With budget cuts striking schools around the country, teachers find themselves trying to do their jobs with minimal resources. Some teachers don’t even have a desk and textbook for every student. Many teachers shell money out of pocket every year for basic supplies for their students. Luckily, the Internet has opened up a plethora of free resources for teachers. One of these resources is free clip art sites. Young learners are visual, and clip art satisfies that need. Here are nine free websites that offer clip art for students and teachers.
1. Public Domain Clip Art
Public Domain Clip Art is a website that has over 25,000 free clip art images and counting. As the name suggests, all of this clip art is in the public domain. This means it is free to use without any worry of copyright infringement. What makes this site one of the best on the list is the extensive list of categories. Navigation is also made easy by how the large categories are divided into specific subcategories. For example, the Animals category is broken down into subcategories for birds, lizards, primates, etc. It’s a great resource for every subject.
2. #1 Free Clip Art
Number One Free Clip Art has over 300 categories that have a total of over 10,000 free clip art photos. One of the best features of this site is the uniqueness of some of the categories. Every clip art site has an extensive selection of animals, generic buildings, and people, but not every clip art site has categories for things like Astrology, email, money, and credit cards. This site isn’t just for early childhood educators. There are categories that relate to middle school classes and can be used to spice up any Powerpoint presentation.
3. Clip Art Pal
In addition for being a resource for free clip art, Clip Art Pal also functions as a portal to connect teachers with other free resources. It has a large list of public domain photos, as well as a bunch of royalty free photos. You just have to be careful to offer credit for the photo if the photographer requires. With that being said, Clip Art Pal has enough of a selection in the public domain to cover what you need. Some of the best selections are intricate pictures on holidays, constellations, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
4. Public Domain Photos
Although this site may not have the most extensive selection, it is one of the better clip art sites on the web. The reason it made this list is it makes up for its lack of breadth by a vast selection of nature-related photos. This is a great resource for pictures of animals, flowers, lakes, oceans, mountains, forests, fields, and skies. It is also a great resource for photos of specific cities. It has lovely photos of big cities like New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. It also has pictures of pastoral states like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.
5. Google Life
Google Life is a partnership between Google and Life magazine to offer photos taken for life magazine that were never printed as a free educational resource. Although it is not technically clip art, the professional quality of these photos make them a great educational resource. It is easy to navigate and free from the ad clutter that can slow down some of the other clip art sites, which can come in handy if your classroom has a slower Internet connection. These photos can also be printed and used to decorate the classroom.
6. Artvex
Art Vex is primarily a clip art resource for artists, but it also doubles as a valuable resource for teachers. The categories with the most selection and most relevance to the classroom are animals, nature, and shapes, signs, & symbols. There is also a big selection of architecture, tools, flags, and maps. It can serve as a great source for teachers of computer art. With over 10,000 photos to choose from you are sure to find some useful freebies. Make sure to check each specific photo to see if a citation is required.
7. Pics 4 Learning
Pics 4 Learning is a free image resource that keeps growing daily. The database is built from user-submitted images and covers several categories. This site outperforms the competition when it comes to organization. You can view images by collection, perform an advanced keyword search, and even search for free lesson plans. Each category has a description and some sample cover thumbnails, so you know exactly what you’re going to see. It makes navigating the extensive library a breeze. None of the images on Pics 4 Learning require a citation.
8. Best of Web
Best of Web has a fairly large selection of images. Most of the selections on the site itself are of animals. They are separated to a few types of animal per page, which makes browsing easier. What makes this site more valuable is the links to other clip art sites. If you don’t find what you need, then you can head to one of the linked sites to find what you need. The best strategy for using free resources is to have several you can use depending on what you need.
9. Classroom Clipart
Classroom Clip Art makes a case for being the largest clip art database on the Internet. This site has over 100,000 images and over 2,000 separate categories. These categories include things like architecture, culture, communities, plants, animals, space, travel, weather, and history. Virtually every topic an early childhood educator covers can be found on Classroom Clip Art. They also have animated gifs that can spice up a presentation. If you find this site useful, then you can sign up for their mailing list or become a full member to get extra download options.
