Websites for History

Big History Project

A free introductory history course that establishes an interdisciplinary foundation of historical thinking practices, and a free standards-based world history course that builds upon those foundational skills in preparation for AP, college, and beyond.

Hippocampus  

Free educational videos and resources for middle school through college social sciences.  Your students can study independently, you can use content for your lessons or you can create playlists for your students to review.

Khan Academy

Incredibly helpful, straightforward, standards-aligned videos, practice exercises and articles.  Topics for 7-12 include various history topics under the arts & humanities umbrella.  Teachers can assign work and track student progress with a teacher account.

Google Arts And Culture

Your students can explore and interact with art and architecture around the world, with new picks featured every day.

Games for History 

Oregon Trail 

This classic game is a fun way to get elementary students invested in learning about Westward Expansion.

Playing History 

There are tons of free historical games, interactives and simulations on the web. Playing History aggregates info on these resources in a simple, searchable database making it easy to find, rate, and review historical games. This site currently connects you to 126 shared games.

Gaming the Past

These pages provide overviews of (and links to) a variety of freeware games on US History, World History and global issues.  The collection also includes commercial and online simulation games, so pay close attention to the categories and descriptions.

Apps for History

• Genius World History Quiz

A trivia game app that lets students test their knowledge, share questions and answers with friends and level up.  Answer the questions correctly and discover the most important periods and civilizations in the history of mankind. For each question, there is a clear and comprehensive explanation rich in information that will allow you to learn history while having fun. (Android) 

• The History of Everything

A vertical timeline that allows you to navigate, explore, and compare events from the Big Bang to the birth of the Internet. Events are beautifully illustrated and animated. (Android & Apple)

• Today In History

Quote of the day, images, headlines and more for each day in history.  This is a great source for daily warm-ups! (Apple)

• Civilisations AR

This app comes with the ability to superimpose ancient artifacts onto the real world. That allows you to inspect their various intricate details and learn how they came into existence.  There is also a photo mode so you can snap a picture of yourself with the objects to share elsewhere. (Android & Apple)

Podcasts for History

Listening to, dissecting, and responding to topics via podcasts can be a great way to get kids to engage in important discussions.  As an audio-only medium, podcasts also foster listening skills.  You can have a class-wide discussion about the selection, and/or whip up some reflection sheets to help focus your students and get them thinking critically about what they heard.  In addition to listening to podcasts whole-class, they can also be added in as an independent choice station.  

• Middle/Upper Elementary - The Radio Adventures Of Dr. Floyd, The Past and The Curious 

• Middle School/Early High School - Stuff You Missed in History Class 

• High School - 1619, Code Switch  

Use the grade level categories below as a loose guide, as many of the collections also include games for adjacent grade levels!

Primary Science Websites

Turtle Diary 

Over eighty games, the vast majority of which are for students pre-k through grade 2, on a surprisingly wide variety of science topics appropriate to the age group.

PBS Kids 

Character themed science games about weather, gardening, ecosystems, basic physics and more.

Middle Elementary

Science Kids 

Almost thirty games subdivided into three sections: living things, physical processes & solids, liquids and gases.  

Sheppard Software 

Twelve chemical element games, six nutrition games and fifteen more science games on various subjects.

Upper Elementary

Mr. Nussbaum 

Over thirty different science-themed games, along with instructional activities and/or videos for each one.

Middle School

NASA's Space Place 

Space, weather and tech themed games, with some videos and craft ideas in the educator section.

Legends of Learning 

Earth and space science, life science and physical science games. Legends of Learning games align to national Common Core and NGSS standards for Math and Science, with thousands of games and assessment items for middle and elementary school.  

Game On Learning - Middle School Science 

Energy management, microbiology, physics and more can be explored in seven games and links to three more websites that host multiple games.

Early High School

Game On Learning - High School Science 

Chemistry, biology, physics, ecology, and more feature in this list of nine games.

Late High School

Science Game Center

Botany, biology, ecology, meteorology and more!  The game mechanics also offer enough complexity to engage older students.  Some of these games have to actually be downloaded onto your computer, so be sure to check the “Available on” part of the game profile if you only want to use web-based games.

If you’re having trouble finding what you need to support your teaching on one of these lists, try opening up Google and typing in “[[subject] or [standard]] game for [grade level]“ to find something aligned more closely to your unit. 

Education.com

Games with verbal instructions for struggling or pre-readers, encompassing a wide range of game types and reading skills.  You can gain additional functionality with a premium teacher account if you’d like to create a class and assign different games directly to students.

Room Recess

A variety of game types, with a refreshingly heavy focus on games for mid-upper elementary reading skills. 

Mr. Nussbaum

A wide variety of game types that nevertheless remain focused on reading skills rather than game mechanics. The site also includes online reading comprehension and skill practice that is less game-based, but equally helpful and convenient.

Arcademics

Fast-paced, engaging games with multiplayer options on race-style activities to let your students challenge each other.

Primary Games

Several game types, including a focus on holiday and seasonally themed games.

Starfall

The primary classroom’s go-to, with sections to take students sequentially through ABC’s, Learn to Read, It’s Fun To Read and I’m Reading.

ABCya!

Games cover a good sampling of reading skills all the way from letter recognition to idioms.  The site also has many just for fun games, however.

PBS Kids

Basic letter recognition, vocabulary, rhyming and writing practice themed with popular PBS Kids characters.  Several games have more theme and less skill practice, however.

ReadWriteThink

Games that act like guides to walk students through completing an impressive number of reading and writing activities.  Many tasks are suited to use by middle and high school students in addition to some for elementary.

Teach Your Monster to Read

Adorable, and the series of games cover everything from letters and sounds to reading full sentences.

Quia

Battleship, hangman, and rags to riches games made by other teachers for their reading classes and shared with the community.

Sheppard Software

A small but mighty collection of grammar games, with quirky graphics to draw in students of many different ages.

Kiz Phonics

A game for every phonics rule you could wish for.

Fun English Games

Just four games, but each is well-done and teaches a separate mid elementary reading comprehension skill.

Bonus! Let Students Be Read To:

Storyline Online

Your students can watch stories read aloud by various actors.  The stories are from a variety of genres and have suggested grade levels K-4th.  They are also starting to add some titles read in Spanish, and even have one read with an ASL interpreter. 

School Radio

Animated shorts or video series representing various stories for ages 5-11+, as well as a collection of audio only stories.

PBS Kids

Stories about popular PBS Kids characters, with words and audio.  Many stories can also be read in either English or Spanish.

Starfall

Several stories organized by genre, with words and audio. 

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Great Games & Skill Practice: The best of the best.

Arcademics

Practice a variety of core math skills with racing games and other fun activities.  Multiplayer options let your students challenge each other if you wish.

Sheppard Software

Fact practice as well as games with great visuals for identifying fractions, decimals and shapes.

Mr. Nussbaum

A wide variety of game types that nevertheless remain focused on math skills rather than game mechanics.  Also includes games for less served skills such as calendar practice, probability and coordinate plane problems.

Education.com

Games with verbal instructions for struggling or pre-readers, encompassing a wide range of game types and math skills.  You can gain additional functionality with a premium teacher account if you’d like to create a class and assign different games directly to students.

MathGames.com

Unique in that you can choose different skills to work on inside each game type, allowing students to pair individual interest with their skill practice.  

Adaptive Games: Gamified math practice that automatically gets harder as your students are ready.

Prodigy

Students battle monsters with spells cast by correctly answering math questions.  The game will level, assess and continually challenge your students all by itself, or you can create classes to track progress and assign your own questions to match what you are studying.  

Sumdog

Provides access to six great games that support progress in essential math skills, with class creation and teacher reporting.  A Sumdog subscription will unlock access to more than 20 additional games.

Splash Math

Students collect coins as they progress through skill practice, which they can redeem for virtual pets.  Teachers can create classes to monitor skill mastery and make ability groups.

Mixed Bag: Some great educational games, some non-educational games and games where the mechanics are too difficult to be conducive to effective skills practice.

ABCya!

Notable educational games not found elsewhere include: fraction manipulatives, roman numeral practice, and order of operations.  The site also has many just for fun games your students may wander off to.

Hooda Math

Hosts external games on various math skills, and includes shop games for money management practice.  Includes some loosely math-based board games such as Mancala, Checkers and Backgammon as well as just for fun games. 

Funbrain

Practice math skills with a variety of game themes with excellent graphics.  It can be difficult to see what skill games are practicing without actually clicking on them though.

Math Playground

Hosts external games practicing a variety of math skills, as well as including robot games that blend counting practice with beginning coding skills.

Math Play

A good spread of math skills available in each of their game types.  Their sports themed math games can end up being more about game mechanics than skill practice though.

PBS Kids

Basic math skill practice themed with popular PBS Kids characters.  Several games have more theme and less skill practice, however.