.org is currently offering 90% off its library of hands-on projects, how-to videos and safe learning community for kids, with the code TOGETHER.
Virtual field trips
Travel to art museums around the world through Google Arts and Culture. You can also virtually visit the San Diego Zoo, Yellowstone National Park and the Great Wall of China.
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