This collection provides a list of free educational resources for K-12 students (kindergarten through high school students) and their parents and teachers. This page is being updated and cleaned up during the COVID-19 crisis. Please tell us if we're missing something valuable.

Below you will find free video lessons/tutorials; free mobile apps; free audiobooks, ebooks and textbooks; quality YouTube channels; free foreign language lessons; test prep materials; and free web resources in academic subjects like literature, history, science and computing.

Home Schooling Resources During COVID-19

: Day-to-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking and learning. Goes from PreK to 9th grade.

Free Audio Books, eBooks and Textbooks

- PhysicsCentral, a web site run by The American Physical Society (an organization representing 48,000 physicists), has created a series of comic books designed to get kids excited about physics. Among other comics, you can can read

: Our site provides a meta collection of free textbooks available on the web. It covers everything from Art History to Biology, Math, Physics, and Psychology.

, and they're available free online. Ideal for the older student.

, said that if you spent just 15 minutes a day reading the right books, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. He published a 51-volume series, now known as

: The mother of all ebook sites hosts 40000 free ebooks, and makes them accessible for Kindle, Android, iPad, and iPhone.

: A favorite of ours, Librivox provides free audio books from the public domain. You will find 5000+ books in their

: Provides free access to high-quality children's books from around the world in different languages, including Arabic, Afrikaans, Danish, English, Farsi and beyond. Hosts books for kids

. They're free to read online from cover to cover. You can find other collections by

: The University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature has

: This non-profit provides "open textbooks" for K-12 students all over the world. It offers free high-quality, standards-aligned, open content in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

: Download free e-book software that will manage your electronic library, convert e-books from one format to another, and give you online access to free e-books. We have more on it

: Gives you access to free online classics of reference, literature, and nonfiction, including

: During the COVID-19 outbreak, Audible is providing free stories to kids and teens.

: This collection includes many children's classics in ebook format. You generally have the option to download these texts to your Kindle, iPad, Nook or computer. Video tutorials are included on the page. You may also want to visit our resource:

Foreign Languages

: This site has aggregated YouTube videos that will teach students new languages.

: Presented by the BBC. A lively introduction to Mandarin Chinese presented in 10 short parts with video clips from the Real Chinese TV series.

: The BBC offers 24 video lessons that will teach you French.

: Become fluent in French by exploring French culture in this well-known video series for high school and college classrooms. Produced by Yale University and WGBH Boston with Wellesley College.

: An extensive collection of introductory German lessons put together by Deutsche Welle.

: This video instructional series for high school and college classrooms teaches Spanish speaking and listening skills. Produced by WGBH Boston.

: This list created by Open Culture offers free lessons in 40 different languages. You can generally download the mp3/podcasts to your devices.

Video Lessons/Tutorials

: A curated collection of educational videos from sources ranging from Sesame Street to Harvard. Created by YouTube itself.

: This site has indexed over 33,000 educational videos from YouTube and placed them into a directory of over 3,000 categories. The videos are available without registration or fees to teachers in the classroom and to students at home 24/7.

: Animated musical educational short films that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics

: The maker of TED Talks now provides carefully curated educational videos or "lessons worth sharing." Topics range from

: This blog aggregates interesting, kid-friendly videos focusing on science, art, technology, and more. The videos weren't necessarily made for kids, but kids can get a lot out of them. That's the premise of the site.

: Designated a "Great Site for Kids" by the American Library Association, this site provides educational videos, lessons, quizzes and educational games for K-12 students in various subject areas, such as science, math, health, social studies and English.

: Taking a page from Khan, MIT is now producing ”short videos teaching basic concepts in science and engineering” for K-12 students. The videos are generally created by MIT students. You can sort the videos by topic and grade level. Find versions of these videos on

: Run by The Annenberg Foundation, Learner.org hosts multimedia resources for teachers, students and lifelong learners. You can browse their general collection of educational videos

that explain the ins-and-outs of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, finance, physics, economics and more. Videos can also be accessed via

: The site famously features K-12 video tutorials created by Sal Khan and team. It currently gives students access to

Art & Visual Culture (Web Resources)

: Thanks to Villanova University, you can take an amazing virtual, panoramic tour of the Sistine Chapel. Using buttons in the lower left screen en, you can move around the room and zoom in on the paintings, including those on the ceiling.

: Smarthistory provides an extensive collection of audio and video introductions to works of art found in standard art history survey texts. (See our post "An Introduction to 100 Important Paintings with Videos Created by Smarthistory." ) You can find a complete collection of their videos

: Created by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, this site offers theme-based activities in visual arts, language arts, history and social studies. The site lets students investigate artists' work, lives, and their historical context.

: A new tool that gives you access to more than 1,000 works of art appearing in 17 great museums across the world. Using Google’s Street View technology, you can now tour collections at 184 museums world wide, including the

Geography (Web Resources)

: Great source of world statistics on every country. Includes data on more than 2500 indicators. Topics cover Economics, Demographics, Health, Education, Energy and other socioeconomic information. Includes interactive visualizations like rankings, graphs and maps. All information can be exported and embedded onto the web.

: An educational resource for world maps, atlases, and in-depth geography information. Provides teachers and students free maps of Europe, Asia, the U.S., Canada, Florida, the Caribbean Islands and much more.

History & Politics (Web Resources)

: A map of slavery’s end during the American Civil War. It finds patterns in the collapse of southern slavery, mapping the interactions between federal policies, armies in the field, and the actions of enslaved men and women on countless farms and city blocks.

: Created by Google, this valuable resource lets students virtually discover some of the most famous sites on earth -- for example, the ruins of Pompeii, Stonehenge, Versailles and more. It also lets you visit the Great Barrier Reef and Shackleton's Expedition in Antarctica. The project offers an innovative way to teach history and geography to students of primary and secondary schools. Teachers

: A powerful, innovative curriculum for teaching world history in middle and high schools. The site offers a wealth of teaching units, lesson plans, and resources. Ideal for anyone thinking about how to teach world history to students.

. Through a series of online conversations about classic American texts, award-winning teacher-scholars Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass seek to educate both hearts and minds about American ideals, American identity and national character, and the virtues and aspirations of our civic life.

An educational resource about what it means to be an American, inspired by the

: This site features collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly for educational use. Hosted by Fordham University, this resource is broken down into sub-areas:

This site is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. Provides lesson plans and best practices. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the Center for History and New Media.

: An archive of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to the present, organized by year, type, and issue, with teacher resources and playlists created by experts.

An animated educational historical television series originally broadcast on PBS Kids. Teaches 7 to 14 year olds about the founding of the United States.

that have been used in classrooms in all 50 states.

: Founded by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, iCivics prepares young Americans to become knowledgeable and engaged 21st century citizens by offering free and innovative educational materials. iCivics has produced

serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for learning and teaching U.S. history.

: A searchable archive of politically significant audio materials for scholars, teachers, and students. It is a component of "Historical Voices," funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with Michigan State University.

: This site is dedicated to the explorers, voyages, events, and historical backgrounds of countries throughout the world, and uses Google technology to bring this history back to life.

to house 42 new online historical exhibitions. Each exhibit features, in Google’s words, "a narrative which links the archive material together to unlock the different perspectives, nuances and tales behind these events." Topics currently covered include the Life and Times of Nelson Mandela, the Fall of the Iron Curtain, the Spanish Civil War, the Life of Anne Frank, D-Day, and Apartheid in South Africa. The Cultural Institute also gives you access to super high resolution images of

with experts discussing various topics in American history. Don't miss their iTunesU collection with talks including:

: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit devoted to the improvement of history education. The GLI web site features

: The site features an interactive world map and an online study guide for teachers. Designed for use with upper secondary- and lower college-level students, this resource provides an overview of the principles of democracy and their origins, as well as an examination of how a variety of contemporary political systems function.

: Created by Learner.org, this site offers multimedia materials designed to help learners discover world history. The material is organized into 26 thematic

An educational game for advanced middle- and high-school students. Learn about Lincoln’s leadership by exploring the political choices he made.

: Best-selling author John Green gives you a playful and highly visual crash course in world history, taking you from the beginning of human civilization 15,000 years ago through to our modern age. The videos are animated and fun. We have a few more details

: This video series for high school and college students presents American history as a living narrative rather than a collection of facts and dates. Produced by WGBH Boston in cooperation with the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Literature (Web Resources)

: A multimedia course for students, teachers, and lovers of literature. The course moves from ancient to modern literature, and is taught by David Damrosch at Harvard. Find more details

Shmoop's learning guides break down some of the texts most frequently taught in high school classrooms. Everything from Mark Twain to Ayn Rand to Shakespeare.

brings to life famous Shakespeare plays. Leon Garfield, a well-known British children’s author, wrote the scripts, mainly using Shakespearian language. And some talented Russian artists did the animation. You can find free copies of Shakespeare's plays in our collections of

, from the First Folio of 1623, in their original spelling and orthography. You can also read all of Shakespeare’s plays free online, courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library

. If you're looking for a nice collection for the iPhone/iPad, Oxford has you covered. They offer the

: If you're looking for Shakespeare's plays on the web, MIT

: Search the Poetry Foundation's archive of over 10000 poems. Searchable by poet, title, first lines and more.

: The University of South Florida provides an extensive collection of free audio books along with materials to help K-12 teachers present literature in the classroom. Find more information on our blog

: Provides free access to high-quality digital books from around the world. Offers books for kids

: This site provides free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. We offer more details

: Offers a world of online resources for teachers -- from lesson plans to study guides to videos -- for teaching Shakespeare on the K-12 levels.

: A new video series by best-selling kids author John Green covers Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, Salinger, and Emily Dickinson and more. See

Mathematics (Web Resources)

, parents and teachers to enrich learning. It provides resources for students of all ages.

: Created by Shmoop, Math Shack allows students to practice an infinite number of auto-generated math problems in Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry. It’s Common Core-aligned, and students can see how they’re performing—by topic and subject—through an easy color-coded system.

You can dive into the Khan Academy's math tutorials using the following links:

: Site features thousands of exercises designed to help young students (K-8) practice math. Features practice questions, step-by-step explanations, engaging awards and certificates, easy-to-read progress reports, and more.

: This resource shows students the relevance of statistics in real-world settings. Video series for high school and college classrooms.

: Bills itself as the web's most extensive mathematical resource. Designed for more advanced students, this collection is provided as a free service by Wolfram Research, makers of

Music (Web Resources)

: Run by the BBC, this archive allows you to sample the musical traditions of more than 40 countries. India, Corsica, China, Cuba, Iran, Brazil, Mozambique, Turkey -- they're all represented in this eclectic collection of indigenous music.

from the 1940s to the 1990s, as well as interviews recorded by Lomax. The collection has been digitized and made available online for free listening. Gives you access to 17,000 songs. More details

: This huge treasure trove contains folk songs collected by the legendary folklorist

: Valuable resources for music educators and music students at all educational levels. Carefully researched and commercial free.

: Learn the essentials of music theory and how music expresses culture in this instructional video series for high school classrooms.

. Plus it has a page with other helpful teaching resources

: Introduces elementary and middle school children to classical music in a fun and entertaining way. The site gives you access to

Philosophy (Web Resources)

: A non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Washington Department of Philosophy, the Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children provides

: This site given the same name as the one above is run by Gary Matthews, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It also uses children's stories to introduce students to philosophical questions.

Science (Web Resources)

Assembled by the U.S. Geological Survey, this site brings together lots of resources that will teach students about Biology, Geography, Geology, Water, and more. The site is divided into sections: K-2 6-8 , and 9-12

: Created for K-12 teachers, this online resource provides a one-stop, comprehensive resource on evolution. This site is a collaborative project of the

) that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History.

: This video takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. The film is made with the Digital Universe Atlas (

- A multimedia course for high school teachers and adult learners interested in studying environmental science. The Web site provides access to course content and activities developed by leading scientists and researchers in the field. Jointly created by Harvard and the Smithsonian.

: A searchable, web-based digital library collection populated with standards-based engineering curricula for use by K-12 teachers and engineering faculty to make applied science and math (engineering) come alive in K-12 settings.

: Helps kids (middle school and above) stay up-to-date on scientific trends. Provides crisp, concise coverage of all fields of science daily.

: Provides educational resources for teachers and parents to help make science fun and engaging for kids. Features fun activities, facts, projects and experiments that promote a desire amongst kids to learn more about science and technology.

, hoping to get a younger generation interested in science, and the tradition has carried on ever since. You can watch the lectures presented by famous scientists online, including

: Created by the University of Southern California, this web site is designed to help K-12 teachers and other educators in developing or improving courses that use robotics as a tool for teaching STEM topics or robotics itself. Robotics is a great way to get kids excited about science, technology, engineering, and math.

: A collection of websites where you can learn physics on your own, through games, webcasts, and online exhibits and activities. Features a collection of more than 950 websites with physics images, activites, and info. Produced by the American Physical Society.

, the site was produced by the

: This site is a resource for anyone interested in paleontology, from the student in the classroom, to the interested amateur scouting for fossils, to the professional in the lab. Funded by the

: NASA curated a big archive of historical images into Flickr Commons, giving users access to more than a half century of NASA’s photographic history. The images are divided into three neat sets – “Launch and Takeoff,” “Building NASA” and “Center Namesakes” – and they’re all copyright-free, meaning that you can share and use these images however you like.

: Brings together all images and videos of the Earth taken by NASA astronauts from space.

: A 3-D environment lets you explore the cosmos from your computer, hop on an asteroid, fly with NASA's Voyager spacecraft, see the entire solar system moving in real time. Created by NASA.

: America's space agency provides educational media for different age groups. See

: You can explore the Khan Academy's science and technology lessons using the following hotlinks:

: An interactive tool that lets anyone calculate the damage a comet or asteroid would cause if it happened to collide with our planet. You can customize the size and speed of the incoming object, among other items.

: Developed by the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium, with support from NASA, this digital atlas makes available the most complete and accurate 3D atlas of the Universe from the local solar neighborhood out to the edge of the observable Universe.

: Features chemistry demonstrations, crafts, and projects that are suitable for kids. Some activities require adult supervision. Assembled by Anne Marie Helmenstine, About.com Guide to Chemistry.

: Brings together 30 years of computer-enhanced images of living cells and organisms for education and medical research.

: Encourages next generation of makers to tackle the do-it-yourself projects of their dreams. Engineering very 101.

: Lets K–12 students view bugs under a scanning electron microscope over the web. From the University of Illinois.

that features, among other things, exciting lesson plans and activities.

: An online educational resource for educators, students, and parents. Dedicated to biology, the site offers access to

Contains maps of the universe zooming out from the nearest stars to the entire visible universe.

: In video format, scientists answer questions about the universe. For example, where is the center of the universe? What happens when galaxies collide?

Technology (Web Resources)

: The more advanced student can watch lectures from computer science courses presented at great universities.

Khan Academy Technology: Find lessons in Drawing & Animation and Programming Basics.

Educational Apps (Mostly for iPhone/iPad)

Aesop’s Fables Interactive Book: The Library of Congress has released a free app for use on iPhones, iPads and Android platforms. This innovative reading experience has been adapted from the 1919 book The Aesop for Children, and includes outstanding drawings by Milo Winter, a noted illustrator.

American Museum of Natural History: Cosmic Discoveries : Take a ride with the Museum’s astrophysicists through our Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, and beyond. Cosmic Discoveries is the first app to collect nearly 1,000 stunning astronomic images.

Babbel : Supported by the European Regional Development Fund, the Babbel apps are available for 11 languages, and contain 2,000-3,000 vocabulary words per language. All words are accompanied by images and pronounced for you by native speakers.

BrainPop Featured Movie : This well-respected app presents a different animated movie every day covering subjects related to historical and current events, and then lets youngsters test their new knowledge with an interactive quiz.

3D Brain : Discover how each brain region functions, what happens when the brain is injured, and how it is involved in mental illness. Each detailed structure comes with information on functions, disorders, brain damage, case studies, and links to modern research. Use your touch screen to rotate and zoom around 29 interactive structures.

Color Uncovered : Beautiful app teaches you the basics of color science using smart, interactive optical illusions.

Dictionary.com: Pretty simple, but handy. A good dictionary in your pocket.

Earthlapse : Turn your iPad or iPhone into a window aboard the International Space Station. Experience stunning views of planet Earth captured by NASA astronauts. Touch the views and control the planet with your finger.

EduCreations : This app will turn your iPad into a whiteboard where you can do screencasting.

Evernote : A handy app for taking notes.

Exoplanet : This app offers a comprehensive visual database of all known exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) discovered so far. It is frequently updated as new discoveries are confirmed.

Fotopedia UNESCO World Heritage Site : Drawing on 20,000 curated photos, this free iPhone/iPad app lets you visit (at least virtually) 890 UNESCO World Heritage sites. In a matter of minutes, you can move from Notre Dame in Paris, to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, to Machu Picchu in Peru, to the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Fotopedia offers a number of other great apps related to foreign travel here .

Gene Screen : A fun way to learn how recessive genetic traits and diseases are inherited and why certain diseases are more prevalent in different populations. Gene Screen also provides information on some recessive genetic diseases and genetic screening programs.

Google Sky Map : Sky Map enables users to identify stars and planets by pointing their devices towards these objects in the sky. Users can zoom in and out, and switch various layers such as constellations, planets, grids, and deep sky objects. Users can also determine the locations of planets and stars relative to their own current locations.

iTunesU : The iTunes U app gives you access to complete courses from leading universities and other schools — plus the world’s largest digital catalog of free education content — right on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. You can find many of these courses on our list 550 Free Online Courses from Top Universities .

Khan Academy : This new app for the iPhone and iPad gives users access to nearly 3,500 videos covering K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, physics, and the humanities.

Letterpress : The highly rated app lets young students find words, steal tiles, and color the board!

Louvre Museum : From the most important museum in Paris, this app provides a virtual tour of the Louvre's galleries and lets users check out the works of everyone from DaVinci to Michelangelo. The app gets you up close and personal with paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and even the French Crown Jewels.

Molecules : An app for viewing three-dimensional renderings of molecules and manipulating them using your fingers. You can rotate the molecules by moving your finger across the display, zoom in or out by using two-finger pinch gestures, or pan the molecule by moving two fingers across the screen at once.

Mindsnacks Spanish Lessons : Award winning app teaches students the language skills they need: getting directions, ordering food, meeting new friends, shopping, relaxing. The introductory level is free, although more advanced levels require paying for the app.

Moon : The perfect resource to help students learn about the moon.

Moon Globe : This free app puts the moon in your pocket with 3D graphics and touch screen navigation.

Museum of Modern Art : The MoMA lets you take a close look at art by Abstract Expressionists, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Willem de Kooning and many others.

Name It : “Name It” is a biology learning app for the iPhone. It will teach you to recognize species by pictures. Provides access to 1,117,900 species pages and 1,914,317 pictures. Based on the Encyclopedia of Life , the open source projet to document all living organisms on earth.

NASA : Discover a wealth of great space travel information on this free app. The NASA App collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated information, images and videos from various online NASA sources in a convenient mobile package. Available for Android, iPhone and iPad.

Official SAT Question of the Day: Created the College Board, this app gives you a new official SAT question every day. It also gives you a statistical analysis of your performance.

Periodic Table of Elements in HD : Created by Merck, this chemistry app has received lots of praise.

Planets : A 3D guide to the solar system for aspiring astronomers. Downloaded over 8 million times, the app lets kids locate planets with a flat view of sky in 2D, or a planetarium style view of the sky in 3D.

Poetry from the Poetry Foundation : From William Shakespeare to César Vallejo to Heather McHugh, the Poetry Foundation’s app turns your phone into a mobile poetry library.

Project Noah : A great tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere. Available for Apple devices and the Android.

Quick Graph : A powerful, high quality, graphic calculator that takes full advantage of the multitouch display and the powerful graphic capabilities of the iPad and iPhone, in both 2D and 3D.

Science 360 : The Science360 for iPad app, created by The National Science Foundation, provides easy access to engaging science and engineering images and video from around the globe and a news feed featuring breaking news from NSF-funded institutions.

Shakespeare : A nice app that puts the complete works of Shakespeare on your iPhone. As you will see, the app comes with some handy functionality: you can search the text by keyword and also increase/decrease the fonts. Plus the app automatically remembers the last page you read.

Sight Words List : Sight Words, also known as the Dolch List, are an integral part of learning how to read. The Dolch Word list contains 315 words that are broken down into appropriate age groups. Ideal for kids 1 - 5 years old.

Spacecraft 3D : NASA's Spacecraft 3D is an augmented reality application that lets you learn about and interact with a variety of spacecraft that are used to explore our solar system, study Earth, and observe the universe.

SparkNotes : SparkNotes -- the publisher of popular literary study guides -- offers a free iPhone app that features 50 pre-installed study guides. And it also gives you access to hundreds of study guides available for viewing online.

Stanza : Another good app for downloading free e-books on the iPhone. Once you download the app, navigate to the “Online Catalog” section and then focus on the “Project Gutenberg” materials, which contain a long list of free classics.

StreetMuseum : This free iPhone app from the Museum of London overlays 400 years of historic images on today’s city streets.

TED : TEDTalks need no introduction. They’re perhaps the most popular video lectures on the web, featuring talks by “the world’s leading thinkers and doers.” Now you can access these talks on your mobile phone too.

The Elementals : Introduces children to the different elements of the periodic table. Highly rated and free.

Today in History : Lists notable events in history and when important people were born/died. Includes over 100,000 events.

USA Presidents : A flash card app that teaches you cool facts about the historical line of American presidents.