Children today are growing up in a digital world, where they meet both the amazing possibilities and potential risks the internet presents. Teaching them about online safety—such as harmful content, scams, and the people they interact with—is crucial. And what better way to do this than through games?

Since many kids enjoy playing video games, parents and teachers should be aware of them as well. Here, I’ll highlight some free games that not only educate children about the current online dangers but also ensure they have fun along the way – something I take very seriously!

All of the games below are FREE to use, require NO registration and no e-mail logins – nothing, just click the link and play. Also, all of the 4 suggested games are tested many times with my own students through the years, and I can assure you they are worth it!

Interland

Click here to go to the game’s website

This is one of my favorite internet safety online games! Every school year I introduce the game to a new class of students, and every year – they absolutely love it! No wonder why. The game was developed and is maintained by Google, and you can definitely count on them to create amazing and useful things. “Interland” is part of Google’s “Be Internet Awesome Program”, which has lots of great resources for both parents and teachers to educate children about internet safety (click here to go and see the program’s agenda, along with a pledge poster, curriculum, link to the game etc.)

This game lets children play as a little robotic “Internaut”, learning all about fake news and misleading info, cyberbullying, data protection, phishing and even more. This is all taught through a variety of mini-games and quizzes that are spread out across floating islands the children can pick from. So far (as of October 2024) those islands are 4. The graphics of the game are fun and colorful, and the music in the background is relaxing and sweet. The gameplay is very easy and I believe any student can handle playing it.

When you finish an island, you get the options to either replay the whole stage, go to another thematic island or download a custom certificate for completing the chosen topic. Those certificates look nice and I get a lot of requests to print those out at the end of the lesson, so the students can bring them home and show them to their parents.

Some of my students don’t even realize that I am not some “extremely cool” teacher that let’s them play games at school, they have no idea that they are actually learning a lot by play these games. Highly recommend “Interland”!

Band Runner

Click here to go to the game’s website

Aside from teaching internet safety, Band Runner is an fun game on its own. Children can choose to play as either Ellie or Sam, timing their jumps to avoid obstacles while using their guitars to smash through barriers—after all, Ellie and Sam are headed to a gig!

If they fail to clear an obstacle, Ellie or Sam will stumble, and players must answer a question, such as whether it’s safe to share videos or reveal personal information, before continuing. Each level is cleared for around a minute, and after each level there is also an Internet Safety related question to answer. The music that plays in the background is lively and fun, and the graphics are really good! Gameplay consists of only using the up arrow key and the space, as well as choosing the correct answer using the mouse. Pretty simple.

Space Shelter

Click here to go to the game’s website

Another amazing Internet Safety online game by Google! They sure do know how to create a wonderful experience with great graphics, a simple gameplay and lots of educational use.

The game starts with the student selecting a player (there’s even a disabled version of the player) and answering a couple of quick questions like the one below.

Afterwards they start going through the spaceship with their player. On each section of it there’s a different mission/mini game. Here’s the one about two factor authentication for example:

In my opinion, this is the best educational online game on the topic of Internet Safety. It covers so much, all of the possible topics that are in the curriculum. Both the graphics and background music are relaxing and well thought of, the questions and mini missions/activities are very diverse. My students love this game, as well as I do!

Surf City

Click here to go to the game’s website

The game starts with the player selecting which grade he/she is in (options are from 3rd to 8th grade). That’s where the fun, oldschool-feeling 8-bit-graphics-like game begins! The questions the students will be answering during the game are calibrated according to which grade was chosen. When you open the website, it almost looks like a game you would play on your Sega Mega Drive or Nintendo console during the 90s! So cool!

The student is playing by navigating a cute little robot using the arrow keys and the space button. The tiny machine goes through the Surfing City and has to get to each character (the characters are mostly bears) that has a ! sign over it. By pressing the action key (space button) a question with a background situation pops up and has to be solved.

This is one of the very few games that can be diversified with each grade you’re teaching. None of the other games I recommend in this post can do that. It’s definitely a plus for us educators!

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I hope your children/students have fun playing the games I’ve suggested while also picking up some online safety skills. I’ve tested all of the suggestions many times with different classes of my own students and I believe the games are very educational and will enrich the knowledge on the topic in those little heads of theirs, protecting them from the harsh digital world they live in. Sometimes it’s also fun to play the games yourself before giving them to the students (at least that’s what I do), to be capable of answering any questions that come up. Happy teaching!