Across the world people are being impacted and forced to make big changes to the way they live, and in many countries and states schools are being shut down, which means parents are looking for the best online learning tools for their kids. Luckily, there are a lot of online learning tools that can be used from the comfort of your own home, and many of them offer free trials. While you are busy working from home, you’ll want to keep your kids busy as well.
Many school districts have provided kids a way to learn from home, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Your kids likely have a lot of time on their hands these days, and keeping their brains learning new things is always a great plan.
Best Online Learning Websites for Kids
- ABCmouse: 30-day trial + 49% off annual
- Reading IQ: 7,000 books with 30-days of free access
- Adventure Academy: One month free, 49% off annual plan
- KiwiCo: Save 15%
- Homer: Try it for free
- Curious World: $6.39 per month with coupon
- Reading Eggs: Two weeks free
- Rosetta Stone: 20 languages, 3-day trial
- Udemy: Lots of courses
- The Great Courses: One month free
- Funbrain: No account needed
- Schoolastic Highlights: Physical books for delivery
Some of the options are designed to cater to a younger crowd while others are more in-tune with the needs of your older students and how they learn. We have found some options that excel in teaching reading skills, while others are based around science, and some are even hands-on kits that you can buy to go with some of the online portions offered.
Each of these options excels in different areas of online education, so you may find that you want to sign up for more than one of them for your kids. Read below to see which of these will work best for you!
ABCmouse
ABCmouse offers a full online curriculum for children from the age of 2 through 8. There are over 9,000 activities spread between reading, math, science, arts & colors, and you can do it from anywhere. The website can be access via a computer, and ABCmouse offers mobile and tablet apps for iOS and Android.
There are 10 different levels with over 850 lessons for your kids to complete. It’s interactive to help keep your kids wanting to do more, and ABCmouse has a “tickets and rewards” system for the little ones to make it a bit more like a game instead of just straight learning.
With the reading curriculum kids will learn the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters, phonics, sentence structure, and more. For math, kids will learn numbers 1 – 120, place value, addition, and subtraction. Science and social studies lessons help teach kids about body health, maps, the solar system, and more. For arts and colors, ABCmouse goes over shades of colors, primary and secondary color differences, number and letter dot-to-dot activities, and lots of other activities.
You can get started with ABCmouse for free using the 30-day trial, or you can sign up for an annual subscription and save 49% right now.
ABCMouse
Start your free trial at ABCMouse
ABCmouse is aimed at a wide age group and teaches all the basics kids learn at school. Sign up for a trial or annual membership today.
Reading IQ
As the name would suggest, Reading IQ is based more around reading and a full literacy experience instead of offering a wider variety of learning. It’s designed to be used for kids from ages 2 – 12, and it has a library of over 7,000 books for all different reading levels from publishers like Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Boxcar Children, and more.
You can access Reading IQ from a phone, tablet, or PC, and each account can support up to three different children. If you don’t know where to get started, Reading IQ can recommend books for your child based upon his or her reading level, and there are tons of popular titles based around characters that your children already know and will be interested in. There are over 700 books that are professionally voiced, so your kids can also listen to books instead of just sit and read them on a screen.
Reading IQ offers a free one-month trial of its service, and it renews at $7.99 per month after that. You can also sign up for the annual subscription right now and save 58%, making it well worth having the subscription for 12 months.
Reading IQ
Start your free trial at ReadingIQ
Reading IQ focuses on your child’s reading abilities and comprehension and has a vast assortment of books from big publishers.
Adventure Academy
Adventure Academy is aimed at a slightly older audience than ABCmouse and Reading IQ, as it’s designed for kids ages 8 – 13. It’s a bit more game and video based for the age group and focuses on reading, math, science, and more. For language arts, Adventure Academy focuses on spelling, language developments, comprehension, and more. Math dives deeper into multiplication, division, geometry, and word problems, while the science program teaches about forces, motion, atoms, and more.
Kids can create their own adventure and even play with friends, making it a bit more interactive to keep their attention. Players have a home that can be customized, and there is a digital marketplace that they can unlock items through completing assignments. It’s available to be used on basically all platforms.
Right now you can get your first month of Adventure Academy for free, or you can sign up for an annual subscription and save 49%.
Adventure Academy
Start your free trial at Adventure Academy
Aimed at slightly older kids, Adventure Academy makes learning fun by keeping it a little more interactive.
KiwiCo
KiwiCo is more of a build-it-yourself type of learning for kids, but right now the company is also offering a variety of free resources to help your kids learn at home, even without buying the kits. There are activities for kids ranging in age from 2 to 12+, along with different downloadable and printable projects and learning sheets to help keep their brains fresh.
On the project side, KiwiCo sells various crates that contain DIY projects that you and your kids can build in the comfort of your own home. The Panda Crate is designed for kids up to two years old, anmd the Eureka Crate can be used by anyone over the age of 14. There are a ton of options, with some focusing on science, others art, geography, and even engineering.
You’ll want to check these out. Right now KiwiCo is offering 15% off all the kits with the code LEARNING.
KiwiCo
Start your free trial at Kiwi
Some of the KiwiCo resources are available online, and some of the kits you purchase for an at-home learning experience.
Homer
Homer is an educational site that’s aimed at the younger kids in your home. It is best for children ages 2 – 8 and provides them with a personalized learning path to help them master new skills long the way. In addition to personalizing the program for each kid, Homer helps keep things fun and fresh by mixing up how the kids are learning the new skills and challenging them along the way.
Each membership includes four customizable profiles, so each of your kids can learn on their own and go down their own path. Right now you can get started with Homer for free by entering your child’s name, entering their birthday, selecting some of the things they like, and answering basic questions about their current skills.
Homer
Start your free trial at Homer
Homer is designed for kids aged 2 – 8 and offers a great learning plan and practice menu for keeping the kids entertained.
Curious World
Curious World is an online learning tool for kids aged 2 to 7. The children learn through various games, videos, and books on the service. There are hands-on activities that go beyond just math and literacy, and your kids can even play it from a phone or tablet without any ads.
It utilizes cartoons that your children know and love to keep them entertained. Use the coupon code CURIOUS_20 to save 20% on the monthly or annual subscription. This makes it $6.39 a month or $51.99 for the year.
Curious World
Start your free trial at Curious World
Curious World can be used on your phone or PC, and right now you can save 20% on a subscription.
Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs is a reading-focused online tool that can help children from age 2 through 13 learn how to read. It uses scientific research to help your child along the path, and is trusted by over 12,000 elementary schools across the world to help students. There are over 2,000 eBooks that your kids will be able to access, and you can track progress with detailed reports.
Get started today with two weeks of free access.
Reading Eggs
Star your free trial at Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs can help children aged 2 to 13 learn how to read, and right now you get two weeks of access for free!
Rosetta Stone
Something that many schools focus on nowadays is teaching kids a second language. None of the other learning programs here fill this void, but Rosetta Stone is one of the best options out there for it. Rosetta Stone can teach you one of 20 different languages through several different visual and audible methods. You can use it on your phone, PC, and more, so you can learn it from anywhere.
Right now, Rosetta Stone is offering a free 3-day trial of any language, but you can also sign up for annual or lifetime plans. Right now, lifetime plans are discounted by $100, making it a one-time payment of just $199.
Rosetta Stone
Start your free trial at Rosetta Stone
Whether you want to learn Spanish, French, Chinese, or Hindi, Rosetta Stone is the place to do it.
Udemy
With Udemy, you sign up and pay for the courses that interest you. It’s a little less of a school replacement and more of a passion learning type of system. You sign up for a full course around a designated subject, and are taught with various methods, including written documents and videos.
There are over 100,000 online courses, ranging in variety from app development to fitness, photography, music, and more. If you want to challenge your kids to really learn a new skill while they are out of school, Udemy is a great way to do just that.
Udemy
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Udemy offers individual courses instead of a full curriculum, but you only pay for what the courses you want to take.
The Great Courses
Instead of signing up for a program that teaches you the basics of core classes, The Great Courses is aimed at those who want to dive deeper into specialty topics. You can sign up for courses that appeal to your direct interests, from learning to draw to photography, learning a new instrument, and so much more.
You can sign up for a free month of access right now, and after that it renews at either $19.99 per month or $10 per month if you opt for the quarterly plan.
The Great Courses
Save up to 70% at The Great Courses
Much like Udemy, The Great Courses offers people the ability to pick a topic that interests them to learn more about. Give the extensive catalog a look over to see if anything appeals to you.
Funbrain
This one isn’t quite like the others and is a little less structured, but it’s still a great way to keep your kids learning. It has activities and games for children in grades Pre-K through 8, and offers games, reading, videos, math zone, and a playground. Kids can read popular books like The Cat that Broke the Internet’s Back, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and more.
If you want something that’s completely free and requires no account, this may be a great option for you.
Funbrain
Start learning at Funbrain
There’s no account to monitor progress, but it’s completely free and a worthwhile option to consider.
Schoolastic Highlights
The way Schoolastic Highlights works is different than the others in that it’s not a monthly subscription, but instead you are buying different “Success Packs”, workbooks, and other learning activities for your child based on their age. This means that you receive physical copies of what you order in the mail, so obviously you can’t get started on the learning today, but it’s great to have physical copies instead of just online options for your kids.
With these you can order things for children as young as newborn to show them their first 1010 Words, and it goes up to as high as 9 years old on some of the more advanced stuff. If you don’t just want to keep your kids in front of a screen all day, you’ll want to order some of these books and activities.
Schoolastic Highlights
See the learning options at Schoolastic Highlights
This isn’t an online tool, but it’s a great option for the time when you want your kids to take a break from the screen and still keep learning. Check out all the options now.
