Whether they love science and want to know more about volcanoes or they’re struggling with math and would love some help with multiplying fractions, e-learning for kids is an effective solution to almost any academic need.
Children are young, bright, and open to learning new things. Many online programs are tailored to teach them certain subjects or skills by nurturing their curiosity and doing it in the most engaging and entertaining way possible.
While there are thousands of e-learning programs out there, we’ve decided dig only into award-winning platforms to curate our choices for the top 13 e-learning websites for kids. We chose websites that offered a unique approach, utilized a research-based methodology, and that provided an excellent value for your investment in time and money (although many of the options here are free).
Table of Contents
What is e-Learning?
As the name suggests, e-learning is an approach to education that utilizes electronic technologies. It typically refers to digital programs like apps and online platforms like websites or internet-housed curriculum. In many cases, it could refer to courses, lessons, or subject matter delivered online via interactive media (videos, podcasts, games) or text-based media (blogs, lesson plans, PDFs).
E-learning has proven to be an especially effective way of delivering top-tier education despite physical or financial limitations, making education much more accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
1. CodaKid
Given today’s digital, technology-driven atmosphere, the demand for coders and computer programmers has risen. Not just because most of the earth’s population spends hours every day online, but because the people who know how to code are also the people who know how to think logically and outside-the-box. They’re the ones who are great at solving problems, testing solutions, and critically analyzing situations.
We believe that coding is now a must-have skill. More and more industries are becoming dependent on coding—even the ones who have seemingly nothing to do with computers or tech!
By letting your kids learn how to code, you’re letting them learn skills that will someday open doors to incredible opportunities. And one of the best coding for kids platforms is CodaKid—an award-winning online academy that teaches kids how to code by using popular online gaming platforms and professional programming languages.
With CodaKid, your child will have fun learning as they create their own Minecraft mods, Roblox games, Unity projects, and apps. They’ll have a full team of friendly professionals to help them along their journey, and each lesson can be revisited or re-run as many times as your child needs it. This hands-on, learn-at-your-own-pace approach has proven to be the most effective way to help children.
Perfect for kids aged 8 and up, CodaKid aims to help students develop real-world skills like tenacity, patience, and rationalization by making computer programming enjoyable and entertaining. There are currently 55 computer coding courses, 225 online coding quests, and 650 computer coding challenges.
Try CodaKid for free now!
2. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free, world-class education for everyone, everywhere. A big name in the e-learning for kids’ space, Khan Academy offers incredibly extensive courses for Math, Science, Engineering, Computing & Coding, Arts & Humanities, Economics & Finance.
It even offers Test Prep courses for standardized tests like SAT, LSAT, MCAT, etc. as well as courses pertaining to University help (i.e., College Admissions, Careers, Personal Finance, and so on).
Appropriate for children and teens, this powerful organization was founded by one man who wanted to help his cousin that was struggling with math. Now a globally-recognized foundation, Khan Academy can offer certified education for anyone and everyone through the generous funding of corporations (like Google) and fellow organizations (like The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
They encourage all their students to learn at their own pace, placing milestones wherever needed and giving awards whenever necessary. The content they put out—lesson plans, interactive media, outlines, and guides—are all created by certified experts and recognized field professionals.
With over 50 courses suited for Pre-K to High School, Khan Academy truly has something for everyone. You can even use it alongside your child!
3. IXL
IXL is a personalized learning platform that offers a comprehensive K-12 curriculum. It’s perfect for supplementing your kids’ current lessons or getting them started on the basics of new topics. They offer Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Spanish for Pre-K up to 12th-grade, with adjusted lesson plans/curricula.
In line with their curriculum, IXL runs real-time diagnostics for parents and teachers to pinpoint their learners’ strengths and weaknesses. Their other feature, IXL Analytics, gives instructors valuable feedback to help them improve their delivery and make more effective instructional decisions.
What sets IXL apart from other K-12 e-learning for kids’ platforms is personal guidance. They have an extensive system in place that adjusts according to your child’s skill level. With every practice problem they complete and every online milestone they reach, the system automatically adjusts to account for their aptitude, their understanding, and their knowledge gained.
Overall, it’s a highly intuitive website that encourages success through an immersive learning website.
4. Study Jams!
If your kid is an auditory learner, you might want to check out Study Jams!—a website that offers highly interactive math and science activities. As the name suggests, it utilizes a lot of fun, bubbly tunes to keep elementary and middle school kids engaged. Learn about the rules of divisibility, the four types of volcanoes, or the anatomy of angiosperms.
The site is visually engaging and very user-friendly. It’s chock full of animated videos and songs that provide a punchy, easy-to-understand overview of different math and science topics. Study Jams! content can easily be incorporated at the start of an activity, or the end of a discussion.
The activities provided can be completed individually or as a group. The overall light, casual feel to the website is sure to keep students sufficiently motivated and entertained.
Study Jams! also offer free printables of each lesson and song lyrics—just in case your kid finds a particularly catchy song he/she likes!
5. E-learning for Kids
Just like Khan Academy, E-learning for Kids is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to providing free world-class education. They offer a slightly more specialized curriculum for K-6, with over 200 lessons in science and 300 lessons in math available on their website.
And even though those 300 lessons are all based on the standards of the International Baccalaureate, they’re presented in a fun, kid-friendly story scenarios that show children how math and science concepts can be applied in the real world.
E-Learning for Kids aims to be “the source of childhood learning on the internet” by offering free, fun education that anyone can access. With extensive guides for Parents & Teachers on top of their wide range of lessons for kids, this is a valuable resource that any kid can use to learn new things or supplement their existing knowledge.
6. PBS Kids
Populated by popular PBS characters like Arthur, Curious George, and Wild Kratts, the PBS KIDS website uses a 360-degree approach to e-learning. They fully utilize interactive content and audiovisual online media to help kids learn both academic and real-life skills. Their curriculum-based entertainment combines technology with colorful, lovable characters to create the ultimate learning experience.
By getting children to equate learning with fun games and funny, quirky cartoons, PBS Kids hopes to make a positive impact on their general attitude towards education. Your child can choose from over 100 great educational games
and beautifully animated videos.
Suitable for younger children with an active imagination and heaps of creativity, PBS KIDS is a lovingly enjoyable approach to e-learning for kids.
7. Time4Learning
Time4Learning is an organized homeschool solution trusted and used by over 600,000 families. They offer online education programs for PreK-12 with specialized curricula per grade—Preschool, Elementary, Middle School and High School. They pride themselves on being a flexible and affordable online program best for parents interested in homeschooling and children who are currently homeschooled. Their courses can be taken as supplementary subjects or as basic education.
Of course, for students who aren’t homeschooled, Time4Learning is still a great resource for skill-building, summer studies, self-paced learning, or accelerated learning.
They currently offer four major subjects:
- Language Arts
- Math
- Science
- Social Studies
Time4Learning strives to create a fun learning experience by building a child’s confidence, encouraging independence, and prioritizing engagement over by-the-book teaching. Overall, a solid, professional platform for structured-yet-flexible learning.
8. Everyday Mathematics
Every year, about 220,000 classrooms in the U.S. use Everyday Mathematics to supplement their learning. Developed by the University of Chicago’s School Mathematics Project for Pre-K to 6th Grade, Everyday Mathematics is an online resource and information center that uses real-world examples to teach kids complex and abstract math concepts.
Their curriculum is research-based and field-tested to produce a long-term understanding of mathematical theories. They emphasize actual, realistic scenarios to develop knowledge-based on tangible experiences.
By repeating the concepts and continuously nurturing a deeper understanding—rather than pure surface-level memorization—Everyday Mathematics hopes to help more children gain an actual appreciation of math in everyday life.
They even have a Virtual Learning Community—an online classroom-like setting that gives users access to teaching videos taken in real classrooms—for your kid to join.
9. Little Pim
Being multilingual opens so many doors for people. The problem is that not everybody has the time, energy, or resources to invest in learning a different language.
Enter Little Pim; an award-winning, internationally-recognized online language learning subscription specifically for children under six years of age.
Considered the “most comprehensive foreign language program for kids,” Little Pim is arguably one of the best in the industry. Very few platforms in the same niche can compare. With over 12 foreign languages to choose from, Little Pim introduces your child to a world of linguistic variety. They believe that children can learn new languages.
They firmly believe that 0 to 6 years of age is the perfect time to start learning, given the openness and receptiveness of this age group.
They use a patented technique called Little Pim’s Entertainment Immersion Method®, where they encourage learning through mobile engagement—appealing to a child’s natural love for movement and play.
The current languages available for learning on Little Pim are:
- Spanish
- Hebrew
- French
- Italian
- Chinese
- Arabic
- English
- German
- Korean
- Japanese
- Portuguese
- Russian
If you aren’t sure which language to pick, Little Pim offers a comprehensive language guide to help you with your decision. By inspiring a love for language and learning as early as possible, this e-learning platform can help your children broaden their horizons.
10. Codecademy
Another e-learning for kids resource dedicated to coding, Codecademy is the perfect platform for beginners. It covers the basics of coding using helpful features, interactive content, extensive courses, and programming catalogs. There is even a forum community and an active blog that you and your child can check out for supplementary learning.
Their teaching approach is pretty structured, but still reasonably customizable. You choose what you want to learn—i.e., build a website, create a game—and immediately jump in. They utilize a real-time, hands-on experience that will have you writing real code within minutes. Of course, it’s a guided experience.
Once your code is finished and submitted, you get instant feedback on what worked and what didn’t. You can also assess your progress through take-home projects and quizzes.
There are many courses and topics to choose from, and you’re free to pick whichever you like. They even cover popular coding languages like CSS, JavaScript, SQL, and more.
Overall, Codecademy is a great platform to introduce your kids to the fundamentals of coding. Like many online code academies, they offer a sufficiently robust approach to making coding less intimidating and more kid-friendly. And despite the seemingly uber-professional and hyper-organized feel of the website, Codecademy’s activities and interactive media are surprisingly enjoyable and engaging for older kids.
11. Jungle Junior
Produced by the Typing Club—an online platform that teaches touch typing for free—Jungle Junior is an interactive platform specifically designed to teach kids proper typing. With about 200 colorful, kid-friendly, and incredibly engaging content, children are sure to fall in love with the characters as they learn how to type—and more!
The course includes activities, fully animated videos, and color-coded guides to also teach your child the alphabet, word families, sight words, and even full sentences.
Overall, Jungle Junior offers a simple yet powerful approach that can help your child learn a pretty valuable skill given our technology-driven society.
12. Cool Math
If your child is struggling with math, introducing them to an e-learning website dedicated solely to making math enjoyable might be just the thing they need. It offers fun math games, step-by-step guides, and even some cool quizzes to assess your child’s progress.
Founded by a certified math teacher in 1997, Coolmath cleverly combines education and entertainment to produce a casual, at-your-own-pace learning experience that many students are sure to enjoy. Currently, Coolmath covers the following topics:
- Pre-Algebra
- Algebra
- Pre-Calculus
- It also offers the following specialized lessons:
- Math Dictionary
- Lines
- Factors & Primes
- Decimals
- Properties
Another great thing about Coolmath is that it doesn’t follow a strict curriculum. Kids can choose whatever lesson or topic they want to focus on next. By introducing complex math fundamentals through enjoyably challenging games and easy-to-follow lessons, Coolmath caters to kids who love math, hate math or are somewhere in between.
13. ABCmouse.com
As a “global education initiative” that promises a full online curriculum for kids aged 2 to 8, ABCmouse.com certainly deserves a spot on this list. Winner of the Mom’s Choice GOLD Award, Teachers’ Choice Award, and Parents’ Choice GOLD Award, it’s an incredibly intuitive and immersive online learning experience that many are sure to enjoy.
Your child gets to create an avatar which then navigates the online classroom for them, unlocking encounters and experiences as they go along.
The program aims to build strong academic foundations for their students by teaching comprehensive topics through engaging and entertaining media; videos, games, songs, that sort of thing. All the tools they use are interactive, professionally designed, and specifically built to help early learners succeed.
ABCMouse.com offers comprehensive, subscription-based e-learning for kids with 10 different levels of learning and over 850 lessons total. There are also over 9,000 related online activities for them to choose from.
ABCmouse.com is fully COPPA-compliant (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). It does not allow advertising, untrusted links, pop-up ads, or potentially malicious software on the website.
Whether you need a homeschool curriculum or you’re looking for the perfect e-learning for kids program to supplement your child’s academics, ABCMouse.com is worth checking out.
Conclusion
There you have it! The 13 best E-learning websites for kids
Table of Contents:
- CodaKid
- Khan Academy
- IXL
- Study Jams!
- E-learning for Kids
- PBS Kids
- Time4Learning
- Everyday Mathematics
- Little Pim
- Codeacademy
- Jungle Junior
- Cool Math
- ABC Mouse
Do you know of a good e-learning platform for kids? Comment below!