STEM games are a great way to introduce your students to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math concepts in a fun and engaging way. When it comes to finding and accessing these great resources there are a ton of places to turn so we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite online STEM games here for you to reference and use.
Here’s to a great year of STEM games in your classroom!
Kodable Basics
For students in Kindergarten and up, Kodable Basics is the #1 programming game for kids for a reason! Self-paced lessons with helpful hints keep students engaged and learning the basics of computer programming all while having fun.
Kodable Basic's custom coding learning progression introduces a coding concept, gives students ample practice lessons, and then provides an assessment to gauge the student's retention of the material. If a student needs more practice, our new adaptive practice mode meets every learner at their level with AI-generated levels for students to practice their new skills.
Whether your students are readers or pre-readers, unlimited creative activities and the fuzzFamily will keep your students learning coding fundamentals in addition to logical thinking, resiliency, and problem solving skills.
Compared to other online STEM games, Kodable Basics features a unique KODE (Kid-Optimized Developer Environment) system that helps empower your students to use real JavaScript or Swift to write their own properties, functions, and more while building their very own characters and games.
This differs from the block coding functionality that many online STEM games for kids use because Kodable helps prepare students for the syntax skills they’ll need when they start writing their own code towards the end of middle school.
Kodable Basics’s online STEM game is free for educators so it’s easy to sign up and explore the whimsy world of Fuzztopia and bring this learning experience into your classroom!
Create your free account here to get started with Kodable!
Kodable Creator
Kodable Creator, the latest Kodable Education app, is the easiest way for kids to learn how to make their own games! Perfect for grades 3-5, Kodable Creator builds on the building blocks in Kodable Basics to allow students to use real coding languages to make real fun games they can share with their family and friends. With the help of their bilingual AI coding tutor CatBot, you and your students will have a blast playing and learning with Kodable Creator!
Want to bring a bilingual coding tutor and this fun game into your classroom? Create your free account today to get started or try out an online activity now!
Code.org
Code.org’s Hour of Code helps educators across the world introduce coding into their classrooms with easy-to-use activities.
These online STEM games are usually around an hour long, are free to play, and have a ton of sorting options available to help you find the perfect activity for your class. These STEM games also come with teacher instructions, and often, an unplugged coding activity to accompany the game.
NASA Space Place
NASA doesn’t just know how to get to outer space, they also know how to teach students about space in a way that’s out of this world! NASA’s Space Place is an online hub filled with free STEM games.
These games include helping your students learn more about space, the planets, spaceships, and more. Outside of these STEM games, NASA also has a ton of other great free online science resources for teachers including arts and crafts, activities, videos, and more.
Gizmos
Gizmos are interactive math and science labs and simulations for grades 3-12. This company offers a rotating collection of free Gizmos to play each semester. All these free online STEM games come with teacher resources to help you understand and deploy them in your classroom.
These activities range from learning about fractions and decimals to climate change and ecology. You can also create a paying account to access more STEM games and activities all year round.
Try Engineering
Try Engineering provides a number of online STEM games to help foster an interest and passion for engineering in K-12 students. From the environment to electrical engineering, Try Engineering has over 50 online STEM games to choose from. Plus, an intuitive tagging system to help you sort, find, and pick the right game for your classroom. If you’re not sure where to start, Try Engineering encourages teachers to try a Try Engineering Tuesday to use one day of week and a specific time frame to try out a game to play and learn!
Prodigy Math
Prodigy has an online math game that uses fun characters to help boost student engagement in what is typically a challenging subject for young learners.
This game challenges students to use and build math skills to progress through an online world filled with quests, battles, spells, and rewards. This gamification in education helps keep students learning while you can rest easy knowing that they are staying on your curriculum.
Prodigy also has an online game geared towards helping students learn English. Both their Math and English games are free for educators.
CodeMonkey
CodeMonkey has a number of online STEM activities to help kids from 5-14 learn block-coding, text-based-coding, CoffeeScript and Python through fun and monkey themed games. There are also a number of educational resources available for teachers and administrators to accompany students and different grade and experience levels.
CodeMonkey is free for teachers to start, however you have to contact the company to learn more about their pricing model for all their features and resources.
Other STEM Resources
When using online STEM games in your classroom, you have to balance the benefits of these games with the amount of screen time students are accruing. Like everything in the classroom, it’s a balancing act for you to manage throughout the day, week, month, and year.
However, having a number of tools to pull from your teacher tool belt is one great way to keep students learning important STEM skills all year long, no matter what device they’re using.
With that in mind, check out our other STEM resources that we’ve compiled for elementary teachers just like you:
