Educational games for fun

10 Free Online Educational Game Sites

MindShift

Mar 27, 2014

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By Ryan Schaaf

Web-based games can prove to be a treasure trove of learning opportunities, and there are a variety of content-areas, age ranges, and skill levels to choose from. The true pay dirt for browser-based learning games can be found on large online digital game hubs. Here are 10 game hubs players that teachers can use to as one tool in their arsenal.

1. Sheppard Software

Headed by Brad Sheppard, Sheppard Software hosts hundreds of free, online, educational games for kids. The site organizes its games into categories, which allow students and teachers to easily navigate by subject area and find a suitable game that caters to either an instructional need or a child’s sense of curiosity and thirst of knowledge and challenge.

2. PBS Kids Games

PBS KIDS creates curriculum-based entertainment. The games site hosts a number of browser-based gaming experiences based on popular literary and media franchises such as The Cat in the Hat, Curious George, Sesame Street, and more. Games are organized by subject-type, which includes math, healthy habits, science, reading, and teamwork.

3. Mr. Nussbaum

Created by Greg Nussbaum, a Virginia public school teacher, Mr. Nussbaum boasts over 3,500 content pages with a wide variety of learning games organized by content type and grade level. This site is also optimized for use on a tablet and an interactive whiteboard.

4. National Geographic Kids

The world-famous National Geographic hosts over 100 fun, engaging, and interactive science, action, adventure, geography, quiz, and puzzle games. For a free game hub, the production quality on games or interactives such as Wildest Weather, On the Trail of Captain John Smith, and The Underground Railroad: Journey to Freedom is truly remarkable.

5. Poptropica

Under the creative direction of Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Poptropica® is a virtual world in which kids explore and play in complete safety. Every month, millions of kids from around the world are entertained and informed by Poptropica's engaging quests, stories, and games.

6. Funbrain

Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

7. BBC Schools: Games

The British counterpart of our PBS, the BBC, offers interactive digital games and activities involving subjects such as literacy, numeracy, history, mathematics, music, and the arts. The games are also categorized into age ranges. The cartoon graphics are very appealing for children, but the content is stellar for teachers and parents that want children to play to learn.

8. Primary Games

With games and activities that meet curriculum needs for math, science, language arts, and social studies, Primary Games houses over 1,000 game titles. The site includes curriculum guides for teachers to use in conjunction with the games.

9. ABCYa.com

This game site offers teacher-created and approved educational computer games for elementary students to learn math and language arts on the web. Featured by The New York Times, Apple, and Fox News, ABCYa.com provides young children well-crafted games and activities.

10. Arcademic Skill Builders

Arcademic Skill Builders are online educational video games that offer a powerful approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills. Arcademic games challenge students to improve their scores through repetitive, timed learning drills that provide immediate feedback.

Ryan Schaaf is Assistant Professor of Technology at the School of Education at Notre Dame of Maryland University.

27 Best Educational Games for Kids to Play Sorted by Subject

Educational games make a great alternative for children who don't learn best through pencil and paper instruction.

According to educational nonprofit EDUCAUSE, a growing body of research shows game-based learning platforms “can create an engaging dynamic that inspires students to develop competencies and skills as they focus on the activities of the game.”

Regardless of the subject, educational games for kids can help you instill a love of learning in your own child. This applies whether they're learning through homeschooling, online learning or traditional classroom setting.

Below, we’ve organized some of the best educational games for kids by subject! Interested in games for a certain subject? Click one below and jump right to it:

• Mathematics
• Language arts
• Art
• Health and physical education
• Science
• Technology
• Social studies
• History
• Geography

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Web

Age: 6 to 14

Cost : All in-game educational content is free, Memberships available

Prodigy Math is the engaging, fantasy-based math platform used by over 100 million students, teachers and parents around the world.  

It’s curriculum-aligned, offering content from every major math topic from 1st to 8th grade. Above all, Prodigy’s mission is to help every student in the world to love learning.

After creating their own personalized math wizard, your child will compete in math battles against in-game characters, just like how role-playing games like Pokémon work. To win, they must answer sets of math questions.

The game also adapts in difficulty to suit your child’s learning style and grade level, helping them build key math skills. In one school district, research showed that students who used Prodigy Math mastered 68% more math skills on average when they used Prodigy Math!

Create your free parent account to follow your child's progress as they have fun learning math. You can also get a Membership to level up your Prodigy experience — packed with plenty of extra benefits for you and your child!

Available: Web

Age: 8 to 14

Cost: $20 per month, $40 per quarter, $60 per year

This is a middle school math game aligned with the common core and TEKS curricula. Your child will be tasked with helping Alfred, an inventor, save Mathlantis —  a chaotic and disordered world — by restoring the population’s math knowledge.

On this adventure, they’ll time-travel and meet famous mathematicians, help them regain their lost knowledge, and transform Mathlantis back to its original state.

Available: Apple App Store

Age: 8 to 14

Cost: Free, in-app purchases

Developed by Touch Press Games, this educational math game helps children understand the beginning thought process of algebra and explore longer, more complex algebraic equations.

In Twelve a Dozen, your child will join the numeric hero, Twelve, on a journey through a universe of numbers. She’s on a mission to rescue her family and the crumbling world of Dozenopolis from the destructive Ultimate Prime. And they’ll use their skills and understanding of core math concepts to solve puzzles.

Looking for more amazing math games for kids? Check our list of the 13 best math apps for kids in elementary school!

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore

Age: 7+

Cost: Free, in-app purchases

Embark on a journey into the world of art, creativity, and visual learning with your personal Art Guides: Tickles, Furnace, and Ruby!

Start with Art! will walk your child through four foundational art lessons:

• Art as language
• Message in art
• Line
• Shape

It also has engaging “Creativity Builders” art projects designed to foster creativity, encourage problem solving, and enhance critical thinking skills.

Each lesson is aligned to Creativity Express, a multi-award winning visual arts curriculum that professional educators and former Disney animators created!

Available: Web

Age: 6+

Cost: Free

Tate is a family of four art galleries in London, Liverpool, and Cornwall. Its children-focused project, Tate Kids, lets children play free art-related games and quizzes, get help on art homework, and share their creations!

In addition to completing fun quizzes, kids can help robots save famous art in “Art Parts,” create their own landscapes in “My Imaginary City,” and more! 

No matter what area of art your child is into, they’ll find something engaging, educational, and creative!

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play

Age: 4+

Cost: Free, in-app purchases

No crayons? Run out of sketchbook pages? No worries! 

Colorfy is a digital coloring book for kids of all ages, filled with high-quality images. With over 1000 pictures to paint, your child will have the choice of florals, animals, patterns, gardens, mandalas, famous paintings, and other creative images.

This coloring game also includes a new AR virtual gallery that lets your child see what their art would look like in the real world!

Language arts games

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Web

Age: 4 to 18

Cost: 30-day free trial, then $9. 99 per month

As outlined on HOMER’s website, their “mission is to provide the best educational start possible by offering personalized, fun, and proven learning products for children.” 

This early learning program has two products: Reading and Stories.

HOMER Reading combines a child’s current reading level and their passions, in order to create a personalized learn-to-read plan. Using that child’s same interests, HOMER Stories curates stories they’ll love — from classic to contemporary.

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Web

Age: 4 to 18

Cost: Free, $34.95 per year (family annual membership up to five students)

This program is a K-12 supplemental literacy tool designed to help children at every learning level learn spelling and hone grammar skills.

Plus, it helps them build vocabulary retention and reading comprehension.

You can try out 40+ free online spelling games which come with pre-populated word lists. They also offer a premium membership that gives your child access to all of Vocabulary Spelling City’s games with customized lists, homework practice, and more.

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore

Age: 3+

Cost: $1.99

Based on the children’s animated television series on Nickelodeon, Wallykazam! helps preschoolers learn early reading skills.

Kids will join Wally Trollman, his pet dragon Norville, the mischievous Bobgoblin, Gina Giant, and Libby Light Sprite in magical and hilarious adventures! They’ll play games and learn letter recognition, letter tracing, and phonics.

Health and physical education games

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore

Age: 5 to 12

Cost: Free, premium version available

The purpose of GoNoodle is to help parents and teachers get kids moving, with the help of engaging video content. As their app description states: “make screen time active with 300+ videos that feature kids songs, dance, yoga, mindfulness, stretching, and more!”

Whether you want to throw your children a dance party to get them moving or make cleaning up around the house fun, GoNoodle has the perfect video.

Available: Web

Age: 4 to 13

Cost: Free

When it comes to health, it’s important that children learn about their bodies early to stay healthy. Although this website is outdated, there are 36 health-related games across four categories that will help children love to care about their health.From allergies and body parts to dental hygiene and staying fit, playing these games can introduce them to new concepts and help reinforce what they learn in school.

Available: Apple App Store

Age: 4+

Cost: Free

Developed by New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab, Eat & Move-O-Matic aims to encourage young people to learn about — and practice — healthy and active lifestyles.

Children scroll through a food list and match it with something from an activity list. Based on the food and activity combination you choose, it will tell you how long it takes to burn off that food’s calories. For example, eating a medium-sized banana with 27 calories will take you four minutes of playing high-impact active video games to burn off, at 7.2 calories per minute.

With 35 activities and 80 foods, children will make new discoveries about their favorite foods and get healthy “Pro Tips.”

Science games

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Microsoft

Age: 4+

Cost: $2.99 per app, discounted bundles available

Tinybop can be summed up in three words: play, create, and learn. 

Using educational apps and digital games created for curious and creative minds, children can explore the awesome and invisible wonders of the world!

Children will develop foundational science literacy while engaging with educational games about the human body, plants, homes, weather, space, animals, states of matter, and other exciting topics.

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore

Age: 4+

Cost: Free with in-game purchases

Flowing from a belief that the power of play jumpstarts imagination, its games are open-ended, so children are encouraged to experiment and make new connections. The educational game developer Toca Boca creates digital toys from the kid perspective. 

Among Toca Boca’s products, science-related ones include Toca Lab: Elements and Toca Lab: Plants.

In Elements, children will explore the exciting world of science and meet all 118 elements from the periodic table, as they experiment with lab equipment!

And in Plants, they’ll have the opportunity to see how plants evolve, while collecting up to 35 different plant characters!

Available: Apple App Store

Age: 4+

Cost: Free

One of the most popular educational sites today, Wonderopolis was created by the National Center for Families in 2010.

Camp Wonderopolis started as a free way to keep children and their families learning outside of school and help avoid summer learning loss — the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the course of long school holidays. There are five Wonderopolis camps:

• Flex Your Wonder
• Mission to Wonder
• Symphony of Wonders
• Connect with Your Wonders
• Build Your Own Wonderocity

Each one aims to keep children engaged with fun, interactive STEM and literacy-building topics boosted by Maker experiments!

Available: Apple App Store

Age: 4+

Cost: Individual and Family Plans available, starting at $9 per month

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, said: “In fifteen years, we’ll be teaching programming just like reading and writing… and wondering why we didn’t do it sooner.” 

Recognizing its importance, Tynker has created award-winning coding courses that are fun and offer self-paced learning for all experience levels.

With over 3,700 fun modules, Tynker designed its lessons to motivate children to further advance their skills, while earning cool new badges! They’ll also have help along the way thanks to interactive explanations, how-to videos, mini-game previews, and more.

Available: Apple App Store

Age: 7+

Cost: Free (in-app purchases), paid versions ($4.99)

Help! R-obbie the Robot crashed his spaceship in a galaxy far away and doesn’t have enough energy to get back to his planet all by himself. 

That’s where your child comes in. Using drag-and-drop programming instructions, they’ll help R-obbie reach the fuel levels he needs to get back home.

This is a programming game that helps people learn how to code in a child-friendly way. Your child will learn procedures, loops, and conditional instructions all while learning how fun — and accessible — programming can be!

Available: Web

Age: 10+

Cost: Free

In partnership with E-Line Media and the Institute of Play, Gamestar Mechanic is an online game and community with the sole aim of helping children learn the guiding principles of game design in a highly engaging environment.

There are three components to Gamestar Mechanic: Play, Design, and Share.

Here’s a quick overview of how it works:

1. Your child will start by going on an exciting single-player quest to learn about the principles of game design, while earning “sprites.”
2. After exhibiting a certain level of mastery, they can use their sprites to design their own original games!
3. Then, if your child wishes, they may publish their game in Game Alley as well as review and collaborate on other players’ games.

Have you thought about a STEM program?

If your child loves technology games, they might benefit from a STEM program. STEM programs help kids build key STEM skills – all while they have fun!

Learn more

Available: Web, Apple App Store, Google Play

Age: 2 to 11

Cost: Free

Starring some of children’s favorite television characters, the social studies games on PBS Kids explore culture, different environments, identity, governance, science, and more.

Not sure there’s something for your child? PBS Kids offers a variety of styles of games — fromJet’s Planet Pinball to learn about our solar system to Fidgits to the Rescue! where they build structures to help victims of environmental disasters. There’s something for every type of learner.

Available: Web, Apple App Store, Google Play

Age: 8+

Cost: Free

In 2009, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded iCivics to reimagine civic education. Since its inception, her vision has been “to cultivate a new generation of students for thoughtful and active citizenship. Civic knowledge is a prerequisite for civic participation. Yet for decades, civic education had largely disappeared from school curricula and the repercussions are undeniable.”

Taking a game-based approach, iCivics transforms abstract concepts into problems that every child will face in real life. 

If it’s used in your child’s class, they’ll have a class code to sign in. If it isn’t, they can still make their own account to play engaging and educational games that will help make them better citizens!

Available: Apple App Store, Web

Age: 6+

Cost: Free, in-app purchases

This social studies game allows children to “meet” other kids around the world through photo- and audio-based stories called “A Day in My Life.” Choose from places like Haiti, New York City, the Netherlands, or Indonesia to hear each storyteller’s language as well as learn geographic, cultural, and political facts about each country.

Depending how your child would like to explore each friend’s story, they can choose from three different approaches: Adventure, Start to Finish, and Conversations.

History games

Available: Web, Apple App Store

Age: 10+

Cost: Free, Silver ($7. 99) or Gold (24.99) Memberships

If your child loves history, mystery and a great story, keep reading. 

Created by a parent, educator and anthropologist, this educational game brings fun historical facts, archaeology, and world cultures together.

You’re summoned to an old manor, full of ancient relics and mysterious people. But why? Unravel the secrets of a lost clan and claim your right to travel through time!

Your child will embark on a point-and-click journey that encourages exploration, self-expression, and self-directed learning — all while learning real history.

Available: Apple App Store, Google Play

Age: All ages (However, children under 16 are advised to have an adult present.)

Cost: Free

With this engaging app, Civilisations AR puts puts history in your hand with the BBC’s first ever Augmented Reality app. You and your child will discover things like ancient Egyptian secrets and reveal hidden layers beneath Renaissance masterpieces.

Whether at home or on a walk in the park, you can use Civilisations AR to bring realistic, to-scale artifacts to life. Become the explorer as you move, scale, and rotate the collection. And, if interested, use features like the “Spotlight” to reveal audio guides and special features, or the “X-Ray” to discover some of history’s greatest secrets.

Available: Apple App Store

Age: 7+

Cost: Free, in-app purchases ($2.79 to $13.99)

Children will have fun discovering the ancient world and exploring through games and adventures. With vibrant colors and high-quality images, they’ll find themselves engaged with the history of 14 different civilizations.

Kids also get to create their own avatar! And when they do, playing the game will allow them to level it up so they can unlock some awesome prizes.

Available: Web

Age: 6+

Cost: Free

Parents may remember the National Geographic Kids magazine. Now, children can engage with the same fun aspects of the magazine online.

To learn more about geography, head over to their website for some fact-filled, fast-paced fun! There are many educational quizzes, funny fill-ins, and action-adventure games to play.

Available: Web

Age: 6+

Cost: Free

Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

Your child will just have to hop on the internet to find out. In collaboration with education publishing company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Google Earth created a series of Carmen Sandiego games: The Crown Jewels Caper, Tutankhamun's Mask Caper, and The Keys to the Kremlin Caper.

Your child will help Carmen Sandiego track down burglars working for a global criminal organization called VILE. Flying from continent to continent, players interview characters to gain clues that help track down the burglars while testing their geography knowledge.  

Simply go to Google Earth → Voyager → Games → Scroll down!

Available: Web

Age: 6+

Cost: Free

Created by education publishing company Houghton Mifflin, GeoNet is a geography game led by Chester the beaver. Children first choose where in the world they’d like to go, then answer questions broken down into six categories: the world in spatial terms, places and regions, physical systems, human systems, environment and society, and the uses of geography.

Chester will ask different types of multiple choice questions. But don’t worry -- if they get it wrong the first time, they can keep trying until they get it right. Then, Chester will give a short explanation as to why that answer was correct! And if your child doesn’t find Level 1 challenging enough, try Level 2!

Gamification in education need not be limited to the classroom. Encouraging your child to spend their screen time playing educational video games for kids not only strengthens their skills in various subjects but can also help transform them into lifelong learners!

Educational games - entertainment and games without a computer for children!

Each game develops some quality. Here we present games designed to develop any useful skills in your child:

• mindfulness
• speed
• endurance
• patience
• dexterity
• accuracy, eye
• reaction rate
• cleverness
• imagination
• artistry
• sociability (separately - dating games)
• accuracy

Save for yourself, share with friends:

Another great popular yard football game. Easily and naturally develops accuracy , reaction speed and consideration of the future great football player.

More about the game Canopy

Rating : 3.4 (19 votes), comments : 1

This game will help to introduce a group of guys easily, quickly and fun. It is very lively and noisy, but it quickly unites the children's team.

More about the game Bedspread

Rating : 3.2 (votes 34), comments : 2

Famous yard football game. While playing it, the guys perfectly train coordination movements, the ability to control the ball and accuracy .

More about the game Thousand

Rating : 3.1 (30 votes), comments : 2

A fun intellectual game for children and teenagers . Danetki are such riddles for older children. You can play both together and in a small company .

More about the game Danetki

Rating : 3.3 (463 votes), comments : 11

A fun skill game with a ball. It is perfect for both the street and the beach, as well as for children's party in a fairly large room.

More about the game Cripple

Rating : 3.5 (343 votes), comments : 32

Fascinating modern cubes for children and adults will help develop dexterity fine motor skills and coordination. You can play both alone and with several players. More about the game Jenga She will help boys to choose the strongest dexterous and fighting.

More about the game Petushki

Rating : 3.3 (votes 389), comments : 46

Traditional Russian entertainment is a lotto game. Simple rules and an interesting process will allow you to quickly teach even the smallest kids this game and spend some interesting evenings in a warm family circle.

More about the game Lotto0006 reaction . Players are required to focus at most and distinguish a sparrow from a crow. Think it's that easy?!

More about the game Sparrows-Crows

Rating : 3.5 (votes 456), comments : 35

By the way, today's children and teenagers have gotten used to playing it on the skating rink in winter, and on roller skates in summer.

More about the game Tea-tea-help out

Rating : 3.7 (votes 248), comments : 53

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Developing games, entertainment, magic tricks.