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Free Learning. Big Adventures.

Be a Dinosaur is a free educational gaming platform for children in Pre-K through 5th grade, created to make learning engaging, playful, and accessible.

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100free games
Pre-K–5grades served
0logins or accounts needed
2018free since

Be a Dinosaur (beadinosaur.com) is a free educational games website for children in Pre-K through 5th grade. Kids play 100 math, reading, logic, Spanish and French games, with no ads, accounts, logins or subscriptions. Founded by technology entrepreneur and mother of six Katy Hall, it has been free since 2018.

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Photo: Victoria Pearce, Love Like Harry Photography

Meet the founder

Katy Hall · Founder of Be a Dinosaur · Technology executive, entrepreneur and attorney · Mother of six

Katy Hall is the founder of Be a Dinosaur, which she designs and codes herself. She is a technology executive who has spent nearly two decades building websites people actually use: in 2007 she founded Sugarlaws, a network of free, family-focused websites that has reached more than ten million users, and as Chief Operating Officer of Wickfire she launched and grew BuyersGuide.org, a comparison shopping site that reached 200 million unique visitors.

Katy is also an attorney. A cum laude graduate of NYU School of Law with a B.A. from Princeton, she clerked in federal court in New York, practiced at Davis Polk & Wardwell, and later founded her own media and technology litigation firm.

As a mother of six, Katy wanted a place where her own children could practice reading and math with games they would actually choose to play. She began building those games in 2018 and has kept Be a Dinosaur free ever since. She speaks about building learning games children want to play, privacy-first education technology, and applying lessons from large consumer websites to education.

About the platform

Who it serves

Children in Pre-K through 5th grade, and the grown-ups who help them learn: classroom teachers, librarians, homeschool families and parents.

Why it exists

Katy started building games in 2018 so her own children would have a fun, age-appropriate place to practice reading and math, without ads, upsells or sign-up screens.

What kids can do

Play 100 games in math, reading, logic, Spanish and French; follow the Hatchling, Explorer and Adventurer learning paths; earn stars to hatch and collect their own dinosaurs; and print worksheets for practice away from the screen.

How educators use it

As a learning center, for early finishers, on the classroom smartboard, or as homework that needs no login. Games are organized by grade using Common Core standards as a guide, and teachers can share the site to Google Classroom in one click.

Why it is free

Be a Dinosaur is an independent, self-funded project with no ads. Katy believes everyday learning practice should not sit behind a paywall, an ad or an account screen.

What makes it different

It asks nothing of children: no ads, no accounts, no logins, nothing to download. Games are short, explain themselves with pictures and sound for pre-readers, and run on smartboards, Chromebooks, tablets and phones.

Try the games For Teachers & Families ›