We all want the best for our children—in both school and life. We at CodaKid understand this, and that is why we scoured the web for the best online educational programs for kids.
Given the incredible advancement in technology and the exponential growth of the web, online educational games for kids are abundant and relatively easy to find. There is a wealth of online opportunities available for your kids to develop their skills if you just know where to look.
What is the best part of online educational programs for kids? They can be done from the safety of your home!
From completely free resources to free-to-try internet academies, here are 13 of the best online educational programs for kids:
Table of Contents
CodaKid — Online Coding for Kids
Rounding out this list of best online educational programs for kids is our own platform, CodaKid: an online resource full of award-winning online coding courses targeted specifically for young learners aged 8 and up.
Winner of a Parents’ Choice GOLD Award and a CODiE Finalist for Best Coding and Computational Thinking Solution, CodaKid is an online coding academy that teaches kids how to create games, apps, Minecraft mods, Roblox games, and Unity projects with real programming languages and professional tools. We have affordable monthly and yearly subscriptions for access to the courses. What’s more, you get access to a team of friendly teachers who can help your child during their coding journey, at their own pace.
As mentioned earlier, we believe coding has become a critical must-have skill for students in 2020. Tech industries are constantly expanding, and giving your kids the tools to succeed in those industries will open up incredible opportunities for them. By teaching kids real-life programming you are equipping them for the future.
CodaKid’s online classes are all self-paced and include live support from engineers, giving your kids all the guidance and encouragement they could need. By making computer programming fun and engaging through game design, we hope for CodaKid students to develop real-world skills like tenacity, patience, problem-solving, and rationalization.
Find out why CodaKid is loved by so many kids and parents by starting a free trial today!
ABCMouse.com — Full Online Curriculum for Ages 2-8
Winner of the Mom’s Choice GOLD Award, Teachers’ Choice Award, and Parents’ Choice GOLD Award, ABCMouse is a “global education initiative” that aims to help kids start strong in their academic journey. They offer intuitive and interactive tools to strengthen the foundational education of young learners.
With over 850 lessons spread out over 10 levels, ABCMouse’s online curriculum is extensive, engaging, and highly educational. Initiated by Age of Learning, Inc., this subscription-based online educational program for kids uses videos, games, printables, songs, and other online interactive media to help early learners succeed in their school programs.
Kids can enjoy over 9,000 online activities from the comfort and safety of their own homes.
PBS Kids — 360-Degree Approach Towards Reaching Kids
Do your kids love the Wild Kratts? What about Arthur, Curious George, or Jet—from Ready Jet Go? Then they’re going to love learning via the PBS KIDS website. With hundreds of incredibly unique and colorful games featuring beloved characters from the PBS Kids channel, this platform teaches your child the fundamentals of critical thinking, imagination, and problem-solving in the most entertaining and enjoyable way possible.
PBS KIDS strives to make a positive impact on children using curriculum-based entertainment. Their 360-degree approach to imparting education makes full use of interactive, intuitive online media. By leveraging technology and characters that young learners are already familiar with, they hope to inspire in them a love for learning and a thirst for knowledge.
Kiz Phonics — Phonics Activities for Pre-K to 2nd Grade
Phonics is a method used to teach reading and writing by developing “phonemic awareness”—the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds of a language. It’s meant to help learners master the sound of letters so that they can eventually master words.
Kiz Phonics makes use of this technique to teach young children—specifically, kids aged 3-8—how to identify the words they read by sounding them out; in other words, through phonics.
It’s important that children start learning how to read at home rather than in school. A safe, familiar environment is more conducive to learning, and building a strong foundation in literacy early on will give them a significant advantage in a classroom setting. Kiz Phonics, as an online educational program for kids, gives parents the tools they need to start strengthening that foundation as early as possible.
ReadWriteThink — Extensive Interactive Resources for Grades K-12
ReadWriteThink’s mission is to “provide educators, parents, and afterschool professionals” with high-quality tools, materials, and strategies for different academic courses. With lesson plans, student interactives, printables, and even mobile apps for language arts and literacy, ReadWriteThink is definitely a comprehensive resource platform worth visiting.
The different resources are tailored for educators, parents and afterschool professionals teaching grades K-12. They’re professionally designed, intensively tested, and—best of all—100% free.
Reading and writing can be incredibly difficult when they don’t automatically come naturally to a student, so the quality of the instruction and learning materials can make or break a child’s education.
#MetKids — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for Kids
“Made for, with, and by kids,” MetKids is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website that is tailored specifically to introduce children to the colorful world of art and art history. With fun, creative media like behind-the-scenes videos, DIY projects that they can try at home, and even a fully interactive map of The Met, kids can discover love and appreciation for art.
The #MetKids blog offers fascinating art facts and art history tidbits written in a fun, engaging way. They also have a “the time machine” that lets kids explore different time periods, learning the culture, inventions, and innovations of that time in different locations.
With this online platform, The Met hopes to encourage the inner artist in every child by inspiring an inclination for creativity and color.
For additional resources of creativity make sure to check out CodaKid game design courses by signing up for a free trial!
National Geographic Kids — Introducing Kids to the World
Fun science experiments you can try at home? Quirky quizzes? Homework help resources?
The National Geographic Kids’ website has something to satisfy even the most curious of little minds! Your children can browse stunning photos of nature at its most beautiful or watch videos of baby animals in their natural habitat. They can also discover in-depth stories of different people, places, and cultures through interactive media and fun games.
Although the website is more of a colorful, multimedia resource and lacks a specific, structured curriculum, National Geographic Kids still deserves to be called one of the best online educational programs for kids. Perfect for kids as young as 3 and as old as 14, it utilizes technology and leverages the very best of interactive media to bring users a learning experience they aren’t likely to forget.
Little Pim — Online Language Learning Subscription for Kids
With over 25 awards and international press coverage to its name, Little Pim is one of the best online educational programs for kids to learn a language. It’s known as the “most comprehensive foreign language program for kids” and offers a whopping 12 foreign languages to choose from!
Think your child is too young to learn a new language? Think again.
According to the Little Pim website, the best time to learn a language is under the age of six. At this age, children are open and receptive to learning new things.
Mastering a language as foreign and complex as French, Chinese, or Italian can be made fun and enjoyable with Little Pim’s Entertainment Immersion Method®. This patented technique engages learners by appealing to a child’s natural inclination—and love—for play. It encourages recognition through repetition. The more your child interacts with their professionally-prepared activities and mediums, the more they learn and absorb.
Being multi-lingual can open so many doors for your children, granting them access to incredible opportunities. By inspiring love and mastery for different languages early on, Little Pim makes it possible for students to broaden their horizons.
SumDog — Personalized Maths & Spelling Practice that Students Love
For students from kindergarten to eighth grade, SumDog is a cutting-edge site that offers interactive content and intuitive media to help kids with math and spelling. Tailored to engage learners from a wide age range through multi-player games and free, easy-to-use online tools, Sumdog is proven to accelerate academic progress.
SumDog’s personalization feature is where this online program truly shines. Their platforms utilize an adaptive learning engine to help guide different students’ learning pace and discover their individual strengths and weaknesses.
SumDog can be used at home and at school, affording students the help they need at both common critical places for educational growth.
SplashLearn — The Complete K-5 Math Learning Program Built for Your Child
Also known as SplashMath, SplashLearn is an online platform specifically geared towards younger students in grades K-5 who need additional help with math. It aims to boost students’ performance through fun, interactive methods like online games, math apps, printables, and even digital classrooms. Their mission is to “boost confidence” and “increase scores” to help young learners get ahead.
SplashLearn offers what they call personalized learning paths to help students catch up, enrich their learning, or just practice and improve their current skills.
With mastery in over 350 math skills available, SplashLearn is incredibly comprehensive and covers most of the bases. By using fun interactive games, rewards and experiences, children will feel more motivated than ever to practice and master their mathematical skills.
Khan Academy — Providing Free World-Class Education for Anyone, Anywhere
Yet another personalized online resource for a myriad of subjects, Khan Academy is a powerful educational program that provides free tools for students to learn anything, anywhere.
Utilizing intuitive technology and professional feedback, Khan Academy has created videos, global classrooms, and other interactive online content for a wide variety of subjects. Learn anything from basic math to AP calculus, science, and engineering to economics and finance. They offer a computing course that teaches coding for kids—a valuable skill that any student can benefit from—and even in-depth test prep for SAT, LSAT, GMAT, and more.
Through their partnership with institutions like NASA, The Museum of Modern Art, MIT, and The California Academy of Sciences, Khan Academy also offers specialized content for students and teachers that you won’t find elsewhere.
Coolmath — Making Math Enjoyable
Whether your kid loves math, hates math, or just needs help passing their math class, Coolmath is a website worth checking out. With math games and step-by-step lesson guides for pre-algebra, algebra, and pre-calculus, Coolmath is one of those online educational programs for kids that caters more to casual, at-your-own-pace learning than strict, curriculum-bound study.
Founded in 1997 by a certified math teacher, the goal of this website is to make math fun and enjoyable for kids of all ages. The games on this site are an enjoyable mix of math fundamentals and good old problem solving, meant to give users a mental workout. It doesn’t teach coding for kids, but it definitely encourages logical thinking!
Scratch — Imagine, Program, Share
As a kid-friendly coding program that encourages users to “create and share,” Scratch is an incredibly gentle introduction to coding for kids. Specifically geared towards children aged 6-12, Scratch aims to inspire children to think creatively and reason systematically by teaching them the basics of coding. They implement tools, techniques, and interactive content to help familiarize children with common programming languages in a fun and enjoyable way.
On the subject of coding, we personally feel it’s become less of an optional hobby and more of a critical, highly beneficial skill to have. Aside from the fact that the computer engineering industry is growing more and more each year, coding for kids instills in them universal skills like problem-solving, discipline, and creativity.
As a free educational programming website, Scratch is primarily used by kids. However, it can be used by anyone interested in learning how to code. They use an easy-to-use visual block interface that saves beginners from the grief and frustrations of writing out code. Rather than sweat the details, this easy-to-use interface helps them focus instead on the basics of game development, graphic design, and animation.
CodaKid’s award-winning Scratch program has 14 courses, 40 quests, and 90 challenges with mentors who are professional programmers that guide you every step of the way! Try it for free!
Conclusion
There you have it, the 13 Best Online Educational Programs for Kids:
- CodaKid
- ABCmouse.com
- PBS Kids
- Kiz Phonics
- ReadWriteThink
- MetKids
- National Geographic Kids
- Little Pim
- Sum Dog
- SplashLearn
- Khan Academy
- Cool Math
- Scratch
Be sure to try our award-winning courses today at no cost!
Do you know of other good online educational programs for kids? Comment below!
