You don’t need subscriptions to give your kids excellent online learning. Australia is unusually well-served with free educational websites — the ABC alone provides a curriculum-aligned library most countries would envy. This guide rounds up the best free educational websites for Australian kids: genuinely free, safe, and genuinely excellent. No trials, no paywalls, no sneaky asterisks.
The essentials: start here
ABC Education
The single best free resource for Australian families. Thousands of videos, games, articles and interactives mapped to the Australian Curriculum across English, Maths, Science, Geography, History, The Arts and Technologies — primary through secondary. If you bookmark one site, make it this one.
Khan Academy
The world’s best free learning library: superb maths and science explanations from early primary through senior secondary, plus computing, arts and humanities. The maths videos alone have rescued countless Australian homework evenings.
ABC Kids (for under-6s)
Ad-free games, videos and activities featuring Bluey, Play School and friends — designed for preschoolers with early learning goals baked in. Safe, Australian, and free.
Behind the News (BTN)
The ABC’s weekly current-affairs program for upper primary and secondary students. Short videos explaining the news in kid-accessible language — the best civics and media-literacy resource in the country, and free.
Maths and science: free educational websites for kids
- Prodigy: fantasy adventure game powered by maths questions — free tier is substantial and curriculum-aligned. Kids choose it voluntarily, which is the whole battle.
- Eddie Woo / Wootube: free Australian classroom-style maths videos, Years 5–12. When the textbook explanation fails, Eddie usually succeeds.
- Fizzics Education: Australian science experiments and resources — free activities plus inspiration for hands-on science at home.
- CSIRO Education: Australia’s national science agency offers free educational resources, challenges and programs for schools and families.
- NASA Kids’ Club: space, science and technology games for younger kids; NASA’s main site extends through Year 12. Free, ad-free, awe-inspiring.
- Geoscience Australia: free classroom resources for geography and earth science — including the famous Geology of Minecraft resource. Australian Curriculum-aligned.
Reading and writing: free educational websites for Australian kids
- Storyline Online: picture books read aloud by actors, with activity guides — brilliant for reluctant readers and bedtime-adjacent learning.
- ReadWorks: thousands of free reading comprehension articles and question sets, searchable by topic and level.
- Flyleaf Publishing: free decodable books and phonics worksheets — genuinely useful for early readers.
- State library eResources: your local library card gives you free ebooks, audiobooks and learning platforms. Most Australian public libraries offer far more digital content than families realise — check your council library’s website.
- Project Gutenberg Australia: free classic texts for older readers — out-of-copyright Australian literature included.
Coding and technology
- Code Club Australia: free coding projects and resources for kids — aligned with the Australian Curriculum’s Digital Technologies strand.
- Scratch: MIT’s free block-coding platform where kids build games and animations. The starting point for young coders worldwide.
- CS Unplugged: computer science concepts taught without computers — free activities covering algorithms, data and cryptography. Great for classrooms and homeschoolers.
- Grokk Learning: free introductory coding courses; the paid school program is well-known but the free resources stand alone.
History, geography and culture
- Australian Museum: free online exhibitions, fact sheets and learning resources — exceptional First Nations content and natural history.
- National Museum of Australia: Defining Moments and other free digital resources exploring Australian history.
- Parliamentary Education Office: free civics resources — how Australian democracy works, made engaging for students.
- National Gallery of Australia: free art resources and virtual access to the collection.
- State Library of NSW Learning: digitised collections and learning resources spanning Australian history and culture.
- Google Arts & Culture: virtual tours of museums worldwide, including Australian institutions. Free armchair excursions.
Money, life skills and more
- MoneySmart (ASIC): the government’s free financial literacy resource — teaching kids about money, budgeting and scams. Australian, authoritative, free.
- Cool.org (formerly Cool Australia): free account tier with curriculum-aligned lessons and activities on real-world topics, early learning to Year 10.
- Duolingo: free language learning (ad-supported on the free tier) — a fun way to start a second language.
- Typing.com: free touch-typing lessons — an underrated skill that pays off across every subject.
Public libraries also curate excellent lists — for example, the Wingecarribee Library’s interactive websites collection is a great model of what’s on offer.
By age: the quick-pick lists
Preschool (ages 3–5)
- ABC Kids: games and videos built around early learning — the default choice.
- NASA Kids’ Club: simple space games that delight this age group.
- Storyline Online: picture-book read-alouds that build vocabulary and love of stories.
Lower primary (ages 6–8)
- ABC Education: filter by Foundation–Year 2 for games and videos matched to classwork.
- Prodigy: the maths game hits its sweet spot here.
- ScratchJr: the younger sibling of Scratch — coding for ages 5–7.
- National Geographic Kids: animals and weird facts — the currency of Year 2 playgrounds.
Upper primary (ages 9–12)
- ABC Education: Years 3–6 content including BTN segments.
- Behind the News: weekly current affairs in kid language.
- Scratch: real coding projects — games, animations, stories.
- Khan Academy: maths topics beyond class level for the curious.
- Museum sites: Australian Museum and National Museum fact sheets for project research.
Secondary (ages 13+)
- Khan Academy: senior maths and science — the homework-rescue tool.
- Eddie Woo: Australian classroom-style maths explanations.
- ABC Education secondary: deep topic libraries for assignments.
- Parliamentary Education Office: civics for Legal Studies and Modern History.
- CSIRO and Geoscience Australia: real science resources for projects and extension.
Science and nature deep-dives
Free science on the internet is extraordinary — if you know where to look:
- Backyard Buddies (Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife): free site helping kids turn their backyard into habitat — birds, frogs, insects, plants. Science that starts outside the screen.
- Questacon: Australia’s national science centre offers free online activities and experiments.
- Mystery Science / Mystery Doug: free science mini-lessons answering kids’ big questions (“why is the sky blue?”) — superb for curious primary kids.
- Smithsonian Learning Lab: millions of free resources from the world’s largest museum complex — images, videos, activities.
- Citizen science projects: platforms like iNaturalist let kids contribute real observations to real science — the motivation of genuine contribution beats any worksheet.
Arts, music and creativity
- Chrome Music Lab: Google’s free interactive music experiments — kids compose and explore sound visually. Joyful and genuinely educational.
- Google Arts & Culture: virtual museum tours, gigapixel artworks, artist stories — including Australian collections.
- NGA Kids: the National Gallery of Australia’s children’s resources.
- AutoDraw: Google’s AI-assisted drawing tool — machine learning guesses what you’re sketching. Fun and a sneaky introduction to AI concepts.
- ABC Education Arts: drama, dance, visual arts and music resources mapped to curriculum.
News and media literacy
- Behind the News: the cornerstone — weekly videos plus classroom resources during school terms.
- BBC Newsround: the UK equivalent — a second perspective on world events.
- The Day (selected free content): news explained for young people with discussion prompts — good for debating skills.
Media literacy matters as much as any subject: kids who can distinguish reporting from opinion, and ads from content, are safer and smarter online. Discuss one BTN story at dinner weekly — it takes ten minutes and builds the habit of thinking about the news.
Printable and offline freebies
Not everything good is on a screen. Free printables extend learning offline:
- Twinkl (free tier): limited free worksheets and activities — Australian Curriculum versions available.
- Education.com (free tier): sample worksheets across subjects.
- Museum activity sheets: most major museums offer free printable activities tied to their collections.
- Library printables: many council libraries share activity packs, especially in school holidays.
- Make your own: blank timetables, spelling grids, maths fact sheets — a printer and 10 minutes beats most paid workbooks.
Building a weekly free-learning routine
- Anchor it to existing rhythms: “BTN Friday” after school, “museum Monday” for project research, “Scratch Sunday” for coding. Named rituals stick.
- One site per purpose: don’t rotate through 20 sites — master 5. Depth beats breadth.
- Project-based beats browsing: “research three Australian animals for your project” produces more learning than 30 minutes of clicking around. Give every session a mission.
- Talk about what they found: the 5-minute “teach me what you learned” conversation doubles retention and shows you what’s actually sinking in.
- Seasonal refresh: each school term, retire one site and try one new one. Keeps things fresh without overwhelming.
Avoiding the junk: spotting low-quality free sites
Free includes plenty of rubbish. Teach kids (and yourself) the filters:
- Who made this? ABC, CSIRO, museums, universities — trustworthy. Anonymous content farms with 47 pop-ups — not.
- When was it updated? Science and curriculum content goes stale. Check dates.
- What’s the business model? If it’s free but drowning in ads and data collection, your child’s attention is the product. Prefer ad-free institutional sites.
- Does it match the Australian Curriculum? American sites are fine for general knowledge but can confuse with different terminology, spelling and measurement. Prefer Australian sources for school-aligned work.
- Would a teacher recommend it? Ask your child’s teacher which free sites they rate — the good ones are usually already known in staffrooms.
How to use free sites well
- Bookmark a “learning dashboard”: one browser folder with the 5–6 sites your family actually uses. Twenty bookmarks nobody opens is clutter; six used weekly is a curriculum.
- Match site to purpose: ABC Education for curriculum topics, Khan for maths rescue, BTN for current affairs, museums for projects. Each site has a job.
- Supervise the young ones: free doesn’t mean unmoderated. Sit with under-8s; spot-check older kids. See our online safety guide.
- Combine with offline: the best use of a science site is inspiring a real experiment; the best use of a museum site is planning a real visit. Screens as springboards, not destinations.
- Revisit seasonally: new content appears constantly (BTN weekly, museum exhibitions rotating). A quarterly “what’s new” browse keeps the dashboard fresh.
Holiday learning: beating the slide for free
The long summer break erodes skills — particularly reading and maths fluency. Free sites make holiday maintenance painless:
- Summer reading challenge: your state library almost certainly runs one — free, with real rewards and events. Combine with library ebooks for a zero-cost reading program.
- 15 minutes of maths, 3x weekly: Prodigy or Khan Academy through January keeps fluency alive. Frame it as a game streak, not schoolwork.
- One project per holiday: “build a Scratch game,” “identify 20 backyard birds on iNaturalist,” “research our suburb’s history via the state library.” Projects sustain engagement that drills can’t.
- Holiday programs at museums and libraries: free workshops, virtual excursions and activity packs spike every school holidays — check council and museum websites in the final week of term.
- Travel learning: road trip? Download ABC Kids episodes and audiobooks beforehand; visit a museum or Questacon-style science centre at the destination. The Geoscience Australia site can turn any landscape into a geology lesson.
Free sites for parents too
The best free resource might be your own upskilling:
- Raising Children Network: Australia’s parenting site — evidence-based articles on learning, behaviour and development from newborn to teens.
- Learning Potential (Australian Government): hundreds of articles helping parents support learning at home, early years through high school.
- eSafety Commissioner: free parent guides, webinars and resources on keeping kids safe online.
- Your school’s parent portal: often links curriculum overviews and recommended resources — underused and specific to your child’s actual classes.
When parents understand what good learning looks like, every free site above becomes twice as effective — because someone’s guiding the journey.
Free vs paid: when free is enough
Honestly? For most families, free is enough for most purposes. The free tier of the internet covers curriculum content, maths practice, reading, coding and enrichment comprehensively. Paid earns its place when:
- Your child needs adaptive personalisation (programs that adjust to their level automatically).
- You want detailed progress reporting without doing the tracking yourself.
- A specific engagement hook (gamification, characters) is what gets your child learning.
- The school uses a paid platform — alignment multiplies value.
Our platforms guide and apps guide cover the paid side; homeschooling families can build entire curricula from the free sites above.