There is a wonderful world of free software out there. Below are links to some of the best freeware and other useful / fun websites we have found. All links open in a new page.
NB: To the best of our knowledge all the software listed here is free for personal use and safe, however please be aware that you download and use it at your own risk.
Free Accessible Software for Children
Download our latest list of accessible websites and free software for children (April 2014). The file is a PDF with links to the websites and downloads and opens in a new window.
Accessibility Freeware and Websites (including switch accessible games)
| Accessible Cinema |
The Your Local Cinema website lists subtitled cinema and audio-described cinema – you can search by town / area (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are listed separately) to find a list of accessible showings, or click on a current film to see where accessible showings are being held. Alternatively you can search by cinema chain. |
| Click Aid |
ClickAid is a free stand-alone on-screen mouse aid designed for anyone who has difficulty switching between mouse buttons or double clicking on a physical computer mouse. It will work with all mouse systems including head mouse and touch screen devices. |
| Click-N-Type |
Click-N-Type is an on-screen virtual keyboard designed for anyone with a disability that prevents them from typing on a physical computer keyboard. As long as they can control a mouse, trackball, touch screen or other pointing device, this software keyboard allows them to send keystrokes to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window. |
| Point-N-Click |
Point-N-Click is a free stand-alone on-screen virtual mouse designed for anyone with a disability that makes it difficult or impossible to click a physical computer mouse. As long as they can move a mouse, trackball or other pointing device, they can send mouse clicks to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window and even many that are full screen. |
| EduApps |
EduApps consists of over 60 open source and freeware Windows applications, running from a USB stick. AccessApps provides a range of solutions to support writing, reading and planning as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties. LearnApps is a range of applications with learning in mind (including some games). TeachApps includes applications specifically for developing and testing learning materials. |
| One Switch |
The One Switch website contains over 100 free 1-switch games. Some are online games, some can be downloaded – all can be played with just one switch (or one key press / mouse click). The level of difficulty is described for each. |
| Priory Wood School |
The Priory Wood School website lets you download a wide variety of material including worksheets, curriculum documents, lesson plans and simple programs, which you are free to adapt and use in your school, college or home: cause and effect / targeting activities, interactive talking story books, useful educational programs, curriculum policies and other documents, lesson plans and teaching ideas. |
| Shiny Learning |
The Shiny Learning website contains free switch-accessible games. The games can be played online in your browser or download stand-alone versions for Windows. All the games can be played by switch, keyboard or mouse. See the individual games for details. You need to have Adobe Flash Player installed to play these games. |
Word Talk |
Word Talk is a free text-to-speech plugin for Microsoft Word. |
Art & Graphics Freeware
| Tux Paint |
Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 . Kids are presented with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative. We strongly recommend that you also download and install the optional “rubber stamps” collection (you will see the link to this download once you choose the operating system you require) – which makes the program much more fun. |
| Gimp |
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. It is very powerful and can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. |
| Just Color Picker |
Just Color Picker lets you find out the exact colour value of any pixel anywhere on your screen. It features: Five formats of colour value including RGB and HEX. Picked colours history to save and reuse picked colours. No installation required. Just Color Picker is a portable application and can be run directly from a USB stick. |
| ScreenHunter | ScreenHunter 5 Free is a completely free screen capture software for you to easily take screenshots. |
Educational Freeware
| TuxTyping | TuxTyping – Tux the penguin is hungry, and loves to eat fish. But Tux can only catch the fish if you type the right letters in time! Can you help Tux? |
| Kiran’s Typing Tutor |
Kiran’s Typing Tutor for Windows lets you learn Touch Typing and improve your typing skills. It includes features like Typing Lessons, Typing Practice, Typing Tests, Numeric Typing, Kids Typing, Typing Games, statistical graphs, finger preview and key preview. |
| Stamina Typing Tutor |
Stamina is an amusing, yet multifunctional touch-typing tutor with support for several layouts: QWERTY (US, UK, …), Dvorak, AZERTY etc. The program is perfect for novice as well as advanced users. Instead of the traditional finger positioning on the keyboard you can choose to learn an alternative typing method in order to reduce hand stress. |
Free Games
| Tree House TV |
Tree House TV website contains a huge number of activities for young children – online puzzles, colouring, printable activities, videos and more. Includes “In the Night Garden”, “Fifi and the Flowertots”, “My Friend Rabbit”, “The Backyardigans” |
| A Game |
The A Game website has literally thousands of online games (encompassing a huge range of skill levels) and more games are added all the time. Games are divided into the following categories: – Racing – Sports – Skill – Action – Adventure – Puzzle – Multiplayer – Board & Card |
| CBeebies |
The CBeebies website is for young children. There are: stories & rhymes; print & colour; fun & games (including a section of mouse-only, keyboard-only and switch operated games); music & songs; make & do… |
| CBBC | The CBBC Website is for older children and includes: watch; create; games (including some switch operated games); grab (screensavers, downloads, wallpapers etc) ; links to other sites |
