Free Audio Books, eBooks and Textbooks
Free Audio Books: Our collection of 450 free audio books includes many children's classics. The
Wizard of Oz, Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain, The
Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, The Swiss Family Robinson, Gulliver's Travels, Anne of Green
Gables, Aesop's Fables, The Wizard of Oz series, and much more. You can download audio files
straight to your computer or mobile device.
Free eBooks: This collection includes many children's classics in ebook format. You generally
have the option to download these texts to your Kindle, iPad, Nook or computer. Video tutorials
are included on the page. You may also want to visit our resource: Download 20 Popular High
School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books.
Bartleby.com: Gives you access to free online classics of reference, literature, and nonfiction,
including Strunk & White's Elements of Style, The World Factbook, The Oxford Shakespeare,
and The King James Bible.
Calibre: Download free e-book software that will manage your electronic library, convert e-
books from one format to another, and give you online access to free e-books. We have more
on it here.
CK-12: This non-profit provides "open textbooks" for K-12 students all over the world. It offers
free high-quality, standards-aligned, open content in the STEM subjects (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics).
ePubBud: Makes available free children's books for the the iPad, Nook, Kindle and other
ereaders. Begin browsing books here, and find instructions here.
International Children's Digital Library: Provides free access to high-quality children's books
from around the world in different languages, including Arabic, Afrikaans, Danish, English, Farsi
and beyond. Hosts books for kids 3-5, 6-9, and 10-13. Start browsing the library here.
Librivox: A favorite of ours, Librivox provides free audio books from the public domain. You will
find 5000+ books in their catalogue.
OER Commons: Discover a meta collection of free textbooks that can be sorted by subject and
grade level.
Project Gutenberg: The mother of all ebook sites hosts 40000 free ebooks, and makes them
accessible for Kindle, Android, iPad, and iPhone.
The Harvard Classics: Harvard’s influential president, Charles W. Eliot, said that if you spent just
15 minutes a day reading the right books, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. He
published a 51-volume series, now known as The Harvard Classics, and they're available free
online. Ideal for the older student.
Free Textbook Collection: Our site provides a meta collection of free textbooks available on the
web. It covers everything from Art History to Biology, Math, Physics, and Psychology.
Physics Comic Books - PhysicsCentral, a web site run by The American Physical Society (an
organization representing 48,000 physicists), has created a series of comic books designed to get
kids excited about physics. Among other comics, you can can read Nikola Tesla and the Electric
Fair for free online.
Foreign Languages
Open Culture Foreign Language Collection: This list created by Open Culture offers free lessons
in 40 different languages. You can generally download the mp3/podcasts to your devices.
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish: This video instructional series for high school and college
classrooms teaches Spanish speaking and listening skills. Produced by WGBH Boston.
Deutsch – warum nicht?: An extensive collection of introductory German lessons put together
by Deutsche Welle. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
French in Action: Become fluent in French by exploring French culture in this well-known video
series for high school and college classrooms. Produced by Yale University and WGBH Boston
with Wellesley College.
Ma France: The BBC offers 24 video lessons that will teach you French.
Real Chinese: Presented by the BBC. A lively introduction to Mandarin Chinese presented in 10
short parts with video clips from the Real Chinese TV series.
Talk Italian: A lively introduction to Italian presented by the BBC.
WatchKnowLearn: This site has aggregated YouTube videos that will teach students new
languages.
Video Lessons/Tutorials
iTunesU: Apple provides hundreds of free courses, lectures and academic talks, mostly suitable
for older students. The easiest way to access the courses available on iTunesU is to visit our
collection of 550 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.
Khan Academy: The site famously features K-12 video tutorials created by Sal Khan and team. It
currently gives students access to thousands of video tutorials that explain the ins-and-outs of
algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, finance, physics, economics and more.
Videos can also be accessed via YouTube and iTunesU, or on the Khan Academy's website.
Learner.org: Run by The Annenberg Foundation, Learner.org hosts multimedia resources for
teachers, students and lifelong learners. You can browse their general collection of educational
videos here. Selected collections are cataloged below.
MIT-K12: Taking a page from Khan, MIT is now producing ”short videos teaching basic concepts
in science and engineering” for K-12 students. The videos are generally created by MIT students.
You can sort the videos by topic and grade level. Find versions of these videos on iTunes.
NeoK12: Designated a "Great Site for Kids" by the American Library Association, this site
provides educational videos, lessons, quizzes and educational games for K-12 students in various
subject areas, such as science, math, health, social studies and English.
The Kid Should See This: This blog aggregates interesting, kid-friendly videos focusing on
science, art, technology, and more. The videos weren't necessarily made for kids, but kids can
get a lot out of them. That's the premise of the site.
TED-Ed: The maker of TED Talks now provides carefully curated educational videos or "lessons
worth sharing." Topics range from Literature and Language, to Mathematics, to Science and
Technology.
Schoolhouse Rock: Animated musical educational short films that aired during the Saturday
morning children's programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered
included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics
WatchKnowLearn: This site has indexed over 33,000 educational videos from YouTube and
placed them into a directory of over 3,000 categories. The videos are available without
registration or fees to teachers in the classroom and to students at home 24/7.
YouTube EDU: A curated collection of educational videos from sources ranging from Sesame
Street to Harvard. Created by YouTube itself.
YouTube for Schools: Containing a large collection of educational materials, this newish service
also gives teachers and administrators the ability to filter out everything but their own
selections from YouTube. In other words, you can separate the wheat from the chaff. Get more
details here.
Art & Visual Culture (Web Resources)
Art Babble: Sometimes called the "YouTube of the Arts," the site offers high definition video of
art that ranges from classical to contemporary. It has partnered with many major museums and
arts institutions.
ArtThink: Created by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, this site offers theme-based
activities in visual arts, language arts, history and social studies. The site lets students investigate
artists' work, lives, and their historical context.
Google Art Project: A new tool that gives you access to more than 1,000 works of art appearing
in 17 great museums across the world. Using Google’s Street View technology, you can now tour
collections at 184 museums world wide, including the MoMA and Met in New York City,
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Van Gogh Museum,
and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
SmartHistory: Now folded into the Khan Academy, Smarthistory provides an extensive
collection of audio and video introductions to works of art found in standard art history survey
texts. You can find a complete collection of their videos on YouTube.
Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel: Thanks to Villanova University, you can take an
amazing virtual, panoramic tour of the Sistine Chapel. Using buttons in the lower left screen, you
can move around the room and zoom in on the paintings, including those on the ceiling.
Geography (Web Resources)
National Geographic: Provides facts, photos, videos, and more about countries around the
world -- something NatGeo knows a lot about.
World Atlas: An educational resource for world maps, atlases, and in-depth geography
information. Provides teachers and students free maps of Europe, Asia, the U.S., Canada,
Florida, the Caribbean Islands and much more.
World Data Atlas: Great source of world statistics on every country. Includes data on more than
2500 indicators. Topics cover Economics, Demographics, Health, Education, Energy and other
socioeconomic information. Includes interactive visualizations like rankings, graphs and maps.
All information can be exported and embedded onto the web. You can also access the site/app
through the Google Chrome web store for free.
History & Politics (Web Resources)
50States.com: Offers copious information about the fifty United States of America.
A Biography of America: This video series for high school and college students presents
American history as a living narrative rather than a collection of facts and dates. Produced by
WGBH Boston in cooperation with the Library of Congress and the National Archives and
Records Administration.
A Crash Course in World History: Best-selling author John Green gives you a playful and highly
visual crash course in world history, taking you from the beginning of human civilization 15,000
years ago through to our modern age. The videos are animated and fun. We have a few more
details here.
Abraham Lincoln at the Crossroads: An educational game for advanced middle- and high-school
students. Learn about Lincoln’s leadership by exploring the political choices he made.
Ancient Web: This site positions itself as the best online destination for information and
resources related to the Ancient world. It includes educational videos, images and maps.
Ben's Guide to U.S. Government: A primer on American government for grades K-2.
Bridging World History: Created by Learner.org, this site offers multimedia materials designed
to help learners discover world history. The material is organized into 26 thematic units,
which include videos and an audio glossary.
Democracy Web: The site features an interactive world map and an online study guide for
teachers. Designed for use with upper secondary- and lower college-level students, this resource
provides an overview of the principles of democracy and their origins, as well as an examination
of how a variety of contemporary political systems function.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
is a nonprofit devoted to the improvement of history education. The GLI web site
features video/audio with experts discussing various topics in American history. Don't miss their
iTunesU collection with talks including: Famous Americans, American Presidents, The U.S.
Constitution, The American Civil War, The Great Depression and World War II, Women in
American History, Lincoln and the Civil War, and Slavery and Anti Slavery.
Google Cultural Institute: Google has built a robust, umbrella Cultural Institute to house 42 new
online historical exhibitions. Each exhibit features, in Google’s words, "a narrative which links
the archive material together to unlock the different perspectives, nuances and tales behind
these events." Topics currently covered include the Life and Times of Nelson Mandela, the Fall
of the Iron Curtain, the Spanish Civil War, the Life of Anne Frank, D-Day, and Apartheid in South
Africa. The Cultural Institute also gives you access to super high resolution images of The Dead
Sea Scrolls.
Google Historical Voyages and Events: This site is dedicated to the explorers, voyages, events,
and historical backgrounds of countries throughout the world, and uses Google technology to
bring this history back to life.
History and Politics Out Loud: A searchable archive of politically significant audio materials for
scholars, teachers, and students. It is a component of "Historical Voices," funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with Michigan State University.
History Matters: Designed for high school and college students and teachers, History
Matters serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for learning and
teaching U.S. history.
iCivics: Founded by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, iCivics prepares young
Americans to become knowledgeable and engaged 21st century citizens by offering free and
innovative educational materials. iCivics has produced 16 educational video games as well
as vibrant teaching materials that have been used in classrooms in all 50 states.
Liberty's Kids: An animated educational historical television series originally broadcast on PBS
Kids. Teaches 7 to 14 year olds about the founding of the United States.
The Living Room Candidate: An archive of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to the
present, organized by year, type, and issue, with teacher resources and playlists created by
experts.
Teachinghistory.org: This site is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and
materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. Provides lesson plans and best
practices. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the Center for History and New
Media.
The Internet History Sourcebooks: This site features collections of public domain and copy-
permitted historical texts presented cleanly for educational use. Hosted by Fordham University,
this resource is broken down into sub-areas: Ancient History, Medieval, Modern, Byzantine
Studies, African Studies, East Asian Studies, Global Studies, India, Islamic, Jewish, Lesbian and
Gay, Science, and Women's Studies.
What So Proudly We Hail: An educational resource about what it means to be an American,
inspired by the anthology of the same title. Through a series of online conversations about
classic American texts, award-winning teacher-scholars Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass seek to
educate both hearts and minds about American ideals, American identity and national
character, and the virtues and aspirations of our civic life.
World History for Us All: A powerful, innovative curriculum for teaching world history in middle
and high schools. The site offers a wealth of teaching units, lesson plans, and resources. Ideal for
anyone thinking about how to teach world history to students.
World Wonders Project: Created by Google, this valuable resource lets students virtually
discover some of the most famous sites on earth -- for example, the ruins of Pompeii,
Stonehenge, Versailles and more. It also lets you visit the Great Barrier Reef and Shackleton's
Expedition in Antarctica. The project offers an innovative way to teach history and geography to
students of primary and secondary schools. Teachers can download related guides for using
these resources.
Visualizing Emancipation: A map of slavery’s end during the American Civil War. It finds
patterns in the collapse of southern slavery, mapping the interactions between federal policies,
armies in the field, and the actions of enslaved men and women on countless farms and city
blocks.
Literature (Web Resources)
Download 20 Popular High School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books: Gives you
access to classic texts frequently taught in the classroom. Includes works by Mark Twain,
George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald and more.
A Crash Course in English Literature: A new video series by best-selling kids author John Green
covers Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, Salinger, and Emily Dickinson and more. See our post on this
series.
Folger Shakespeare Library: Offers a world of online resources for teachers -- from lesson plans
to study guides to videos -- for teaching Shakespeare on the K-12 levels.
Google Lit Trips: This site provides free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters
from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. We offer more details here.
International Children's Digital Library: Provides free access to high-quality digital books from
around the world. Offers books for kids 3-5, 6-9, and 10-13. Start browsing the library here.
Lit2Go’s Audio Books: The University of South Florida provides an extensive collection of free
audio books along with materials to help K-12 teachers present literature in the classroom. Find
more information on our blog here.
Poetry Archive: Search the Poetry Foundation's archive of over 10000 poems. Searchable by
poet, title, first lines and more.
Shakespeare’s Plays: If you're looking for Shakespeare's plays on the web, MIT has you
covered. They offer the Web's first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. If
you're looking for a nice collection for the iPhone/iPad, Oxford has you covered. They offer
the first complete collection of Shakespeare's plays, from the First Folio of 1623, in their original
spelling and orthography.
Shakespeare’s Plays Animated: The Animated Shakespeare brings to life 12 famous
Shakespeare plays. Leon Garfield, a well-known British children’s author, wrote the scripts,
mainly using Shakespearian language. And some talented Russian artists did the animation. You
can find free copies of Shakespeare's plays in our collections of Free Audio Books & Free eBooks.
Shmoop Learning Guides: Shmoop's learning guides break down some of the texts most
frequently taught in high school classrooms. Everything from Mark Twain to Ayn Rand to
Shakespeare.
Invitation to World Literature: A multimedia course for students, teachers, and lovers of
literature. The course moves from ancient to modern literature, and is taught by David
Damrosch at Harvard. Find more details here.
Mathematics (Web Resources)
AAA Math: Features a comprehensive set of interactive arithmetic lessons. Unlimited practice is
available on each topic which allows thorough mastery of the concepts. You can sort by grade
level. K-8.
Against All Odds: Inside Statistics: This resource shows students the relevance of statistics in
real-world settings. Video series for high school and college classrooms.
Algebra: In Simplest Terms: A step-by-step look at algebra concepts. This instructional video
series for high school classrooms is produced by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its
Applications and Chedd-Angier.
Calculus Lifesaver: Adrian Banner, a lecturer at Princeton, has put together a lecture series (in
video) that will help you master calculus, a subject that has traditionally frustrated many
students. The 24 lectures are available on iTunes. It’s worth noting that Banner has used the
lectures to develop a handy book, The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at
Calculus.
IXL: Site features thousands of exercises designed to help young students (K-8) practice math.
Features practice questions, step-by-step explanations, engaging awards and certificates, easy-
to-read progress reports, and more.
Khan Academy Math: You can dive into the Khan Academy's math tutorials using the following
links: Arithmetic and Pre-
Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Probability, Statistics, Precalculus, Calculus, Differen
tial Equations, Linear Algebra, Applied Math, Brain Teasers, and Vi Hart Animations.
Math Shack: Created by Shmoop, Math Shack allows students to practice an infinite number of
auto-generated math problems in Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry. It’s Common Core-
aligned, and students can see how they’re performing—by topic and subject—through an easy
color-coded system.
NRICH: The Nrich Math Project (based at Cambridge University) offers mathematics resources
for children, parents and teachers to enrich learning. It provides resources for students of all
ages.
TutPup Math: Helps young children gain confidence and mastery of basic educational skills. Its
math section comes recommended by our readers.
Wolfram MathWorld: Bills itself as the web's most extensive mathematical resource. Designed
for more advanced students, this collection is provided as a free service by Wolfram Research,
makers of Mathematica. Topics covered include: Algebra, Applied Mathematics, Calculus and
Analysis, Discrete Mathematics, Foundations of Mathematics, Geometry, History and
Terminology, Number Theory, Probability and Statistics, Recreational Mathematics,
and Topology.
Music (Web Resources)
A Child’s Introduction to Jazz: In 1961, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, the jazz saxophonist best
known for his work on Miles Davis’ epic album Kind of Blue, narrated a children’s introduction to
jazz music. Features music by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious
Monk and Cannonball himself.
Bach's Complete Organ Works: They were recorded by Dr. James Kibbie (University of
Michigan) on original baroque organs in Leipzig, Germany. Start with a collection of Favorite
Masterworks, or get the complete works.
Bach’s Goldberg Variations: You can download and share the newly-released recording
by Kimiko Ishizaka, performed on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in Berlin. You can do pretty
much whatever you want with the recording because it’s released under a Creative Commons
Zero license, which automatically puts things in the public domain.
Classics for Kids: Introduces elementary and middle school children to classical music in a fun
and entertaining way. The site gives you access to famous pieces of classical music online and
also related lessons plans and activity sheets.
Exploring the World of Music: Learn the essentials of music theory and how music expresses
culture in this instructional video series for high school classrooms.
K-12 Resources for Music Educators: Valuable resources for music educators and music
students at all educational levels. Carefully researched and commercial free.
