30+ Free Best Online Learning Platform for Kids

This story was originally published on: https://theedvolution.com/online-learning-platform-for-parents/

With lockdown due to COVID-19, a lot of our kids are at home. Online classes are great but that requires more parental involvement when it comes to homework or difficult topics. Especially due to the lack of one-on-one extra question-answer sessions kids were able to have with the teachers at school.

My kids are doing online school and they keep asking me all the questions they would normally ask their teachers at school. Truth be told, I am a little lost with all the math problems and social studies questions my 5th grader keeps asking me. To find the answers for my child, I had to take the help of resources available on the internet. Because I cannot afford an expensive private tutor in these uncertain times.

That made me wonder if more parents are going through the same thing. Parents of my kids’ classmates have been calling me up to ask about what resources I am using to improve my daughter’s concepts and understanding. Instead of telling one person at a time about all the free online resources for parents, I decided I should jot it down once and for all.

So this article is for all the parents out there who, like myself, are struggling to teach their kids at home without any prior teaching experience or the help of a tutor. Here, you will find free online resources to teach your kids basic school subjects and enjoy the process. Before we dig into the online resources, first I will name the major categories of school subjects for kids’ aged 6–18y old or 1st grade-12th grade:

1. Mathematics, statistics, physics.
2. Science, Biology, and chemistry.
3. Social studies and history.
4. Grammar skills & Language reading and comprehension.
5. Coding, robotics, and STEM education.

Continue reading to learn about more than 30 free best online learning platforms that you can use to teach your kids at home

1st Grade- 5th Grade

• Mathematics

1. Corbett Math’s: this free best online learning platform uses AI to determine the level of your kids’ learning. Worksheets, mental math activities, and general word problems are available. The website has amazing illustrations to explain concepts to parents and kids. You can use the quizzes on the website to help your kid prepare for the real tests at school.
2. Freckle education: This best online learning platform for math resource for parents offers everything that your kid learns in class. You can learn concepts and easily help your kid understand their homework in no time. Practice workbooks, quizzes, and mental math activities are available for primary school kids.
3. Khan academy for kids: young learners can sit with their parents and enjoy math lessons designed to simplify concepts and later solve quizzes to test knowledge.

• Science for elementary school

1. McGraw Hill Science: this best online learning platform recourse provides online textbooks, worksheets, and creative learning activities that parents can use to teach science to kids. It even has online lab activities and home experiments for kids to enjoy while learning the basics of science.
2. Moby Max: using interactive science lessons they introduce all the basic concepts including life sciences, astronomy, geology, and much more. The lessons are easy to understand for parents and students alike.
3. Teacher vision: this website is science heaven for parents. Worksheets, apps, games, brainteasers, lesson plans, experiments ideas, and much more is available all in one place. Primary school kids can learn basic concepts and practice their knowledge by performing various science activities and solving tests.

• Social Studies

1. Liberty’s Kids videos: These videos are a goldmine for parents looking to excite their kids about social studies and all it comes with. Not only can you cover topics such as cultures, famous personalities, governments, and old civilizations, but the videos offer fun illustrations that your kid is sure to find interesting.
2. National Geographic kids: this website offers games and learning activities to teach young elementary school kids about social studies. It includes lessons on the history of animals extinct and living, human behavior, and other culture and civilizations of the past.

• Language and Grammar skills

1. Education: this website offers worksheets to help parents work on the sentence-building skills and language development of their kids. Depending on the level of language understanding, you can choose different packages to keep receiving worksheets and improve grammar. Parents can sign up on the website and start working easily.
2. Mr. Nussabum: this website uses the best method to learn i.e. play. Through fun games for kids, it offers interactive lessons on grammar, punctuation, spelling, and language comprehension skills by encouraging reading. Parents can learn the best ways to teach their kids using these games and illustrations.

• STEAM education

1. Mystery Science: this website is great for curious kids and all their questions. Parents can watch quick videos to understand various STEAM-related questions and then clarify concepts to their kids as well. The website uses illustrations and kid-friendly language which is easy to understand. Science, engineering, and technology have separate lessons for young kids and their parents.
2. STEM works: this website offers activities on all aspects of STEM education. The platform has separate activities for parents to do with kids to stimulate curiosity and clarify concepts. Kids can learn about how the technology works along with the science to discover new species and fossils, or how engineering works.
3. EDVON for elementary school, this website has a progression based STEAM curriculum with free pre-recorded lectures on some topics and provide the whole STEAM E-learning portal with an affordable monthly/yearly subscription

6th Grade- 9th Grade

• Mathematics and Physics

1. Math TV: this free online math and physics resource for parents has mental math activities, worksheets, and problem-solving questions. For 6th — 9th graders the basic math lessons are the ones to take. The peer-to-peer games and challenges stimulate problem-solving skills.
2. Illustrative Math: This website is designed to have math concepts and mathematics learning activities specifically for kids that are quick learners although you are free to choose a slower pace if you want. The courses and the mental math activities on this website are designed by experts from within the education industry. This resource takes you through all the concepts step by step and you can repeat the lesson or ask a question if you need more clarification.
3. Khan academy for 6–8th grade: math lessons available on this platform are some of the best available online. You can even choose their ‘get ready courses’ to prepare in advance for the next grade.
4. PhED interactive simulations: the curriculum for 8–9th-grade physics is divided into lessons and sub lessons. The website offers tutorials and simulations pre-recorded by teachers to explain basic concepts to students and parents at home. Kids can also take a look at the various experiments they can do at home to help solidify their understanding of physics.

• Sciences (Biology and chemistry)

1. ACS middle school chemistry: this free best online learning platform of biology and chemistry resource offers a curriculum based on US schools. Parents can download worksheets, pre-recorded lessons on specific topics, or ask questions from the experts at the ACS platform.
2. E-Achieve: This website offers biology, chemistry, and other science lessons in the form of online tutorials on various topics. Experiments for 9th graders and quizzes to test the knowledge are also available. Parents can use the lesson plans as a guide to help their kids stay on track or watch the various videos to explain concepts to the kids.
3. Hippo Campus: offers top-notch science lessons especially in life sciences or biology. You can watch only selective tutorials on the topics of interest or follow along with the entire curriculum. Clear explanations, quizzes, and practical examples are provided to help you teach kids at home.

• Social studies and history

1. Google Arts and culture: parents can use this best online learning platform to stimulate the curiosity of their kids and help clarify some of the technical details of the history lessons and textbooks. The only lacking of this app is the lack of a high number of educators on the platform. Nevertheless, it is a useful resource for parents helping their kids at home.
2. Smart Board: this best online learning platform offers games, activities, pre-recorded and written lessons on social studies for middle school kids. Students can solve games which are based on what they are currently learning in textbooks. Parents can perform various activities with kids to solidify their understanding of the history and cultures of the past.

• Language comprehension

1. Grammar Blast: this website works on advanced level grammar and language comprehension skills of parents specifically so they can work with their kids. Differences between who and whom, poetry understanding, etc. are offered here.
2. English Maven: this free online resource offers reading passages and tips & tricks to improve the language comprehension of middle school kids. To test the knowledge parents can quiz their kids on the passages based on the questions provided on the website.

• STEAM education

1. NASA for Students: here STEM experts from NASA have selected online activities, lessons, reading materials, and videos for parents and students to use so they can build on their existing STEM education. Concepts on merging science and technology to reach the moon, or using math and engineering to orbit around the earth are all discussed with an exciting twist to keep kids interested.
2. Dolphins’ academy: this platform offers courses and tutorials on all aspects of STEAM education. Counseling about future STEAM careers is also provided from experts on the website and professionals in the fields of STEAM. Parents and kids can do various activities and experiments to work on science, engineering, technology, and art skills.
3. EDVON: this STEAM education resource has interactive coding, robotics and math curriculums based on STEAM philosophy

10th Grade- 12th Grade

• Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics

1. Illuminations: this free online math and statistics resource comes from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics so you know the material available is authentic and up to date. Mobile games, mental math activities, and pop quizzes are only some of the great features of this website. You can download conceptual videos and watch them anytime to revise concepts to help your kid with high school math and statistics.
2. Khan Academy for high school: With personalized training and free lessons on math, physics, and statistics for parents and students, this nonprofit comprises of professors and educators from all over the world guarantee to give you a great understanding of all you want to learn. You can choose the curriculum of your school system and start learning in just a few minutes of signing up.
3. Share my Lesson: This is a free online resource for physics lessons for high school students. Quizzes, learning activities, and demonstrations of the three laws of Newton are only some of the features you will find on the website. It has card games so you can work on the concepts of physics anywhere anytime.

• Sciences (Biology and chemistry)

1. Freedom Homeschooling — OpenStax: this is a great science resource that offers lessons on biology, microbiology, and even AP chemistry classes for high school students. There are separate lesson plans for parents to help their kids when they run into challenging topics. Free web quizzes and problem-solving science activities are provided.
2. CK -12 offers very detailed lessons and explanations on a large number of topics. You can select the subject of choice whether it's biology, chemistry, zoology or AP science classes, and follow the step-by-step explanations of all the topics. Simply make a parent account and sign up to get started.

• History lessons for high school

1. Facing History and ourselves: this app is a one-stop for all your history questions. No doubt history is a tough subject that requires in-depth knowledge of what you are teaching. This online resource is a must-have for parents tackling the subject of history with their high schoolers. It explores different cultures, prejudice, and success stories of famous personalities and wars from the past.
2. Teaching American history: this website offers history lessons for high schoolers according to the curriculum used in schools. Beginning from the foundation of America to the different civil wars, every unit is divided into various topics and each is explained in detail for parents and students.

• Language comprehension

1. English for everyone: this free online resource offers advanced-level comprehension and reading passages that students can read and the parents can quiz them in the end. Or they can solve the tests provided on the website. Created by a team of expert educators, it works on skills such as deductive reasoning, logical inference, and language comprehension.
2. Read theory: this website is a must-have for high school students. It features language comprehension quizzes and activities styled in the format of games. The best feature is that all the tests are designed to prepare high school students for future standardized tests such as SATs. Join for free and get access to a ton of amazing worksheets and books to read.

• STEM education, coding, and robotics

1. Code.org for high school: this website offers online and offline coding and computer science education for kids at home. Parents can learn various skills to help their kids or the high school students can access the website and learn STEM skills themselves.
2. Engineering — Go for it: This website provides STEM education especially in the field of engineering. High school students can even go into the details of sub engineering fields such as biomedical and structural engineering. Experts from the field create profiles on the website and students or parents are encouraged to ask questions and learn more about STEM. The curriculum is very open and free and not restricted to any specific school or region.

Final Words

With the advanced curricula these days, parents need extra assistance teaching kids or helping them with school homework for that purpose, tutors are very valuable but due to the social distancing rules and economic crisis these days, it can be difficult to afford experienced tutors.

I encourage you to utilize this extensive list of free online resources for parents to teach their kids at home. I have been using them for a while now and my kid has learned so much because I have been able to explain various concepts using these platforms created by experts.

If you want to see significant improvement in your kids’ love for the school and clarify their concepts regarding basic education subjects, then click on the links right away and get started on teaching your kids today!