The summer holidays are here and parents may be anticipating a few battles with the kids over ‘screen time’ in the days ahead…
If you’re dreading screen time rows, free educational resources for children are a good compromise; kids enjoy playing the games and parents feel happy that their children are learning something. Here are some of our favourites:
BBC cbeebies
offers colourful interactive games for pre-schoolers featuring their favourite CBeebies characters.
2. The BBC also caters for older children with
BBC Bitesize this fantastic section which videos and interactive activities for subjects included KS1, KS2, KS3 and GCSE.
3.
Sesame Street Org contains activities and fun from the iconic US TV show. Excellent for phonics and we love the kid-friendly recipe section too.
4. How Stuff Works is a brilliant, busy site for older children intrigued by anything and everything. Sections such as Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Stuff Mom Never Told You are packed with well-made videos and podcasts. Highly recommended for kids 7+.
Sesame Street
say their site is aimed at all children, “neuro-typical, autistic, gifted, with and without learning difficulties. Of all ages. Poisson Rouge is multicultural, cosmopolitan and not gender specific.” You can try the site out for free for 10 days or sign up for family membership thereafter for £10 a year. The graphics are stunning.
6. Oxford Owl run by the Oxford University Press is stunning graphically. The site gives parents access to 250 free, educational, tablet-friendly ebooks for children. Gorgeous.
7.
Pottermore is a must for all Harry Potter fans in the house, your children can access exclusive writing extracts from JK Rowling, participate in games, cast spells and make potions.
Pottermore
is a fabulous one-stop-shop for free phonics education online. However, it is a US-based site so the pronunciation of some letters is different and you might have to have the ‘zed’ versus ‘zee’ conversation!
9. The creators of
Funology say their site offers the cure to boredom! It is certainly rammed with ideas for experiments, craft projects, magic, recipes and more. Again, a US-based site so not everything translates, but lots of great ideas in one place.
10. Fungooms is a lovely, gentle, interactive site with free games and animated stories for younger children. There are no scores or penalties for getting things wrong, but lots of rewards for working things out and discovery. Nice.
11. Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalised learning dashboard that empower children to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom.
