58 Free Go-To Resources for Teachers of All Grades and Subjects
It's no secret that teachers are among the best resources when it comes to finding great educational websites and apps for teaching and learning. It's also no secret that teachers are among some of the busiest professionals and appreciate saving time whenever possible.
That's why teachers at Rutgers Alternate Route have done the leg work of plowing through hundreds of websites to share with other teachers their go-to resources for supporting learning in their content areas. They have curated a list of mostly free teacher resources that we've categorized by subject area to make it easy to quickly identify something useful. What's more, each resource includes a hyperlink to the site and a brief rationale for why it made the teacher's toolbox.
We are grateful to our teachers for sharing their knowledge with their colleagues and hope other educators can find their new favorite resources from this list.
Below are 58 websites, with quotes from our educators on why these are their go-to resources!
“There is a section on the site called ‘2 minutes with TK,’ where he discusses behavior, attitude, resilience, leadership, discipline, energy, etc. These are topics I touch on with my Accounting students each day and I think can be valuable lessons for high school kids that go far beyond just the content that we teach them.”
-Jason L.
“In the age of remote learning, Google has created a website to help increase user tech skills by incorporating their specific programs (Sheets, Docs, Drawing, etc.). New activities are posted throughout the year so that students can complete and add them to their portfolio.”
-Korey J.
“This website provides helpful and current job information, growing fields, tips on resume writing, employment laws and provides a lot of valuable information that can be shared with students. This site also makes it easy for me to find information that aligns with the 21st Century Life and Careers standards.”
-Miriam C.
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET)
“I refer to this site as ‘the granddaddy of all career websites.’ It is extremely comprehensive and is developed under the sponsorship of the US Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). This all-inclusive real-world data is used by millions of individuals every year, is available to the public at no cost, and is continually updated/refreshed by an extensive range of workers in each and every referenced occupation.”
-Jim D.
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“Code has well-constructed, easy-to-follow lessons on any computer-science topic you can think of. It ranges from hours of code options to full-year courses. I am lucky, as my school pays for the pro version, however, the free option still allows teachers to assign lessons to classes and look at their students' progress. This site has been essential in my teaching of computer science!”
-Pantusa L.
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“This site provides individualized articles and stories for students with prewritten assessments and tiered differentiation.”
-Samuel R.
“Disrupt Text works to challenge the more traditional - or ‘canon’ - literature usually celebrated in an ELA classroom. It provides resources to help teachers expand their literature selections to be more inclusive, diverse and dynamic. This resource helps teachers pair impactful readings, confront their own biases and make sure their curriculum represents everyone.”
-Rachel C.
Lesson Plans - The New York Times
“The New York Times has a variety of different lessons available tailored around articles both for English classes and other subject areas as well. Worth taking a deeper look!”
-Dylan M.
“The site has many resources for humanities teachers in implementing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy into their curriculum through ELA-related questions/practices. It is especially helpful during virtual instruction by giving ideas for creative discussions using Padlet/breakout rooms and different platforms. I first found out about this resource via Instagram.”
-Kerenn I.
“This is a great site to help students with their writing. It has four different types of assignments (practice, writing, assessments, standards and tests) and you can monitor everything your students are doing. I like that it has a diagnostic assessment that helps you see your students' skills right away and then you can give it to them again later in the year to see if they have improved. It helps them go through the writing process in a fun, interactive way. It gives the students a way to do quick writes, a guided draft (students can watch tutorials and get help while they're writing their essay), peer review, and self review. It gives the student more control over their writing, and helps them see examples of different types of writing to help them. If you find students struggling with a certain concept, you can assign different practice lessons for them to do to try and improve their writing skills. Lastly, I love the fact that you are able to share lessons directly to Google Classroom so you don't have to worry about how students will access the lessons/writing.”
-Melissa M.
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“This site is very helpful when it comes to writing lesson plans, and very helpful coming up with ideas for lesson plans as well. They also have printable and downloadable worksheets that are good for any lesson plans.”
-Lorena T.
“ESL Pod has audio to help pronunciation [and] teaches lessons through stories which are engaging for a variety of levels and grades.”
-Nicholas S.
“There are a lot of books that have quizzes and would interest the students. You can assign them to the students and track their reading.”
-Jordan P.
“This site features crowdsourced ESL materials for different levels of ELLs. There are PowerPoints, worksheets, activities and other resources created by ESL teachers for ESL teachers. What I like about this site is that you can adapt the materials to fit your needs, or just review them to gain some inspiration.”
-Jaymie M.
“I have found it excellent for reading for my ELLs. There are three sections for each book: 1. Listening/reading the book; 2. The student reads and can record the reading; 3. Quiz. It is excellent because the teacher can track each student's performance.”
-Aihua H.
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“[99math is a] free resource similar to kahoot where students log in either synchronously or asynchronously and compete in a game practicing basic math facts. Teachers choose the content area.”
-Sara M.
“This website has blogs that special education teachers can use to post helpful tips/ideas for the special education community. It also has many activities/lesson plans/games that are tailored to students with disabilities that you can purchase or obtain for free. It is kind of like teacherspayteachers.com but a site for all special education teachers.”
-Jessica W.
“This site is beneficial for getting in touch with parents through direct messages in a quick and efficient way. It's also a cool way to post what's going on in the class and send general announcements and reminders.”
-Saray S.
“I find this site very resourceful and kid friendly for elementary and, possibly, middle school-age students. This website provides a lot of information about various countries and their cultures. Also, it suggests different stories that can be read to your students.”
-Devin W.
“This website provides pre-made Google Slides PowerPoints. You are able to edit them how you'd like to best fit your class. They have different styles to fit every need! I've used many of the Halloween, Math, and Reading themed slides.”
-Melissa G.
“This is a supplementary math website that combines education and fun. One of the great benefits of this website is that you can align the activities to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for math. It will assign students activities that go over the goals of a certain standard. It is compatible with Google Classroom, keeps all data, and is fun for students while they are learning.”
-Daniel S.
“[The Character Tree] has social-emotional learning lessons with supplemental resources that have grade-appropriate language arts/ reading-comprehension activities and printables. Students really enjoy the interaction between humans and puppets (kind of like Sesame Street). The videos are paired up well with the activities.”
-Emil B.
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OPEN- Online Physical Education Network
“This site is beneficial - especially during the pandemic - because materials such as PDFs and visuals are posted for teachers and parents that will contribute to students' movement opportunities. This site can be used to piece together each unit in a virtual learning setting as Physical Education Teachers are having to recreate their curriculum over video conferencing and Google Classrooms rather than inside the gymnasium and outside on the sports fields.”
-Kristen T.
“The PE Shed provides instructors with different resources and game ideas for the gymnasium, as well as in the classroom and for any grade level. What is great is that the games are broken down into four categories: warm-up, tag games, thinking games, and cooperative games. Within these topics are a variety of games and activities. Each activity provides a lesson plan that consists of the target age level of the game, the focus of the game, equipment needed, how to set it up, the description of how to play (including a visual), and further opportunities that allow for differentiation in class as well as modifications to make the activity easier or harder. This is great when you have a class that may be more skilled than the other classes or needs simplicity. This site is also very easy to navigate. The activities and games have a description right on the front with a visual of the game as well.”
-Katherine S.
“I like the use of PE Central because it is a place where Health and PE teachers can login and share different ideas and games that they use and have success with. I like the fact that all the teachers are in the grades K-12 so that it gives a wide range of content knowledge to help make classes better.”
-Kristen M.
“Gives a greater understanding of why Physical Education is important and its impact on students.”
-Denise T.
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“This is a platform that can be used as a method of alternate assessment. Students can have a fun way to do projects and it is a seamless integration into the virtual classroom and in person classroom.”
-Maegan P.
“iCivics provides readings, primary sources, games, webquests etc.”
-Nicholas D.
“This site is beneficial because it provides resources and lesson plans to create anti-racist classrooms and to promote empathy in our classrooms. As a social studies teacher, this site is helpful because it provides resources to teach more accurate histories. I used it to plan Thanksgiving lessons and do away with the Columbus myth and it has been very insightful. Teaching Tolerance also has resources to teach our scholars how to be digitally literate and it provides resources to empower our children to be smart consumers of digital information.”
-Brianna M.
“The Library of Congress has a portal just for teachers which has primary source sets for topics, online access to documentaries and specials, and projects.”
-Terri C.
“Khan Academy is a great resource for ancient civilizations. It provides videos and additional readings for each concept. It also has practice questions and vocabulary quizzes students can complete independently.”
-Kylie K.
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3 Act Math -- When Math Happens
“On the When Math Happens website, there is a section of 3 Act Math video clips. These short clips are excellent for sparking students' questions when beginning a new topic, and it's a useful site for ideas about inquiry-based learning!”
-Phoebe S.
“It is an interactive white board used to check for understanding with students.”
-Amanda P.
“YummyMath provides teachers with an easy way to bring real life into their math classrooms. They believe that when math is explored in contexts that are familiar and of interest to students, it increases engagement in math lessons, while supporting students' ability to reason, think critically, question and communicate. Their activities are written to correspond with the NCTM Process Standards and the CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice.”
-Colette N.
“RadicalMath is a resource for educators interested in integrating issues of social and economic justice into their math classes and curriculum.”
-Yesenia C.
“With teaching special education, I find the students need a lot of practice and reinforcement. This is often more than the textbook will offer for students that need additional practice then what the math textbooks or workbooks have included. I like this site because you can search any topic and once you find your worksheet, you can then attach it to Google Classroom which is perfect for remote students.”
-Baki B.
“Matific is a collection of online mathematics activities that teach students problem solving and critical thinking through discovery. And because it is a game based learning, students learn through discovery”
-Adeyemi T.
“For math we need to use a lot of manipulatives in our class. Virtually, this is hard to emulate. This site provides the manipulatives kids can use in a virtual format.”
-Danielle B.
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“This site is great for elementary schoolers of every age. I love the game section for teaching my 3- 5 groups about reading the treble and bass clef. The "Instruments of The Orchestra" game is great for K-2 when I'm teaching them about different instrument families. The kids really enjoy the sound samples.”
-David B.
“I really enjoy using Pinterest because I can easily find music worksheets for my students and get inspiration for some lesson plans.”
-Joseph D.
“MusicTheory.net has succinct explanations of content, as well as pre-made and custom exercises and tools.”
-Emily V.
“While not a 'free' resource, Aaron Blaise is an award-winning Disney artist who offers many of his resource packs in real life, animation studies, translating organic shapes into real life, charcoal works, perspective and more! It is an excellent resource, especially since I am a Disney artist myself (worked for them in the past) and I can also provide another resource from one of the most prominent animators of movies my students can connect to.”
-Jessica S.
“Edpuzzle is an amazing website for tracking learning via videos. When my school was hybrid, I would film lessons and have students watch them independently. On Edpuzzle, I could add questions throughout the video to assess student understanding. I would then use this information in our next class to reinforce anything students struggled with.”
-Megan D.
“Provides alternative music ensemble (guitar, rock ensemble) instruction, unit and lesson plans with evidence and relation to state and national standards.”
-John F.
Mind the Gap from Music for All
“Mind the Gap is a resource for music education created by Music for All. Their goal is to provide a series of webinars that help future teachers that were not able to get full student teaching in the current pandemic. Topics include pacing, classroom management, programming, job interviews, philosophy of music education and common challenges of first-year teachers. Since I decided to enter teaching at the very end of my college career, I was not able to do any student teaching, so these webinars have proved very helpful to me as well. Music for All has other webinar series as well, including one discussing how to bring SEL into the music classroom. This was very helpful to me, because I had never heard of SEL when I first saw the video.”
-Nicholas S.
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“Students can visualize and rotate portions of the human body in three dimensions. Muscles and bones can be added or subtracted to reveal underlying layers of anatomy.”
-Thomas M.
“It has good videos, questions, quizzes and exit tickets that are very helpful to teach a lesson. I use more of their videos, as they explain the concept very clearly, making it very easy to grasp.”
-Meenakshi K.
“This site offers excellent digital simulations and thorough lab activities. It is essentially an digital experimentation hub with activities linked to specific standards and teaching goals. This website has been great for showing my students demos, and doing labs where my students manipulate the programs giving them a more immersive lab experience.”
-Benjamin G.
“I like this site because it offers opportunities for teachers to involve their students in real-world data collection and presentation.”
-Rachel R.
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“Albert io has been a huge benefit to me this year because it allows us to determine areas of strength and weakness of my class in Algebra I. The site is preloaded with assessments which meet the standards so we use it as a method to determine where our class stands prior to tests. Upon completion of an Albert assessment, we get a breakdown of how the class did as a whole by question which allows us to determine what areas need to be reinforced, and which areas the class as a whole are having success with.”
-Ryan D.
“Autism New Jersey is an excellent resource for teachers and parents of children with autism. There are workshops, webinars, and articles available that address all kinds of topics from toilet training to remote learning.”
-Amber W.
“I have found this resource specifically useful for my Special Education classroom. You are able to purchase, search free resources and create your own materials on this website. It covers a wide range of content areas (ie: Language Arts, Math, Daily Living Skills, Vocational Skills). Once you hand over the control to the student via zoom, students are able to click on the answers and it will pop up on your end. This allows for accurate assessments on certain skills. It has been a great tool for virtual learning.”
-Brittany T.
“It really gives a deep dive into almost any social studies and science topic. Plus, it breaks down topics in segments if needed. It offers videos, images, text and so much more.”
-Jennifer E.
ACTFL: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
“This is a must for language teachers. It has all the world language proficiency standards listed for all the levels, from novice to advanced.”
-Tiziana D.
“Carnegie Learning provides methodical and consistent courses in teaching French. It builds vocabulary, establishes grammatical foundation, provides dialogues from real life as application for the vocabulary and grammar. It also enriches the student's knowledge about French cultural, social, educational and political life.”
-Nancy H.
“I find BBC Mundo useful when I want my students to listen to different accents or for them to learn where words come from or how things got a different name depending on the country that you come from.”
-Maria G.
“This site has a directory of culturally authentic videos tagged in countless topics. The videos are also categorized by language proficiency, so you can share ones that are appropriate to your students' levels and differentiate. Additionally, students can complete activities based on the videos.”
-Claudia G.
Online Italian Club
“The site offers many resources for culture, grammar and reading for Italian learners, including listening exercises. It can also be used for other languages as well, like French, German and Spanish, in which case it would be called Online French Club or Online Spanish Club and so on.”
-Giuseppina D.
If you’re considering following your dream of teaching, Rutgers Alternate Route can offer you the support and training you need to succeed. Be sure to follow Rutgers Alternate Route on Twitter and sign up for Alternate Route’s monthly newsletter for more information and stories from the field of education.
Heather Ngoma has over 25 years of experience collaborating with educators across New Jersey to drive education innovation. She currently serves as the Director of the Rutgers-GSE Alternate Route Program in the Department of Learning and Teaching, a program which helps career changers, recent college graduates, and other aspiring education professionals become licensed teachers in New Jersey. Follow her on Twitter @heatherngoma.
