11. Khan Academy
Khan Academy
A nonprofit learning platform with more than 840 courses for kindergarten through early college, including math, science, English language arts, social studies, economics, computing and test prep. For middle school it works as a gap-filler and a stretch for strong students, and the About page describes its courses and teacher tools as free.
Watch for The About page does not give a price for Khanmigo, the AI tutoring tool, so confirm its cost separately before planning around it.
Visit Khan Academy ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
A nonprofit text library for grades 3 to 12 with standards-aligned lessons, plus CommonLit 360, a full-year ELA curriculum for grades 6 to 12. The pricing page says the text library and 360 curriculum are free for teachers and always will be.
The free part: The text library and the CommonLit 360 curriculum are free for teachers, with a free account.
School and district plans are quoted per school on the maker's pricing page
Watch for English and reading only. The paid school and district plans are where professional development, assessments and Clever or ClassLink rostering sit, so a lone teacher goes without those.
Visit CommonLit ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
Free interactive simulations from the University of Colorado Boulder in physics, chemistry, biology, earth science and math. The site has a dedicated middle school activities section and a video series on running activities with students. Sims run in a browser or download to a computer.
Watch for The simulations are exploratory, so students need a task or focus questions; PhET lists activities and facilitation videos for this.
Visit PhET Interactive Simulations ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
44. Desmos
Desmos Studio / Amplify
Desmos Classroom is now Amplify Classroom, with hundreds of free lessons and tools at teacher.desmos.com. The catalog includes middle school activities such as Pizza Maker (ratios, grade 6), Floats and Anchors (integers, grade 7) and Land the Plane (linear functions, grade 8). Desmos also offers free graphing, scientific, geometry and 3D calculators.
Watch for Desmos Classroom has been renamed Amplify Classroom and moved under Amplify, so help pages and names may differ from older guides.
Visit Desmos ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
A nonprofit's free civics games, lesson plans and election resources for grades 6 to 12, including games such as Win the White House and Branches of Power. Spanish versions are offered for many materials. Teachers can assign games and lessons through the My iCivics tool.
Watch for It covers civics only, and assigning work through My iCivics needs a free teacher account.
Visit iCivics ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
A nonprofit offering free digital textbooks that teachers can customize, adaptive practice, and physics and chemistry simulations. Its practice pages say the service is free forever, and its strength is math and science.
Watch for The catalog is built mainly around math and science and does not cover English or social studies in depth.
Visit CK-12 ↗
Thousands of free videos, lesson plans and games aligned to standards for PreK through 12. For middle school, collections include U.S. History, NOVA, Ken Burns in the Classroom and PBS NewsHour Classroom. A free account adds saving, playlists, rosters and Google Classroom sharing.
Watch for It is a library to build lessons from, not a student-paced course, and saving and rosters need a free account.
Visit PBS LearningMedia ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
A nonprofit's K-8 math platform. It says more than a million middle school students use it, and 6th to 8th grade lessons are built on the Open Up Resources 6-8 Math curriculum under a CC BY 4.0 license. Students learn with onscreen teachers, visual models and digital manipulatives.
The free part: Always-free teacher and individual-classroom accounts cover one teacher and up to 35 students, with the full Zearn Math platform and instructional materials.
School Accounts are paid; pricing is by quote on the maker's site
Watch for The free account covers one classroom of up to 35 students; using Zearn across a whole school needs a paid School Account.
Visit Zearn ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
A nonprofit library of more than 6,000 K-12 reading passages with question sets and vocabulary activities. It includes high-interest articles and short stories for middle school, plus Book Studies tied to common novels. ReadWorks says it is free and will always be free for teachers and students.
Watch for The free account is for educators; the sign-up page says it is not intended for students.
Visit ReadWorks ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.
A free typing program with grade-based lessons, tests and games, plus teacher accounts for classroom-level settings. Typing.com says millions of students and teachers use it.
The free part: The free edition has the full Learn to Type curriculum (lessons, tests and games) and classroom-level settings, with ads and 70-day data retention.
PLUS (ad-free, more features) is priced by the number of students; get a quote on the maker's site
Watch for The free edition shows ads and keeps student data for 70 days; the ad-free PLUS edition is paid.
Visit Typing.com ↗ Facts read on the maker’s page.