Free Digital Resources for Kindergarten and Preschool

Digital kindergarten in 2026: the question is no longer “Can we put it online?”

The original Bulgarian article behind this English edition was published in 2020, when early childhood settings were searching urgently for digital materials during remote education. In 2026, the situation is different. Digital resources are now an ordinary part of many classrooms and homes. The harder task is selection.

For early childhood education, the best resource is rarely the one with the most animation, the most games or the longest list of features. It is the one that gives the teacher a useful starting point and then returns the child to active learning: talking, sorting, drawing, building, singing, moving, retelling, experimenting or playing with others.

Current digital resources for English-speaking preschool and kindergarten settings

Khan Academy Kids: one of the strongest free early-learning apps

Khan Academy Kids is currently designed for children aged 2–8 and provides thousands of activities, books and videos covering early maths, literacy, language and social-emotional skills. The core mobile app is free for families and individual classroom teachers, with no ads or subscriptions. Schools and districts can choose additional paid implementation and reporting services.

Its strength for kindergarten is not simply the volume of content. Teachers can use a specific activity as a short intervention, targeted practice or a prompt before moving into a physical or collaborative task.

PBS KIDS: games are more useful when they lead to real play

PBS KIDS provides a large free collection of games and videos covering literacy, mathematics, science, engineering, storytelling, art and social-emotional themes. The companion PBS KIDS for Parents materials are particularly useful because many activities explicitly connect screen-based experiences with crafts, games, movement, storytelling and family interaction.

For a teacher, this suggests a better method than simply opening the games homepage. Select one activity, define the learning goal, and plan the off-screen follow-up before children begin.

Topmarks: focused early-years maths without unnecessary complexity

Topmarks maintains a dedicated 3–5 years section with free activities for counting, ordering, sequencing, early addition, geometry and data handling. Games such as Ladybird Spots, Teddy Numbers and Shape Monsters use simple visual interaction and are suitable for short teacher-led sessions.

This is especially useful in reception, nursery and bilingual settings where the teacher wants a clear mathematical task without introducing a complex learning-management platform.

ScratchJr: when children become creators rather than viewers

ScratchJr is designed specifically for children aged 5–7. Children use graphical programming blocks to create interactive stories and games, add voices and sounds, draw characters and sequence actions. The app is free and was developed around the developmental needs of young children.

In an early-years setting, ScratchJr works best when children plan a story together, decide what should happen first and next, test their idea and explain the result. In this form, technology supports language, logic, creativity and collaboration at the same time.

Starfall and Oxford Owl: two different approaches to early reading

Starfall continues to provide free core learn-to-read activities, beginning with the alphabet and moving through phonics and early reading. Expanded Pre-K and kindergarten content is available through paid membership, so the free and paid layers should not be confused.

Oxford Owl takes a different approach. Its free eBook library includes books for children aged 3–11 and can be filtered for early-years groups such as ages 3–4 and 4–5. Access requires free registration. For settings working with UK phonics approaches, the library can be particularly useful for teacher-led or family shared reading.

Sesame Workshop: not only games, but resources for real early-childhood challenges

Sesame Workshop provides free resources for families and professionals across school readiness, language and literacy, maths, routines, emotions, health, friendship, resilience and digital well-being. Many resources are explicitly labelled for ages 1–6 and include videos, printables, storybooks, games and professional materials.

This makes the site valuable when the educational objective is broader than academic skills alone — for example settling into a group, managing feelings, building routines or developing social-emotional skills.

LearningApps and British Council: useful with a clear age filter

LearningApps remains a flexible tool for teachers who want to create simple matching, sorting, sequencing or audio-image activities. The platform is free for educational purposes. However, public exercises are created by users and vary in quality, so teachers should check content, answers, language and copyright before assigning them.

British Council LearnEnglish Kids offers a large collection of free songs, games, stories, videos, flashcards and worksheets. Its stated target age is mainly 5–12, so it is most appropriate for older kindergarten or reception children, especially in bilingual or English-language learning contexts.

Screen time needs a beginning, an end and a pedagogical reason

The World Health Organization recommends that children aged 3–4 years should have no more than one hour of sedentary screen time per day, and less is better. That numerical recommendation is specific to children under five and should not be generalized mechanically to every age group.

The broader principle is more important for education. UNICEF’s current digital-education guidance stresses that digital approaches should enhance rather than replace human connection, unstructured play, physical activity, in-person social interaction and foundational hands-on skills. That is a useful design rule for every digital activity in early childhood education.

Turn the digital resource into an early-years learning situation

Imagine a shape game on an interactive board. If the activity ends after children tap the correct triangle or circle, the learning remains narrow. If the teacher then asks children to find those shapes in the room, build them from sticks, draw them, sort objects and explain what they notice, the digital resource becomes the start of a richer learning sequence.

The same principle applies to a story, song, phonics activity or ScratchJr project. The screen can introduce a problem, provide a model, create a shared stimulus or give feedback. The educational value comes from what the teacher plans before, during and after the screen-based moment.