Free Online Resources for Families

Over the past few years, students across the country have had disruptions to their learning environment and more families than ever before are choosing out-of-the-box educational options: full-time online learning, homeschooling, or even microschooling. No matter which type of learning you prefer, families all over are searching for free resources to help educate their children.

Whether you’ve chosen a pod or your neighborhood school, educational resources can help you support your scholar’s learning at home. Below you’ll find a list of free online resources that are easy for families to use from home. 

Looking for more? Check out our list of 100+ free resources for teachers and schools shifting online or our list of offline learning fun

Learning Heroes

Learning Heroes

Learning Heroes mission is to inform and equip parents to best support their children’s educational and developmental success. Learning Heroes partners with some of the most trusted education and parent organizations to help save you time and bring you the best resources all in one place. You can search the resources by subject and grade level, and results are available in Spanish and English. Free Services Offered: Free search engine and results list.

How to use: Visit the website and use the search parameters to find specific resources.

CommonLit logo

CommonLit

CommonLit is a nonprofit education technology organization working to support all students with reading, writing, communication, and problem-solving skills. The CommonLit Literacy Model is built on a foundation of over 2,000 high-quality free reading passages for grades 3-12. Passages are available in Spanish. Free Services Offered: Free account access for teachers and students.

How to Use: Visit this website.

Engaging Every Student Logo

Engaging Every Student

This website offers a list of Dual Immersion Spanish Resources. You will find links for Spanish Language Games, Spanish Portals, Spanish Language E-Books and More for Emerging Readers, and more! Free Services Offered: Free list of websites offering Spanish Resources.

How to Use: Visit the website and scroll to the section you are looking for!

Khan Academy logo

Khan Academy

Khan Academy offers free courses of all grade levels to help students master subjects and accelerate their learning. Khan Academy is available in more than 40 languages! Free Services Offered: Free standards-aligned lessons ranging from Kindergarten to advanced math.

How to Use: Visit this website for the Spanish language version of the website.

Multilingual Reading & Listening Resources

Multilingual Reading & Listening Resources

This is a collection of free resources for educators and families looking to provide children with opportunities to strengthen their reading and listening skills in multiple languages. Free Services Offered: Free collection of resources

How to Use: Visit the website and click on the tile of the resource you want to access!

PuraVida Moms Logo

Resource Guide for Spanish Immersion Students

This is a blog post from a former Spanish teacher turned bilingual blogger who has curated a list of foreign language resources in reading, writing, speaking, listening and grammar – plus resources for parents who don’t speak Spanish. Free Services Offered: Free list of foreign language resources to help with Bilingual/Spanish education

How to Use: Read the blog here.

The Fable Cottage Logo

The Fable Cottage

The Fable Cottage is a website that has a host of bilingual tales for language learners. These stories are available in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. There are 10 stories on the site, and you have the option of listening to the text or watching the video that goes with the story. Free Services Offered: 10 stories available in 5 languages each!

How to Use: Visit the website!

The Spanish Experiment Logo

The Spanish Experiment

The Spanish Experiment is a website that has well-known children’s stories translated into Spanish and spoken by a native Spanish speaker. You can read along in Spanish or English. The website also contains free online beginner Spanish lessons with audio. Free Services Offered: 5 free stories with audio and text and 15 free beginner Spanish lessons

How to Use: Visit the website!

BrainPOP Espanol

BrainPOP Espanol

BrainPOP is a learning resource supporting core and supplemental subjects, reaching millions of learners worldwide through learning made visible through tools that challenge students to reflect, make connections, and engage in deeper, curiosity-driven learning. The videos on the website also come with engaging learning games, animated movies, and activities. There is a specific Spanish Brain POP website that offers all materials and videos in Spanish. Free Services Offered: A selection of content is available for free covering social sciences, math, health, technology, art and music, and Spanish.

How to use: Visit the website today!

SALSA: Spanish for Kids Logo

SALSA: Spanish for Children

SALSA blends puppets, animation, live action, and music to create a unique experience for first-time learners of Spanish language and culture. SALSA spices up learning by creating visually exciting production with funny characters that children can enjoy. SALSA also portrays the rice variety and heritage of Hispanic culture. Free Services Offered: Free access to 42 episodes of the show, standards alignment, and supporting materials.

How to Use: Visit the website to access the show! (Note, you have to sign in to assign the videos to Google Classroom and access the standards alignment, accounts are free)

Smithsonian Logo

Smithsonian Educational Resources

The Smithsonian Institution has curated a list of educational resources that are bilingual and in Spanish in the following content areas: Art and Culture, History and Social Studies, and Science and Nature. These resources are available for families, caregivers, teachers, and students. Free Services Offered: Free catalog of Spanish Resources from the Smithsonian Institution

How to Use: Visit the website to view the spreadsheet and click the URL to access the activities!

The Family Dinner Project

The Family Dinner Project

The Family Dinner Project offers a collection of imaginative games for kids. Many of these can serve as conversation starters to make meal times or car trips a bit more thoughtful and intentional. Games like “Where in the World?” foster coversations about world travel and geography, while games like “Going to Boston” use dice to practice math-skills.

How to use: Visit the website to peruse the game options. Pick out a few to try at dinner.

Marathon Kids

Marathon Kids

The mission of Marathon Kids is to inspire kids to live healthier lives and achieve their goals through running. Marathon Kids has a free parent section that offers printables and conversation starters that encourage parents to walk or run with their student while getting to know them better. Marathon Kids also offers a free run and read printable that allows kids to track their progress toward 26 books and 26 miles at the same time!

How to use: Register for a free account to download the printables.

Your Ultimate Guide to Parental Controls for Tech

Your Ultimate Guide to Parental Controls for Tech

As students spend an increasing amount of time on online platforms for education, many parents would like to be more involved in setting healthy boundaries for their children’s technology use. This guide dives into that very topic. It walks you through how to set up parental controls for whatever device you use, whether the operating system is Apple or Android.

How to use: Read the post for how-to instructions.

Parent Support for Online Learning

Parent Support for Online Learning

Parent Support for Online Learning offers mentorship and resources from experienced online educators. Wondering how to fix a bad WiFi connection? Looking for learning ideas? Craving a support network? Find help here.

How to use: Join the Facebook group today!

Your Free, Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling

Your Free, Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling

Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, but rules and regulations surrounding homeschooling differ by state. If you’re wondering whether homeschooling would be a good fit for you, you may have questions about how to switch to homeschooling and what resources are available. We created this guide to answer those questions.

How to use: Read the post to learn about homeschool resources and tips!

Guide to Online School

Your Free, Ultimate Guide to Online School

Maybe you’re thinking about switching to online schooling, but you’re not sure how to make the switch. How does online school work? Or, maybe you’re wondering whether your state has an option allowing you to online school for free. We created this ultimate guide to online school answer those questions.

How to use: Read the post to learn about online school resources and tips!

YouTube Learning

YouTube Learning

YouTube Learning offers families free livestreams from organizations such as Khan Academy Kids and The Princeton Review. Parents can also check out YouTube’s Back to School section, which features playlists on different school subjects as well as virtual field trips.

How to use: Visit the site to view a schedule of upcoming live streams.

Unite for Literacy Logo

Unite for Literacy

Unite for Literacy has developed an online library that provides free access to more than 400 original picture books, one fourth of them written in Spanish. The digital books provide audio narrations in more than 40 languages, spoken by native speakers in warm, expressive voices. Free Services Offered: Free digital books in Spanish with narration.

How to Use: Visit the website, select a book, and start reading!

TedEd

TedEd

TEDEd brings lessons to life for students through animation. TEDEd’s goal is to ignite curiosity among learners. To do this, TEDEd collects the best teacher lessons around the world. Then, it turns them into shareable animated videos for students.

How to use: Visit the website to find ideas or create customized lessons for your child.

Suessville

Suessville

This Dr. Suess-themed website provides families free activity ideas, recipes, video clips, printables, and more. Some of the website’s resources are also available in Spanish.

How to use: Visit the parents’ section of the website to peruse learning ideas.

Smithsonian Learning Lab

Smithsonian Learning Lab

The Smithsonian Learning Lab is a digital collection of images, audio, text, and other learning resources on a vast variety of subjects. With more than 5 million resources and 7,000 “collections,” families can explore lots of educational content.

How to use: Visit the website and browse.

Scholastic Learn at Home

Scholastic Learn at Home

Scholastic Learn at Home’s helps keep learning lessons built around meaningful stories and videos. Kids can do them on their own, or with a sibling or parent. This resource offers 5 days of cross-curricular journeys for the following age groups: Pre-K and K, Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3-5, and Grades 6+.

How to use: Visit the website and select your grade level.

PBS Learning Media

PBS Learning Media

PBS LearningMedia provides students with free lesson plans, videos, and games aligned with standards they are learning in the classroom.

How to use: Visit the website to sign up or start watching videos.

Native American Education for All Resources

Native American Education for All Resources

The National Indian Education Association, in partnership with IllumiNative, has developed free digital lessons for students in grades pre-K through 12. From astronomy to basket-weaving, families can use these enriching lessons to explore a wide variety of topics from the lenses of the Native culture.

How to use: Visit the National Indian Education Association website to explore the digital education tools and print lesson plans.

Microsoft Virtual Workshops

Microsoft Virtual Workshops

Microsoft offers free virtual workshops covering a variety of skills, with a special focus on STEM and coding. Most workshops are 30-60 minutes and geared toward students ages 8 and up.

How to use: Check for upcoming workshops on a topic your student is interested in, then sign up.