Educational websites and apps

Summary of official MEXT document

Japanese/

Guide for Foreign Students to Start School

Official MEXT document

English

外国人児童・保護者向け動画一覧・関連資料

Videos for children starting elementary school

Multilingual

One Day of Elementary School in Japan (YouTube video)

YouTube video about a day in elementary school in Japan

Multilingual

Guidebook on living and working in Japan

This book is "for foreign nationals who start living in Japan". It's a 149 page document. Chapter 5 explains the education system in Japan and provides useful information. Published by Immigration Services Agency. Last updated 3/2022

Guidebook for Elementary School for Foreign Parents/Guardians (pdf)

Bilingual document that walks parents/guardians through the elementary school enrollment process including useful language for communication and some problem-solving suggestions

Japanese/

English

12 Must-Read Articles if Your Child is Starting School In Japan (website, 2017)

Collection of articles intended for parents/guardians of foreign children in the public education system in Japan

English

Education in Japan Community blog 

Blog run by a community of parents and educators to share information about education in Japan - public school and international schools

English

The Gaijin’s Guide to Surviving High School Entrance Exams

Very helpful website about the high school selection and examination process

English

皆の高校情報

A word-of-mouth website with a list of high school deviation values for Okinawa Prefecture: this site can be used to get a good idea of which high schools are considered "good" and what ranking a student might need to get into a certain school. Please keep in mind that ranking is not the only criteria for school admission. Please also keep in mind that one high school might have multiple tracks, and the perceived quality of each of these will also vary.

Japanese 

Tokeshi Elementary School, Yomitan International Classroom

Blog post about Yomitan - Tokeshi Elementary School's JSL class

Japanese

Tokeshi Elementary School, Yomitan International Classroom

Blog post about Yomitan - Tokeshi Elementary School's JSL class

Japanese

Hikkikomori support center

Mr. Kasen Irei
Principal public nurse, Comprehensive Mental Health and Welfare Center Okinawa & Hikikomori Support Center Okinawa
Tel: 098-888-1455,

This is the email contact information for the directors of a center that supports students who withdraw from life outside their homes, cannot go out or go to school, and sometimes cannot even see their own families. If you have a child or young adult or adult who you are concerned might be showing these tendencies, these are people who can help. Ganjuu is also here to support you.

Japanese

Dr. Osamu Miyagawa (psychiatric social worker) Director, Comprehensive Mental Health and Welfare Center Okinawa & Hikikomori Support Center Okinawa
Tel: 098-888-1443,

Gaccom

This website has local public school districts. There are also ratings and reviews, but I would take those with a grain of salt since school culture is not stable due to constant teacher and administration rotation. The info on districts is useful if you are looking for a place to live to go to a specific school.

Japanese/

English

Useful questions for parents

A curated collection of questions to help parents/guardians prioritize their schooling needs

English/

Japanese

A year in the life of an Onna Elementary School child

An OIST parent collected all the information necessary for Onna Elem parents of first graders that year for one year

English 

Afterschool Activities for Kids

Curated list of activities kids do after school outside of OIST

How to tell if an international school in Japan is reputable

A Japan Times Article

English

OkiSho's international page

OkiSho official site

Japanese/

Educational Apps

Subscription

Educational App (description)

Age range

Go Explore from CBeebies

Android

Apple

Amazon

The entire range of the BBC’s CBeebies apps will be getting heavy usage in the coming weeks, clearly. They’re all good, but this is the one focused on learning games, from phonics and geography to feelings and self-care, all based on the parent channel’s shows and characters.

Khan Academy Kids

Android

Apple

Amazon

Khan Academy is a free collection of education courses for all ages, but it has an app specifically for two to seven-year-old children that focuses on maths, reading and social and emotional skills. It has a large and growing archive of learning videos, digital books and simple but engaging exercises.

Montessori Preschool

Paid

Android

Apple

For very young children who’ll be missing out on some of the formative teaching at preschool this year, this beautifully crafted app could be a great help. From maths and phonics to music and early coding, its colourful exercises never feel dry or dull. It costs £5.49 a month.

Hopster

Android

Apple

British company Hopster describes its app as “educational kids’ TV”. What that means is a collection of familiar cartoons and shows including the likes of Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fireman Sam and Pingu, accompanied by fun learning games on topics such as maths and phonics. It will even remind kids not to binge on too many episodes in a row. It costs £4.99 a month.

K-4

Teach Your Monster to Read

Free

Android

Apple

This usually costs £4.99, but has been made free owing to the school disruption. No matter how you feel after a couple of days of home-schooling, the titular monster isn’t your child. Instead, this gets children to create a monster and then teach it to read – a great way of learning themselves.

World of Peppa Pig

Android

Apple

This is one of a growing number of subscription-based children’s apps – seen as a more trustworthy model than in-app purchases and/or ads. Aimed at preschool children, it’s another collection of learning games, but also has videos, picture-making and songs from the TV show. It costs £4.99 a month.

K-4

YouTube Kids

Android

Apple

After a rocky start when some non-child-friendly videos made it through the filters, YouTube has worked hard to make its official children’s app something parents can trust. It includes a dedicated learning category collecting great videos about science, nature, space and other topics.

K-4

Mental Maths 5-6

Apple

It’s been out for a few years, but this is still one of the best maths apps for children that feels genuinely educational. It’s built around a range of maths exercises and progress tests. Separate versions cover children up to the age of 11, and there’s a spelling series, too.

Dr Seuss’s ABC: AR Version

Android

Apple

“Big A, little a. What begins with A?” Well, augmented reality does, for a start. Dr Seuss’s inimitable alphabet book has been turned into an AR app, with animated characters appearing in the room around your child. The learning aspects include tracing the letters to learn their shapes for (non-AR) writing.

ScratchJr

Android

Apple

Scratch is the programming environment that a lot of children will be familiar with already from school. ScratchJr is an app version designed for five to seven-year-olds, although older children can have fun with it, too. It uses coding blocks to create programs for games, animation, music and other creative tasks.

K-4

King of Maths: Maths Learner

Android

Apple

This recently released maths game challenges children in quickfire sums, increasing in difficulty if they keep answering correctly. They write the numbers on the touchscreen with their finger rather than tapping buttons. It’s free to try, with a £3.99 in-app purchase unlocking everything.

Google Arts & Culture

Android

Apple

Field trips and museum visits may be out of bounds for a while, but Google’s Arts & Culture app at least has virtual tours of more than 1,200 museums and galleries. Children can look and read as well as curate their own lists of favourite artworks to share.

Mimo

Android

Apple

There are a number of great learn-to-code apps out there for children, but Mimo is one in particular that feels most connected to the world of professional programming. At a cost of £8.49 a month, it offers quick but interesting exercises in languages including Python, Java and Swift.

Elevate: Brain Training

Android

Apple

Elevate is one of a clutch of quality brain-training apps (see also: Peak or Lumosity) full of mini-games designed to sharpen your memory, maths skills, focus and other mental skills. Like those other apps, it uses a subscription – £38.99 a year – but with a week’s trial to test it out.

Simply Piano

Android

Apple

If music lessons have gone out of the window, Simply Piano is one of the best app alternatives. It helps children (or adults!) to learn songs and then listens to their playing on any real piano or keyboard to give feedback. Two courses are free, but then it costs £83.99 a year – pricey for an app, but not so much for piano lessons.

Women Who Changed the World

Android

Apple

This is a history app focused on a range of famous women who “helped us to understand our world better, and to make it a better place to live in”. Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Malala Yousafzai and Amelia Earhart are among the women profiled through animation and storytelling.

Duolingo

Free

Android

Apple

Duolingo isn’t just a fun and popular way to learn languages that children already study at school. It covers more than 30, including Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew and Welsh. It’s well designed, rewarding short daily sessions of practice. It’s free, but in-app purchases remove ads and unlock some extra features.

4-10

Kahoot!

Android

Apple

Kahoot! isn’t just an app, it’s also a website: a big collection of trivia quizzes created by other users. It’s going to really come into its own as schools close. It’s also a good group-learning experience: one person hosts a game and the others compete on their own devices.

Android

Apple

The TED talks archives are a wonderful repository of brain food for all ages – older children included. Search for history, science, nature – anything – and see what comes up. The talks are not all suitable for children, but many are.

Swift Playgrounds

Free

Swift is Apple’s own programming language, and Swift Playgrounds is its app for teaching people how to use it. It’s for adults as well as children, but it’s certainly accessible for the latter, with its lessons presented as coding puzzles that will give people the skills needed to start making their own apps and games. It’s on Apple’s iPad, but not (yet) its iPhone.

Videos for children starting Japanese Elementary School

https://pbskids.org/

One-stop shop for a wealth of fantastic PBS KIDS educational content

Prek-6

https://www.mathgames.com/

Fabulous free games, quiz questions address Common Core standards

Prek-8

http://www.readwritethink.org/

Excellent free resource for all things reading and writing

Prek-12

https://tinyurl.com/yea383c4

Outdated site still useful for science games and investigations

K-5

https://www.classdojo.com/

Handy management and portfolio tool can promote student growth

K-6

Impressive cross-curricular resource helps put the A in STEAM

K-12

https://ilclassroom.com/

Quality Common Core-aligned lessons with great modeling for teachers

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Creative sandbox opens the door to coding in any subject area

https://storybird.com/

Social storytelling site helps kids create, publish storybooks

K-12

Whimsical, kid-friendly intro to the wide world of art

1-6

https://www.sesamestreet.org/

Help children learn letters, animal sounds, rhymes colors and more…

Prek - 6

https://www.starfall.com/h/

Includes: letter recognition, reading plays, nonfiction, and comics.

Prek - 3

https://www.coolmath4kids.com/

Maths games for children covering many mathematical techniques

PreK-6

https://www.timeforkids.com/

Age-appropriate stories kids are excited about

K-6

Animal cameras, see and share photos of nature and try science experiments.

PreK-12

https://www.howstuffworks.com/

Easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works.

1-12

https://www.funbrain.com/

Develops skills in math, reading, problem-solving and literacy.

PreK-8

http://www.nickjr.tv/

Cartoon based games and activities for young children.

PreK-6

Engaging web and whiteboard activities across grades and subjects

PreK-8

https://www.exploratorium.edu/

An ongoing exploration of science, art and human perception.

PreK-8

https://global.cbeebies.com/

British childrens shows with games and activities to learn from.

PreK-3

History resources for children including games and activities.

1-6

https://www.highlightskids.com/

Offers online ways to play, read and craft with your children

1-6

https://www.education.com/

Explore more than 30,000 games, lessons and activities.

PreK-5

Sustainability themed games based on SDGs

PreK-12

Cartoon based games and activities for young children.

PreK-6

https://jr.brainpop.com/

Educational games and videos on social studies, math, science, art and history.

PreK-12

https://www.dogonews.com/

kid-friendly news site with articles specifically for a younger audience.

1-12

https://tinyurl.com/3j8jzvjp

Free, expansive digital library

1-12

Children can do puzzles and games and learn all about space.

PreK-6

https://sciencebob.com/

All things science, with experiments to try, research tips and a Q&A section.

1-6

Includes games based on strategy, logic and skill.

PreK-6