Free curriculum, and what you may actually do with it
Everything on this page costs nothing to use. That is not the same as being free to copy, and the difference catches people out. A program can be generous about letting families use it on its own website and still keep every right to the material itself.
The three categories worth keeping straight
Public domain means nobody owns it any more. Use it, change it, print it, build on it. Most material published before 1930 and nearly everything produced by a US federal agency sits here.
Openly licensed means the owner has given permission in advance, with conditions. A CC BY license asks for credit. A CC BY-NC-SA license adds that you may not sell it and that anything you build from it has to carry the same license, which is a real commitment.
Free to use means exactly that and no more. You may use it with your children. You may not copy it into something of your own. Most free homeschool material is this kind.
108 resources
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A fable is about the right length for a first grader to hear, retell in his own words, and then copy one sentence from. That is three exercises out of one short text, and the supply never runs out.
License: Public domain in the United States for the Gutenberg editions. Print, copy, retype and adapt freely. A modern translation of an old work can carry its own copyright, so use the Gutenberg text rather than a recent edition.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 1
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Free year-by-year book lists and schedules built around older, meatier books and narration, where the child tells back what he read. Most of the titles are public domain, so the reading itself costs nothing.
License: Free to use on their site. Their own schedules and commentary are copyrighted, all rights reserved, and subject to a license agreement they publish. Link to their pages rather than reposting them. The books they point to are largely public domain and can be printed freely.
Reading and Phonics · grades 5
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A dad and his kids draw one subject step by step, five to ten minutes a video, with hundreds in the library on YouTube. For a five-year-old it is the lowest-prep art you can run: press play, hand over paper.
License: Free to watch on YouTube and to browse on their site. Copyrighted. Draw along with it; do not re-post the videos or hand out their printables as your own.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades K
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Straightforward explanations of the branches, elections, the legislative process, and the founding documents, published by the Government Publishing Office. Three age tiers, with the Journey Person and Master levels both usable in fifth grade depending on the reader.
License: United States government work, public domain.
History and Social Studies · grades 5
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The Government Publishing Office's children's site. The Apprentice tier is built for ages 4 to 8 and covers national symbols, what a citizen is, and who is responsible for what, in language a kindergartner follows while you read it aloud.
License: United States government work, public domain.
History and Social Studies · grades K
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The Government Publishing Office's site on how the government works. The Journey Person tier is built for ages 9 to 13 and covers the branches, elections, and how a bill becomes law, which lines up with the third grade government strand.
License: United States government work, public domain.
History and Social Studies · grades 3
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Texas built its own reading curriculum, and the read-aloud strands carry a large amount of history and geography knowledge inside them. It is a reading program and not a social studies course, but the knowledge-building domains cover a good deal of the same ground at no cost. Spanish versions exist for the K-5 subjects.
License: State open educational resource. Digital access is free to educators, campuses, and individuals, and TEA describes the materials as OER. It is not a Creative Commons license you will already recognize, so read the portal's own terms before reproducing anything.
History and Social Studies · grades K
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The state history museum's resources for teachers, including free live virtual classes led by museum educators on topics such as Texas symbols, the missions, and the regions of Texas, plus online exhibits and artifact stories. Built for Texas classrooms, which is exactly the alignment this year needs. Use the for-educators page; older education paths redirect elsewhere.
License: Free to use for teaching. Copyrighted by the museum rather than openly licensed, so check the terms before reposting anything.
History and Social Studies · grades 4
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Carnegie Hall's Link Up program adapted for families at home: an interactive map of the orchestra, sing-along and play-along videos with interactive sheet music, and a write-your-own-song activity. Built for grades 3 to 5 and usable a year early with a parent alongside.
License: Free to use on their site. Copyrighted by Carnegie Hall.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 2
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Short, interdisciplinary money activities searchable by grade band, plus the Money as You Grow reading guides that pair a picture book with questions to ask while you read it.
License: Published by a federal agency and free to download and print. Federal works are generally free of copyright. The site carries no explicit reuse grant, so read the agency's own terms before republishing anything.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 2
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Grade-banded activities covering budgeting, comparing payment methods, and understanding a paycheck. This is the closest free match to the Texas fifth grade financial literacy standards, gross versus net income included.
License: Federal agency publication, free to download and print. Generally free of copyright as a U.S. government work. No explicit reuse grant is posted, so read the agency's site terms before republishing.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 5
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Thirteen free browser toys for music, no reading required. Song Maker, Rhythm and Kandinsky are the three a kindergartener will actually use; Kandinsky turns anything he scribbles into sound.
License: Free to use in any browser with no account. Google publishes source code for several experiments on GitHub under an open license, so read that repository before reusing any code. Using the site is not the same as being allowed to copy it.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades K
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Six-minute composer radio shows from 90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati Public Radio, plus free lesson plans banded K-2 and 3-5, a composer explorer, games and an instrument guide. One episode over breakfast is a whole music lesson.
License: Provided free to teachers, parents and caregivers, but the site is marked All Rights Reserved. Listen and print the lesson plans for your own family; do not republish or redistribute it.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 1
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The Grade 1 sequence runs Continents, Countries, and Maps, then Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and Three World Religions, then Early Civilizations of the Americas covering the Maya, Aztec, and Inca, then the culture of Mexico, early exploration of North America, from colonies to independence, and exploring the West. Read-aloud text with teacher notes throughout.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Attribute in Core Knowledge's specified wording, no commercial use, and any adaptation you share must carry the same or a similar license. Do not pull images out of the PDFs for other uses.
History and Social Studies · grades 1
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Units including ancient Greece, ancient India, ancient China, the American Revolution, and the Constitution, with teacher guides and read-aloud text.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Attribution in their specified wording, no commercial use, and any adaptation you share carries the same or a similar license. Images inside the PDFs are not yours to extract.
History and Social Studies · grades 2
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Units on world rivers, ancient Rome, the Vikings, the earliest Americans, the thirteen colonies, and world geography, with read-alouds and teacher guides.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Attribution in their wording, no commercial use, and derivatives must carry the same or a similar license. Read the license page inside any PDF you download, and leave the embedded images where they are.
History and Social Studies · grades 3
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Units including the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, the Reformation, feudal Japan, Native Americans, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and United States geography, with full teacher guides.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Attribution in Core Knowledge's specified wording, no commercial use, and derivatives must be released under the same or a similar license. The embedded images are separately licensed to them and are not yours to extract.
History and Social Studies · grades 5
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Full teacher guides and student read-alouds on topics including Native American groups, Columbus and the Pilgrims, kings and queens, presidents and American symbols, and seasons and weather. Written for classrooms, but the read-aloud scripts work without changes at a kitchen table.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Verified in the license page printed inside the PDFs. Three conditions, and the third one matters most: you must attribute Core Knowledge in the wording they specify, you may not use it commercially, and anything you build on it must be released under the same or a similar license. That ShareAlike term travels to your derivative work. Core Knowledge also asks that you not extract images out of the PDFs for other uses, because those images are licensed to them separately.
History and Social Studies · grades K
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Skills lessons paired with a read-aloud strand on real subjects like early world civilizations and the human body. The knowledge those read-alouds build is what makes third grade nonfiction readable later on.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, confirmed in Core Knowledge's terms document. Free to download, print and adapt with attribution. No selling it, no selling an adaptation, and derivatives carry the same license.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 1
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Continues the skills-plus-knowledge structure, with read-alouds on ancient civilizations, the human body, insects and more. The skills strand covers syllable types and suffixes properly, which is the thing second grade actually needs.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, confirmed in Core Knowledge's terms document. Free to download, print and adapt with attribution. Selling it or an adaptation is not permitted, and derivatives carry the same license.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 2
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Reading units on subjects like classic tales, the human body and early exploration, with vocabulary and background knowledge taught rather than assumed.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, confirmed in Core Knowledge's terms document. Free to download, print and adapt with attribution. No selling it or an adaptation, and derivatives carry the same license.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 3
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Units on poetry, geology, the American Revolution and turning points in science, with the vocabulary taught rather than assumed.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, confirmed in Core Knowledge's terms document. Free to download, print and adapt with attribution. Selling it or an adaptation is not permitted, and derivatives carry the same license.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 4
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Reading units tied to history and science topics, with vocabulary and background knowledge taught alongside the texts rather than assumed.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, confirmed in Core Knowledge's terms document. Free to download, print and adapt with attribution. No selling it or an adaptation, and derivatives carry the same license.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 5
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A full year in two halves: a skills strand for letters and sounds, and a read-aloud strand that builds knowledge about the world. The read-aloud half is the piece most home phonics programs leave out entirely.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), confirmed in Core Knowledge's own terms document. Free to download, print and adapt with attribution. You may not sell it, sell an adaptation, or sell lesson plans that reproduce part of it, and anything you build on it must carry the same license.
Reading and Phonics · grades K
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Yoga told as a story, ten to twenty-five minutes an episode, free on YouTube. Good for a rainy Texas afternoon, or for a child who needs to move his body before he can sit at a table.
License: Free to watch on YouTube and on their site. Copyrighted.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades K
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One search across the holdings of thousands of American libraries, archives, and museums, with curated primary source sets by topic. Useful when you want three photographs of one thing rather than one photograph of three.
License: Free to search. Rights vary by contributing institution and are stated per item. Verify at the item before republishing.
History and Social Studies · grades 3
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The Archives' teaching site, built on actual federal records: the Constitution, treaties, census pages, war posters, immigration documents. The activities are interactive and you can build your own from any document in their holdings.
License: Federal records, public domain. The site and its activities are free to use. A small number of items may carry donor or third party restrictions, so check the item record for anything unusual.
History and Social Studies · grades 5
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Free economics and personal finance lessons sorted by grade band, including a usable set for K-2 on scarcity, wants and needs, and producers and consumers. Short and ready to teach, which suits the second grade economics strand well.
License: Free to use, with a free account required for some material. Copyrighted by the Council for Economic Education rather than openly licensed, so read their permission policy and do not redistribute the files.
History and Social Studies · grades 2
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Full units built around a topic and a set of real books, with discussion questions and writing tied to the reading. Strong on answering with evidence, which is the third grade jump.
License: The 2025 Edition is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0), stated on the curriculum access site. The earlier 2017 Edition was released under the more permissive CC BY 4.0. Check which edition you downloaded before you adapt or share it. Either way the trade books the modules use must be bought or borrowed separately.
Reading and Phonics · grades 3
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Topic-based units where the reading, the discussion and the writing all point at the same question. Strong on citing evidence, which is the fourth grade standard almost everywhere.
License: The 2025 Edition is CC BY-NC 4.0 as stated on the curriculum access site; the earlier 2017 Edition carried the more permissive CC BY 4.0. Confirm which edition your download is before adapting or sharing. Trade books are bought or borrowed separately either way.
Reading and Phonics · grades 4
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Units that carry one big question across weeks of reading, discussion and writing. The closest thing to a free, complete fifth grade reading course with real books at the center.
License: The 2025 Edition is CC BY-NC 4.0 as stated on the curriculum access site; the earlier 2017 Edition carried CC BY 4.0. Confirm your edition before adapting or sharing. Trade books are bought or borrowed separately.
Reading and Phonics · grades 5
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Thorough and heavily scripted lessons, free as PDFs. The place value progression in these modules is carefully built and worth borrowing even if you use something else as your spine. Get them from the New York State archive rather than the publisher's marketing site.
License: CC BY-NC-SA. Free for non-commercial use with attribution and ShareAlike. The paid Eureka Math Squared is a different product and is not covered.
Math · grades 1
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The Grade 3 fraction and multiplication modules are carefully sequenced from concrete to abstract and hold up well against paid programs. Free PDFs, heavy on printing. Download from the New York State archive.
License: CC BY-NC-SA. Free for non-commercial use with attribution and ShareAlike. Eureka Math Squared is a separate paid product.
Math · grades 3
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The fraction modules are among the more carefully built free material at this level, and the long division sequence is patient and thorough. Free PDFs from the New York State archive.
License: CC BY-NC-SA. Free for non-commercial use with attribution and ShareAlike. Eureka Math Squared is a separate paid product not covered by this license.
Math · grades 4
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Thorough on decimal place value and on fraction division, with careful models introduced before any procedure. Free PDFs from the New York State archive, and a lot of printing.
License: CC BY-NC-SA. Free for non-commercial use with attribution and ShareAlike. Eureka Math Squared is a separate paid product.
Math · grades 5
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The New York State modules, written by Great Minds. Very thorough and very scripted. The free version is a stack of plain PDFs, so budget time for printing and organizing. Download from the New York State Education Department archive rather than the publisher's site, where the free original is easy to confuse with the paid Eureka Math Squared.
License: CC BY-NC-SA. Free to use and share for non-commercial purposes with attribution and ShareAlike. Note that Eureka Math Squared is a separate commercial product and is not covered by this license.
Math · grades K
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Eight lessons building on the PreK-2 set, moving into budgeting and setting savings goals, with an educator guide, handouts and slides. It covers most of what Texas asks of third grade money, though the Texas standards lean harder on credit and on human capital than these lessons do.
License: Federal agency publication, free to download and print. Generally free of copyright as a U.S. government work. The FDIC restricts use of its name and logo to imply endorsement, so read that notice before republishing.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 3
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Six lessons with an educator guide, student handouts and slides. Where money comes from, wants versus needs, coins by name. It lines up closely with what Texas puts in kindergarten and first grade math.
License: A U.S. federal agency publication, free to download and print. Federal government works are generally free of copyright. The FDIC does restrict use of its name and logo to imply endorsement, so read that notice before republishing anything.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades K
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Short movement and mindfulness videos built as classroom brain breaks. Three to five minutes each, which is about the length a five-year-old can hold. Families can watch free on the web and on the Roku, Fire, iOS and Android apps.
License: Free for families, and the mobile apps no longer require an account. Copyrighted. The paid product is SuperNoodle, a social-emotional curriculum licensed to schools and districts, not a family upsell.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades K, 2
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Free browsing of thousands of museum collections, with zoom deep enough to see individual brushstrokes. Good for the moment a child asks how somebody painted that.
License: Free to view. Rights vary by partner museum and many images are NOT free to reuse. Treat it as a viewing tool, not an image source. When you want an image you can print and keep, take it from the Met, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery or the Library of Congress instead.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 3
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A long field guide written for teachers with no science training, organized as outdoor lessons on plants, birds, insects, soil, rocks and weather. It assumes you are standing outside looking at the thing, which is exactly the first grade posture. Skip around; nobody reads it front to back.
License: Public domain in the United States. Published 1911, author died in 1930, so the text and the illustrations are free for any use including commercial. I confirmed the full text is on Project Gutenberg.
Science · grades 1, 2
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A free encyclopedia of Texas with tens of thousands of entries on people, places, battles, towns, and industries, written by historians. When your child asks who founded the town, the answer is usually in here.
License: Free to read online and copyrighted by the Texas State Historical Association. Cite it and link to it rather than copying entries into materials of your own.
History and Social Studies · grades 4
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Over 300 free video piano lessons covering multiple years of study. A keyboard plus these videos is a real music program at this age, and the paid tier only adds printables and tracking.
License: The video lessons are free to watch. Copyrighted, with printable sheet music, games and practice tools behind a paid tier.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 3
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Free civics games, lesson plans, and simulations, including running a branch of government, arguing a case, and passing a bill. The games make separation of powers concrete in a way that reading about it does not. There is real elementary material here as well as the better-known middle school content, including sets aimed at ages six to eleven, though a fifth grader will still get more from it with you sitting alongside. Use the education site: the plain icivics.org address now redirects to their advocacy site rather than the classroom resources.
License: Free with a free account. Copyrighted and licensed for educational use rather than openly licensed, so check their terms before reproducing anything.
History and Social Studies · grades 5
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A complete, carefully sequenced curriculum with strong teacher notes, free through Kendall Hunt. The word-problem work at this level is more substantial than what most first grade material attempts.
License: CC BY 4.0. Openly licensed, so you may adapt and share with attribution.
Math · grades 1
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Free through Kendall Hunt, with careful sequencing on place value and on what regrouping means rather than how to write it. The teacher notes are detailed and worth reading before you teach.
License: CC BY 4.0. Openly licensed for adaptation with attribution.
Math · grades 2
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Free through Kendall Hunt. The fraction units stand out because they build fractions on the number line from the start, which is what the standards actually ask for and what a lot of programs handle poorly.
License: CC BY 4.0. Openly licensed, adapt and share with attribution.
Math · grades 3
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Free through Kendall Hunt. The fraction equivalence and comparison units are the strongest part, and the multiplication progression is built up rather than announced as a rule to follow.
License: CC BY 4.0. Openly licensed for adaptation with attribution.
Math · grades 4
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Free through Kendall Hunt. The units on multiplying and dividing fractions explain why the procedures work instead of handing over invert-and-multiply, which is unusual at this level and worth having.
License: CC BY 4.0. Openly licensed for adaptation with attribution.
Math · grades 5
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A full classroom curriculum with detailed teacher guidance, free through Kendall Hunt. Heavier on teacher preparation than the others here, and the math is carefully built. Read the unit narratives before you teach. You may be asked to create a free account.
License: CC BY 4.0. Genuinely open. You may adapt, print, and republish with attribution.
Math · grades K
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An enormous library of scanned sheet music, hundreds of thousands of scores. If your child plays anything, the piece he wants is probably here for free.
License: Most scores are public domain, but copyright terms differ by country and IMSLP labels each file accordingly. Read the label before printing, especially for anything written in the twentieth century, and remember that a modern typeset edition of an old work can carry its own copyright.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 5
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Khan released new grade-banded grammar courses in 2026 covering grades 5-6, 7-8 and 9-10, with videos, articles and practice on sentence structure, commonly confused words, style and tone. Fifth grade is the first year one of these lines up with the child. The older all-ages Grammar course stays available alongside them.
License: Free to use with an account. Licensing varies by item; check before copying or adapting.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 5
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A free, open-source painting program with real brush engines. A fourth grader with a cheap drawing tablet can make genuine digital art in it, and undo makes him braver about trying things.
License: Free and open-source software under the GNU GPL version 3. Free to download, use, share and use commercially, and the art he makes in it is entirely his.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 4
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Letters, photographs, maps and newspapers a fourth grader can read next to a textbook account of the same event. This is where firsthand versus secondhand stops being an abstract standard and becomes something he can see.
License: This is the clearest case of free to view not meaning free to copy. The Library states plainly that it generally does not own the rights to materials in its collections and that you must determine for yourself whether an item is protected or in the public domain. Every item page carries its own rights statement. Read it.
Reading and Phonics · grades 4
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Batches of images the Library has grouped by theme, such as baseball, dogs, travel posters, and presidential portraits. Good for a five-year-old looking at real photographs of the past instead of drawings of it. The set on display rotates.
License: Selected because the Library knows of no copyright restrictions on them, and the page carries a United States Government Work rights tag. Read the rights statement on an individual item before reusing it publicly, since the Library states rights per item.
History and Social Studies, Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades K, 3
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A complete math program with full lesson plans, practice books, answer keys, and copymasters, built from Hungarian materials and unusually strong on mental math and on talking problems through out loud. The lesson plans tell you what to say, which is a real gift for a first-time teaching parent. British Reception maps to roughly U.S. pre-K and Year 1 to roughly U.S. kindergarten, so place your child by content and ignore the label.
License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT. The notice on the page reads, in capitals, that the material is made available for NON-PROFIT MAKING PURPOSES ONLY. Free to use with your own child. Not an open license, so you may not adapt and republish it.
Math · grades K
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Full lesson plans, practice books, and copymasters. Strong on mental arithmetic and on making a child explain his reasoning. Note the numbering: British school years run roughly one ahead of American grade labels by age, so Year 2 sits near U.S. first grade. Ignore the number and place him by the content.
License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT, restricted to non-profit-making purposes. Fine for your own family, not open for republishing.
Math · grades 1
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Complete lesson plans and practice books. The problem-solving and mental arithmetic sequences are notably strong here, and it pushes reasoning harder than most American second grade material. Year 3 sits near U.S. second grade by age. Place by content, not by the year number.
License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT, non-profit-making purposes only. Use with your own family is fine.
Math · grades 2
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Complete lesson plans and practice books, with a strong multiplication and division sequence and problem sets noticeably harder than typical American third grade work. This is the free spine our family defaults to.
License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT, non-profit-making purposes only.
Math · grades 3
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Full lesson plans and practice books covering the fourth grade range and beyond, and notably demanding on multi-step reasoning. It uses metric units and pounds sterling throughout, so you will need to supply customary units and dollar practice yourself.
License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT, non-profit-making purposes only.
Math · grades 4
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The final primary year, with demanding multi-step problems and a pre-algebra flavor that suits the transition ahead. It uses metric units and pounds sterling, so supply customary and dollar practice separately.
License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT, non-profit-making purposes only.
Math · grades 5
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Public domain rhymes for dictation, oral memory work, and single-sentence copywork. Short rhythmic lines are easier for a five-year-old to hold in his head than prose is.
License: Public domain in the United States. Copy, print, and adapt freely. Gutenberg's own header and license text is a separate matter from the work itself; strip it if you republish.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades K
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Free, open-source music notation software. A fifth grader can compose, hear it played back, and print real sheet music. Composing is the piece of music education almost everyone leaves out.
License: Free and open-source software under the GNU GPL version 3. Free to download and use, and what your child writes in it belongs to him. The separate score-sharing website has its own terms and its own paid tier, so do not confuse the two.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 5
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Recordings and sheet music the site identifies as free of copyright restrictions, over 100,000 files. Useful when you want to hear a piece and read its score at the same time.
License: Much of the catalog is public domain and some items carry Creative Commons licenses. Verify the status of the individual recording or score rather than assuming the whole site: performances and modern typeset editions can carry their own rights, and Musopen itself notes it cannot guarantee user-uploaded material is public domain. The free tier also caps downloads at five a day; unlimited downloads are a paid membership at roughly $55 a year.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 4
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Satellite imagery and plain-language articles on the water cycle, seasons, drought, storms and how climate differs from weather, with a new Image of the Day and the World of Change series showing the same place across years. Real data about real places, updated constantly. Note the old earthobservatory.nasa.gov address now redirects here.
License: NASA content is generally not protected by copyright and may be printed and adapted. Images from outside providers hosted under permission are excluded, so read the caption credit. Insignia and endorsement limits apply.
Science · grades 4
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A suite of browser-based 3D visualizations running on real mission data. Eyes on the Solar System covers 1950 to 2050 with more than 150 missions, Eyes on the Earth shows live climate data, and there are separate views for asteroids and exoplanets. Rotation, orbit and scale are far easier to teach against a model that moves than against a diagram that does not.
License: NASA content is generally not protected by copyright and may be copied and adapted. Third-party imagery hosted under permission is excluded. Insignia and endorsement limits apply to commercial use.
Science · grades 5
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NASA's Science Activation hub, with a searchable catalog of roughly a thousand learning resources and standards alignments already worked out. Solar system material sits at several reading levels, including printable models and imagery you can build a Sun, Earth and Moon lesson around. Orbits are hard to teach without good pictures, and these cost nothing.
License: NASA content is generally not protected by copyright and may be copied and adapted. Third-party images hosted under permission are excluded. Insignia and endorsement limits apply.
Science · grades 3
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NASA's site for the K-4 band. Short articles and printable activities on the Sun, the Moon, day and night, clouds and weather, most of them readable aloud in about five minutes. The reading level is genuinely aimed at this age rather than dumbed down from an adult page.
License: NASA states its content is generally not protected by copyright, so you may copy, print and adapt it. Three limits: images NASA hosts under permission from outside photographers are excluded, the NASA insignia may not go on anything you sell, and nothing you make may imply NASA endorses it.
Science · grades K, 2
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More than 60,000 high-resolution images of public domain works, downloadable straight from the object page. American and European painting is especially deep here.
License: Open access images are released under CC0: free for any use, commercial or not, with no permission needed. Works still under copyright are excluded from the set. The credit line is appreciated but not required.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 2
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Activity booklets tied to individual parks and to national themes such as caves, night skies, and fossils. A child works through puzzles, drawings, and observation tasks, then gets sworn in and given a badge. The online themed booklets work from the kitchen table when a park visit is not happening. The page is a gateway, so follow its links to the booklet you want.
License: United States government work, free to download and print. Individual photographs inside a booklet can carry their own credit line, so check an image before republishing it anywhere public.
History and Social Studies · grades K, 1
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Lesson plans built around real places in the park system, with photographs, maps, and readings. Good modeling of how you question a place rather than just visit it, which is exactly the habit the local history year wants.
License: United States government work and generally public domain, though individual images inside a lesson may be credited to others.
History and Social Studies · grades 2
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Fourth graders get a free annual pass covering the family's entry to national parks and federal public lands for the school year. That is a real, checkable benefit tied to exactly this grade, and it turns a weathering and erosion unit into a drive. The Park Service kids hub also carries Junior Ranger booklets; the deeper geology material lives on individual park pages rather than the kids landing page.
License: Public domain as a work of the United States government, with the standard caution about credited third-party photographs.
Science · grades 4
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Short plain-answer explanations on tides, currents, coasts and how the ocean shapes weather, split into sections for educators, students and kids. Useful for the fresh water versus salt water comparison, and a Gulf Coast family gets to point at a map of water they have actually stood in.
License: Public domain as a work of the United States government, with the same caution about credited third-party photographs.
Science · grades 1, 4
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A full K-12 PE curriculum, free, created and funded by US Games and BSN SPORTS, the sporting goods divisions of Varsity Brands. Grade-banded modules with skill cues, assessment sheets and station cards. This is the closest thing to a real PE program that costs nothing.
License: Free after making a free account. OPEN states that downloaded resources can be edited, modified and tailored to your own students. It remains their copyrighted work, so adapt it for your family rather than selling or republishing it. Note that openphysed.org now redirects to the site's home under Varsity University.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 1
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The 3-5 band covers invasion games, striking and fielding, fitness knowledge and dance, with skill cues and assessment sheets a parent can follow without a PE background.
License: Free with a free account, and OPEN states downloaded resources can be edited and adapted for your own students. Still their copyrighted work, published by US Games and BSN SPORTS, so adapt it for your family rather than redistributing it.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 4
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The upper elementary and middle school modules cover fitness knowledge, personal goal setting and full-rules game play, which is exactly the fifth grade shift.
License: Free with a free account, and OPEN states downloaded resources can be edited and adapted for your own students. Their copyrighted work, so adapt rather than redistribute.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 5
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Tens of thousands of out-of-copyright books, including the old graded readers like McGuffey. Print anything, mark it up, reformat it. The old readers use dated language and their word order does not match a modern phonics sequence, so use them for reading practice rather than as your teaching spine.
License: Public domain in the United States. Copy, print and adapt with no permission needed. Gutenberg's own trademark and license boilerplate carry separate terms, so strip those if you republish a text.
Reading and Phonics · grades 2, 3, 5
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A nineteenth-century arithmetic built almost entirely on oral mental problems. Old-fashioned language and no pictures, and the mental arithmetic drill is excellent. Scans are on the Internet Archive; search the title rather than trusting any single link, since individual scan URLs move.
License: Public domain. Published in the 1800s, so you may copy, print, adapt, and share it without restriction.
Math · grades 2
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The GLO holds the original Texas land grant records and a very large map archive, and the Save Texas History program puts digitized maps and documents online. The program also runs an annual essay contest.
License: State records, free to view online. The agency sells print reproductions, so read the reuse terms before publishing an image anywhere. Note the current address includes the archives and heritage path; older short links redirect.
History and Social Studies · grades 4
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120 parent-led lessons, free as a full-color PDF. Short lessons with a lot of games and movement, which suits a wiggly six-year-old. Math Box manipulatives are separate, with make-your-own instructions on the level's FAQ page. General Christian worldview throughout.
License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not openly licensed.
Math · grades 1
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120 parent-led lessons as a free PDF, gently paced with games woven in. Math Box manipulatives are separate, with make-your-own instructions posted. General Christian worldview throughout.
License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not open for adaptation.
Math · grades 2
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120 parent-led lessons, free as a PDF. Gentler and more colorful than MEP, with games built in. General Christian worldview throughout.
License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not openly licensed.
Math · grades 3
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120 full-color lessons, free as a PDF, with supporting video lessons posted on the level's FAQ page. More independent than the K-3 levels, which helps if you are teaching several children at once. General Christian worldview throughout.
License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not openly licensed.
Math · grades 4
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120 full-color lessons, free as a PDF, with supporting video lessons on the level's FAQ page. The independence suits a fifth grader who can work alone for a stretch. General Christian worldview throughout.
License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not openly licensed.
Math · grades 5
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120 parent-led lessons as a free full-color PDF. Short lessons, lots of movement and games. The Math Box manipulatives used in levels K through 3 are not offered as PDFs and are sold separately, though the publisher posts instructions for making your own on each level's FAQ page. The curriculum carries a general Christian worldview, which is a plus or a minus depending on your family.
License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not openly licensed, so use it with your own children and do not redistribute.
Math · grades K
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Free art history essays and short videos written by art historians and used in college survey courses. Read one aloud, look at the work together, done in twelve minutes. This is also the source behind Khan Academy's art history course, so the two are the same material in different wrappers.
License: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): you may share and adapt for non-commercial use with attribution, and any adaptation must carry the same license. Some embedded images are licensed separately by their owners, so check individual images before reusing them.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 3
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Millions of images and object records you can build a reading-and-looking session around a real artifact. Pairs well with any history or science unit.
License: A CC0 public domain dedication applies to the designated Open Access set, meaning no permission is needed at all for those items. Items outside that set are not covered, so confirm an item carries the Open Access designation before you reuse it. Their site blocks automated requests, so open it in a browser.
Reading and Phonics, Science, History and Social Studies, Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 4, K, 2, 3, 1
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Letter sounds and letter formation activities in the free portion of the site. Good for a child who fights a pencil and needs a lower-stakes way in. The bulk of the program, roughly 700 activities, sits behind a low-cost membership.
License: Free to use on their site. Copyright 2002-2026 Starfall Education, all rights reserved. Not open-licensed, and the free tier can change at any time.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades K
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The original free ABC and learn-to-read activities. Good for five minutes of letter-sound review. Not good as your teaching sequence, because it was never built to be one.
License: Free to use on their site, copyrighted. The free portion is a subset of the whole. A home membership at $35 a year opens the rest, confirmed on their store in August 2026.
Reading and Phonics · grades K
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The state's reference book, readable online. Good for state symbols, county facts, towns, lakes, officeholders, and the plain data that a six-year-old's questions about Texas keep running into.
License: Free to read online and copyrighted by the Texas State Historical Association, which publishes it. Cite it and link to it rather than copying it into materials of your own.
History and Social Studies · grades 1
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The state agency behind the roadside historical markers, with a searchable atlas of marker text and a list of state historic sites. The marker two miles from your house has a full write-up you can read before you go stand in front of it.
License: State agency material, free to read. Check the agency's terms before republishing marker text or photographs.
History and Social Studies · grades 2
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The state archives online exhibit, organized into the Republic of Texas, early statehood, Native American relations, flags and maps, the Texas Constitution, and more. It includes William Barret Travis's 'Victory or Death' letter from the Alamo, whose original the Commission bought in 1893 and has held since 1909, with a digitized image viewable through their digital archive. It also covers the Texas Declaration of Independence. Reading Travis's actual handwriting lands differently than reading about it.
License: State archival material, free to view. Rights vary by document, so check the individual record before reuse.
History and Social Studies · grades 4
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A public domain word bank sorted by difficulty that you can pull review lists from all year. Pair it with a rules source. Used alone it becomes list-and-test, which is the thing most third graders already fail at.
License: Public domain in the United States.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 3
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A Measuring Scale for Ability in Spelling. The thousand commonest written English words, sorted by difficulty into columns lettered A through Z. Still a sound backbone for placement, review, and building your own word lists. Several paid programs are built on top of it. The Internet Archive scan runs 71 pages.
License: Public domain in the United States. The 1915 scan is free to copy and adapt.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 2
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A free full-year PDF course covering phonics, reading practice and early grammar in one place, with art and poetry mixed through it.
License: Free PDF download for your own family, fully copyrighted, not open-licensed. Check their terms before printing for anyone outside your household.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 1
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A free full-year PDF course blending phonics review, reading, grammar and literature study in one package.
License: Free PDF download for your own family, fully copyrighted, not open-licensed. Openly Christian in tone, with references to God and scripture through the lessons, so look at a unit before you commit.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 2
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A free full-year PDF course covering reading, grammar, spelling and literature study in one package.
License: Free PDF download for your own family, fully copyrighted, not open-licensed. Openly Christian in tone. Read a unit before committing your year to it.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 3
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Free full-year PDF: two course books, an answer key, and three novels (Leo and the Lighthouse, Nettie's Letters, Whisper Creek). Grammar, writing assignments and literature in one course book keeps the number of moving parts down. Important correction: the Level 4 download does not include a spelling practice book. Spelling moved to the publisher's separate Simply Spelling program, which is free online, with an optional paid practice workbook.
License: Free to download and fully copyrighted, not openly licensed.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 4
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Free full-year PDF: two course books, an answer key, and four novels (Mystery of the Crying Caves, The Clockmaker's Son, A Trickle of Water, Ice Storm). Correction: there is no spelling practice book in the Level 5 download. Spelling is handled by the publisher's separate Simply Spelling program, which is free online, with an optional consumable workbook sold for about $7.
License: Free to download and fully copyrighted, not openly licensed.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 5
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A complete, gentle, heavily illustrated year of language arts released as a free PDF set. Open-and-go, which is why so many families start here.
License: Free PDF download for your own family's use, fully copyrighted, not open-licensed. Free downloads currently run from Level K through Level 8. Read their terms before printing copies for anyone outside your household.
Reading and Phonics, Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades K
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Over 490,000 high-resolution images of public domain artworks. Print one a week, tape it to the refrigerator, talk about it for two minutes. Done consistently, that is a legitimate art history program.
License: Images marked Open Access are released under CC0: print, crop, collage, remix and post them with no permission needed, commercially or not. Not every object in the collection is Open Access, so check the individual object page for the CC0 mark.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 1
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The original cursive manual, free in full text on Project Gutenberg. You are mining it for letterforms, joins and drill ideas, not handing the book to a seven-year-old. Print the letter models onto lined paper and you have a free cursive program. Verified: Gutenberg ebook 66476, Palmer, with copyright dates running 1901 through 1915.
License: Public domain in the United States, stated on the Gutenberg record. Copy, print, adapt and republish freely.
Writing, Grammar and Spelling · grades 2
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An enormous digitized collection of Texas material: small-town newspapers going back well over a century, photographs, maps, land documents, and yearbooks, browsable by location, collection, partner, subject, and date. For a local history unit there is not much else like it. Find your county, find the year, read the paper.
License: Free to view, and rights are stated per item rather than across the site. The Portal's own policy is candid that the nature of archival collections often makes copyright status difficult to determine, and it puts the responsibility on the user to check with the holding partner before reusing an item. Do not assume an old newspaper is public domain because it is old.
History and Social Studies · grades 2, 4
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Lesson slide decks, word lists, decodable passages, homework sheets and practice games that follow a phonics sequence used in many public school classrooms. The teaching order is the valuable part, and that part is free even though the manual is not.
License: Free to download and use, and copyrighted by the University of Florida rather than openly licensed. Their copyright statement permits adapting the slide decks for your own students and sharing items individually at no cost with attribution. It prohibits reposting the files anywhere on the internet, reproducing any part of the paid manual by any means, and building other products from their material.
Reading and Phonics · grades K, 1
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Smokey Bear fire safety, Woodsy Owl on recycling, coloring pages, kids' videos, and Junior Ranger material for forests and snow. Honest scope: this is mascot-and-coloring territory, which is exactly right for five and six year olds. The Natural Inquirer science journal it links to reads well above this grade, so save that for later.
License: Public domain as a work of the United States government. Read the credit line under any photograph, since a few come from partner groups or outside photographers and are not covered.
Science · grades K
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The Geological Survey's teaching material across geology, natural hazards, water, ecosystems, geography and the solar system, in the form of lesson plans, activities, maps, videos and animations. This is the agency that actually monitors earthquakes and volcanoes, so the maps and photographs are the real thing rather than illustrations of it.
License: Public domain as a work of the United States government. Copy, print and adapt. Check the credit line under photographs, since a few come from partner agencies.
Science · grades 3, 5
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The Geological Survey's plain-language site on where water is, how it moves, and why it matters. Covers the water bodies work and the conservation work together, with printable diagrams at several complexity levels. There is a full Spanish version, Escuela de Ciencias del Agua, if that helps your household.
License: Public domain as a work of the United States government. Check the credit line under photographs, since a few come from partner agencies or outside photographers.
Science · grades 1, 4
- Your public library Free See terms
Underrated in this subject specifically. Craft and maker kits, art technique books, music on CD, instrument lending in some systems, free summer programs, and Libby or Hoopla for audio and video.
License: Free with a card. Borrowed material stays borrowed material, and library streaming terms are for personal use.
Art, Music, Movement and Life Skills · grades 1
Worth checking before you rely on them
These are genuinely useful, but we could not confirm the license or the terms firmly enough to state them here. Read the source's own terms page before you build anything around one.
- CK-12 Check the license
Free digital textbooks with embedded simulations and practice questions, strongest in math and physical science. The elementary and middle school sections cover states of matter, forces and energy, and you can strip a book down to only the chapters you want. Name given without a link because the site blocked my check.
- CommonLit Check the license
Thousands of short fiction and nonfiction texts for grades 3 through 12, each with reading questions and a stated reading level. A free teacher account lets you assign passages and see the answers.
- Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), Kindergarten Skills units Check the license
Free downloadable K-5 English program from the Core Knowledge Foundation. The Skills strand carries handwriting and sound-to-letter work; the Knowledge strand carries read-alouds. Written for a classroom of twenty, so a parent cuts hard. Expect to use maybe half of a unit.
- Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool Check the license
A complete free online curriculum that includes a history track, scheduled day by day, which removes the planning burden for a family that wants a script to follow.
- Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool, Language Arts 2 Check the license
A free, complete, day-by-day online course covering reading, spelling, grammar and writing. Assignments are short and the child works from the screen, which helps a parent juggling several kids.
- EngageNY / EL Education ELA Grade 3 modules Check the license
New York State's openly licensed English modules, heavy on writing from sources, with graphic organizers and rubrics included. Written for classrooms, so expect to cut about half. Correction to what you may read elsewhere: engageny.org itself is retired and its links no longer work, so you have to find the modules through EL Education or a mirror rather than the original site.
- EngageNY / EL Education ELA Grade 4 modules Check the license
Openly licensed classroom modules built around writing from sources, with graphic organizers and writing rubrics included. Expect to cut roughly half for a single child. As with grade 3, engageny.org is retired and its links no longer resolve, so find these through EL Education or a mirror.
- Exploratorium Science Snacks Check the license
Several hundred single-concept demonstrations from the San Francisco science museum, each with a materials list, steps, and the explanation behind it. The light and shadow ones fit kindergarten's Sun-gives-heat-and-light work and carry straight into first grade, where light and shadow is formally taught. Search their site for Science Snacks.
- Flyleaf Publishing e-book library Check the license
A library of well-made decodable books that follow a phonics progression, readable online after a free sign-up. Decodable text is the single hardest thing for a homeschool family to get without paying, and this is one of the few substantial free sources of it.
- Khan Academy Check the license
Free video and practice with an account. The middle school physics and chemistry units are a reasonable stretch for a capable fifth grader, and the practice problems give the kind of self-checking a parent cannot easily supply at the kitchen table. Coverage of elementary science is thinner than its math coverage, which is worth knowing before you plan a year around it.
- Khan Academy Early Math and Khan Academy Kids Check the license
Free videos and practice, plus a separate app aimed at ages two to eight. Useful as supplement and review rather than as your spine at this age, since a five-year-old needs objects in his hands more than a screen in front of him.
- Khan Academy, 1st grade math Check the license
Free practice and short videos organized by skill. Best used to shore up one weak spot rather than as the main course, since it will not teach place value with objects in a child's hands.
- Khan Academy, 2nd grade math Check the license
Skill-by-skill practice with hints, useful for shoring up regrouping specifically. Weak as a spine, good as a repair tool when one procedure will not stick.
- Khan Academy, 3rd grade math Check the license
Genuinely useful this year for multiplication fact practice and for re-teaching a specific fraction idea that did not land. The immediate feedback suits drill better than it suits first instruction.
- Khan Academy, 4th grade math Check the license
Strong this year for long division practice with step-by-step hints, and for decimal place value. The instant feedback matters when a child is making one small procedural slip over and over.
- Khan Academy, 5th grade math Check the license
Well suited to this year's procedural load. Decimal operations, fraction division, and order of operations all benefit from immediate feedback. Also useful as a quick diagnostic before starting pre-algebra.
- Khan Academy, the original all-ages Grammar course Check the license
Free video and practice grammar covering parts of speech, punctuation, usage and sentence structure. Note the correction: Khan's new grade-banded grammar courses start at grades 5 and 6, so there is no grade 3 grammar course. The all-ages Grammar course is what a third grader uses, and Khan has confirmed it stays available. Useful in ten-minute doses on whatever he is currently getting wrong, not as a whole language arts program.
- Library of Congress classroom materials and primary source sets Check the license
Themed bundles of documents, photographs, and maps with a teacher's guide supplying historical context and discussion questions. Sets exist by topic and by state. The Library reorganized these pages, so browse from the classroom materials hub rather than an older bookmarked path.
- Library of Congress digital collections Check the license
Photographs, letters, newspapers and maps a fifth grader can cite in a real research piece. Writing from a primary source beats writing from an encyclopedia entry, and it makes attribution concrete instead of theoretical.
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Graded reading and spelling books from the 1800s. Genuinely useful as a source of clean, short copywork and dictation sentences. The phonics sequence is dated and the content is Victorian, so mine it rather than follow it.
- NASA, NOAA and other federal agency educational materials Check the license
Free, accurate, well-illustrated source material for informational and research writing. A fourth grader writing about hurricanes or the Moon should be reading the agency that studies them rather than a content farm, and the reading level on the education pages is usually right for him.
- PBS LearningMedia Check the license
A free account opens tens of thousands of short classroom videos and activities sorted by grade and topic. The K-2 life science and weather clips run short enough to hold a five year old. Note that the site routes you to your regional station, so a Texas family lands on the Houston Public Media instance.
- Progressive Phonics Check the license
Free printable phonics books with matching handwriting worksheets, word-building sheets and flash cards. The handwriting sheets are the useful part at this age, because they attach letter formation to a word the child just read. The site was slow to respond when I checked it, so search the name rather than trusting a saved link.
- Reading Bear Check the license
Free video walkthroughs of phonics patterns with audio on every word. Useful for review, or for a day when you are worn out and he still needs his patterns.
- Reading Rockets Check the license
Free plain-English guidance for parents on fluency, comprehension strategies and what to do when a child is behind. Where you go when you need to know how to teach something, not what to assign.
- SciStarter Check the license
A directory of real citizen science projects a family can join, covering bird counts, water quality, light pollution and biodiversity. For a fifth grader learning to design an investigation, contributing data that a working researcher will actually use is the strongest motivation available, and joining costs nothing. It is a nonprofit with partners including NASA and National Geographic.
- U.S. Mint Coin Classroom Check the license
Free lesson plans, videos and coin-design activities aimed mainly at K-6. It sits neatly across art and money, and designing a coin for your own county is a real project a nine-year-old will actually finish.
- UCAR Center for Science Education Check the license
Weather and atmosphere teaching material from the university consortium behind the national atmospheric research center. Games, simulations and classroom activities on storms, clouds and the atmosphere, stronger than most elementary weather sources. Use it to build the severe weather work that a Texas second grader should have anyway.
Licenses change
A program that was open two years ago may not be today, and publishers reorganize their free tiers regularly. Everything here was checked in August 2026. Check it again before you depend on it.