The Best Online Resources for Australian Kids Learning From Home

Here are a collection of 50+ online resources to use in homeschooling. The internet is full of thousands of online teaching resources, some better quality than others. However, we’ve attempted to curate the best resources that we could find.

Here is a list of free online activities for students. You will notice that many of the websites are Australian as we wanted to include quality links that align with the Australian curriculum. However, we’ve also included other high-quality resources to support children’s learning.

Multi-Subject Websites

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum in the following subjects: English, math, science, geography, the arts, technologies and economics & business.

Cool Australia educational materials are free units of work and lesson plans that are learning ‘recipes’ to help guide teaching. They include step-by-step instructions, worksheets, relevant curriculum mapping and real-world content parents can relate to, keeping learning stress free and fun.

Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization which produces short lessons in the form of YouTube videos. Subjects include math from Year 1 on, physics, chemistry, biology as well as economics, American and world history.

Oxford Owl is an award-winning website from Oxford University Press, created to support children’s learning in reading and math. Based on the UK curriculum, it features games, recommended reading lists, and free e-books for kids aged 3 – 11. For parents, it contains expert advice, videos and tips to help your kids with reading and mathematics. Great tips on learning phonics, grammar and times tables.

PBS, an American public broadcaster has put together digital media service for K-12 with more than 30,000 learning materials. Videos in this collection cover a range of subjects including math, English, science and technology.

Scholastic Learn At Home is offering free online resources during the COVID-19, including 20 days of lessons for grades pre-K to 9 and up to three hours of lessons a day. Even though it’s American, it’s interesting and provides educational opportunities for kids here in Australia.

English

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources teaching English for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum. Select the year and type of lesson like video, digibooks, games or articles.

ABC Reading Eggs is the multi‑award winning online reading program for kids aged 2 to 13, and is an excellent way to help children continue building essential reading skills from home with the COVID⁠‑⁠19 outbreak and in the event of school closures. They are providing 30 days’ free access to the ABC Reading Eggs and ABC Mathseeds online learning programs.

Common Lit is an American website offering reading passages for grades 3-12 with reading comprehension and discussion questions.

Reading Australia provides information on Australian books and is a resource to support all teachers of English in bringing Australia’s rich and unique literature into classrooms. It features a number of books and lesson plans (click on teacher resource).

Scholastic has a section on their website called Story Starters. These are creative writing prompts for kids.

Math

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources teaching math for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum. Select your child’s year and type of lesson like video, digibooks, games or articles.

ABC Mathseeds ABC Mathseeds is a comprehensive online maths program for kids aged 3⁠–⁠9, and is an excellent way to help children continue building essential maths skills from home with the COVID⁠‑⁠19 outbreak and in the event of school closures. They are providing 30 days’ free access to the ABC Mathseeds online learning programs. There’s also the Mathseeds Play & Learn app.

Eddie Woo’s Wootube Math Channel in which super star math teacher presents different tutorials about math on his popular YouTube Channel. Best suited to school years 7 to 12.

Mathletics is a website is a website that’s used in NSW schools as well as by homeschoolers. Mathletics aligns with the Australian curriculum for primary and secondary school. It’s a paid subscription ($19.99 for a month or $99 for a year). Free trial available to check it out.

Matific is a website which uses game-based activities to make maths fun. Matific supports the math curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 6. It’s a paid subscription ($19.99 for single grade for 12 months) but worth it if you want to get your kids excited about math.

Maths by You is an ABC sub-website which has concepts explained in fun videos by other kids.

Prodigy is a free website to help kids level up and advance their math skills. Prodigy’s in-game content aligns with Australia’s standards from Year 1-8.

YouCubed is an American website whose main goal is to inspire, educate and empower teachers of mathematics. The website is full of different tasks that can be used to illustrate math concepts.

Current Affairs

BTN ( Behind the News) is a fun, accessible way for upper primary and secondary Australian students to learn about what’s happening in the world around them.

TIME for Kids is a free American website for kids in years K-6 written by publishers of TIME Magazine as well as contributions from student writers. It contains age-appropriate articles for each year. The articles provides information about current topics.

History & Geography

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources teaching history and geography for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum. Select your child’s year and type of lesson like video, digibooks, games or articles.

Australian Museum has a collection of learning resources for students including culture, natural history and science.

Australian National Maritime Museum has a collection of learning resources for students relating to the HMB Endeavour and Australian migration stories.

BBC History for Kids is a treasure trove of history on this website. Kids can enter ancient worlds, meet famous people and discover fascinating facts by exploring a wide selection of historical games and activities. As it’s a BBC website, it’s geared towards British history but there’s still useful information about ancient civilisations.

An American website, Brainpop! teaches kids through a series of short animated videos. Engaging for both kids and parents. The website covers a range of topics from science and math to writing and history. As it’s American, it does have an American bias for history. Subscription required to unlock all the content on the website. However, you can access some free videos each week. For younger kids in years K-3, BrainPOP Jr is recommended.

Digital Resource Finder features free for educational video clips from Screen Australia’s remarkable archive – one of the nation’s largest and most historically significant collections. It features an easy-to-use search engine for parents, teachers, and educators to find videos across a range of subjects. There’s a large amount of videos for kids to view for age groups from upper primary to Year 12.

The National Geographic Kids website features different topics relating to animals, science, history and geography. The Nat Geo website recognises locations and will redirect to the Australian site automatically. There’s loads of interesting articles and videos for kids to read.

STEM

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources teaching science and technology for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum. Select your child’s year and type of lesson like video, digibooks, games or articles.

Access Mars – Discover the real surface of Mars. Recorded by NASA’s Curiosity rover.

Code Club is an Australian website containing Code Club projects for Scratch, Python, HTML and Blender. They’re free step-by-step guides for young learners to follow and create animations, games, websites, and much more.

CSIRO, Australia’s national science organisation is engaged in research to confront the biggest challenges facing the nation. The website contains a lot of information about different research projects connected to health, climate change, farming and food production. Although it’s not specifically targetted to kids, it’s a useful source of knowledge.

Girls4Tech™ is a free online learning portal by Mastercard for children to tap into their STEM passions from home. The program has been designed to help parents and teachers engage and inspire kids, ages 8-12. Through the newly launched website Girls4Tech Connect, as well as through activities made in collaboration with theur education partner Scholastic, teachers and parents can download lessons to help students learn about STEM topics, from the comfort of their homes.

Fizzics Education contains 150 different science experiments to try including kitchen chemistry and light and sound experiments.

GeoScience Australia has a collection of classroom resources that can be used for homeschooling in geography and science. Check out the Geology of Minecraft.

Mystery Science is the creator of the most popular science lessons in U.S. schools. During the COVID-19 shutdown, they are offering them for anyone to use for free. No account or login is needed.

NASA Kids’ Club website is packed with information about space missions, science and technology. You’ll find games suited to kinder to year 4 relating to STEM. There’s also sections of NASA’s main website for older kids to year 12.

Jump on to NASA at Home to launch rockets, solve challenges, do real NASA science and more. Their online activities and other content are engaging for kids, adults and the whole family.

Ology is a science website for kids from the American Museum of Natural History packed full of information about different topics ranging from biology, human cultures and earth and space.

Scienceworks at Home provides kids with engaging science information. Scienceworks in Melbourne has curated their best online content for your family to enjoy from your home.

Teach your kids to code using Scratch, a project of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab. Provided free of charge, Scratch is designed especially for ages 8 to 16, but is used by people of all ages. It’s a graphical programming language which allows children to drag and combine code blocks to make a range of programs. There’s also ScratchJr for kids aged 5 – 7 which allows them to program their own interactive stories and games.

Languages & Culture

Sign up for DuoLingo if your kids want to learn another language? They can learn one of more than 25 languages including French, Spanish, Indonesian and even Klingon! The lessons give kids an opportunity to learn different phrases followed by quizzes. It’s free but there are ads.

Google Arts & Culture features content from over 1200 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world’s treasures online.

Art & Music

ABC Education contains musical teaching resources mapped to the Australian curriculum arts learning area. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which kids will enjoy.

MetKids website by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art introduces kids to different artworks. Made for kids with the help of kids, it features a large interactive cartoon map of the Met. Kids can click on red dots to learn more about the artwork.

Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney offers learning resources so kids can engage with an exhibition, artist or theme with one of our resource sets.

National Gallery of Australia in Canberra aims to provide a wide variety of online learning resources for students, educators and families. Resources align to the main curriculum and align with art as well as humanities, language and digital technologies.

TUNE IN is a free, innovative, fun and interactive learning platform from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra which is suitable for everyone; students, families and life-long learners – ideal for remote and online learning. With activities taking from just a few minutes to half an hour, TUNE IN is the perfect way to learn about the fascinating world of music.

Civics & Citizenship

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources teaching civics and citizenship for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum. Select your child’s year and type of lesson like video, digibooks, games or articles.

The Parliamentary Education Office website contains lots of information for students and teachers to learn about Parliament. What does the government in Canberra actually do? Good question and one that many people struggle to understand especially in the current political climate. There’s fact sheets, quizzes and videos.

Economics & Business

ABC Education contains lots of free educational resources teaching economics and business for primary and secondary students. It has engaging videos, games and fun educational resources which align to the Australian curriculum. Select your child’s year and type of lesson like video, digibooks, games or articles.

The Moneysmart website, an Australian government website has lots of engaging resources for families to work through together. Digiactivities are fun interactive exercises kids can do on screen.

The Royal Australian Mint website provides resources for primary and middle year students. This program aims to educate students about the important work of the Mint, as well as the history of Australia’s currency, how it is produced, its denominations and designs.

Environment & Sustainability

Cool Australia educational materials are free units of work and lesson plans that are learning ‘recipes’ to help guide teaching. They include resources for ocean conservation and sustainability.

Eco-Schools offers resources and projects relating to biodiversity, energy, waste & waterways and water.