Sesame Street Games is a collection of free online activities featuring familiar characters such as Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster, Grover, Big Bird, and Oscar the Grouch. The games are designed primarily for preschool and early elementary children and address learning areas ranging from number recognition and vocabulary to emotions, resilience, and healthy routines.
What makes these games distinctive is their emphasis on the whole child. Some activities teach conventional school-readiness skills, but many also help children recognize emotions, develop flexibility, establish healthy habits, and respond to challenging situations.
The current game collection can be found within the Sesame Workshop family resources, alongside videos, printable activities, storybooks, caregiver guides, and professional-learning resources.
Compared with PBS KIDS Games, the Sesame Street collection is smaller and less systematically organized around academic subjects. However, it offers particularly strong resources for social-emotional learning and sensitive childhood topics.
In this Sesame Street Games review, I will examine the collection’s current features, educational value, classroom applications, privacy considerations, strengths, and limitations.
Sesame Street Games at a Glance
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Recommended ages | Primarily ages 3–6 |
| Main audience | Preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary learners |
| Learning areas | Literacy, math, school readiness, health, and social-emotional development |
| Resource types | Games, interactive stories, videos, printables, and caregiver activities |
| Cost | Free |
| Sign-up required | Generally no |
| Advertising | No conventional third-party advertising within the games |
| Teacher accounts | Not provided |
| Assignments and reports | Not available |
| Best for | Preschool centers, social-emotional learning, school readiness, and home learning |
| Main limitation | Small, loosely organized game library with no classroom-management tools |
What Are Sesame Street Games?
Sesame Street Games are browser-based interactive activities produced or distributed by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street.
The games use familiar characters and stories to help children explore academic, social, emotional, and practical life skills. Because many young children already recognize the characters, they may enter the activities with an immediate sense of familiarity and interest.
Unlike a structured practice platform such as IXL or SplashLearn, Sesame Street Games does not place children on a sequenced curriculum. Children select individual games or storybooks, each addressing a particular skill or situation.
The games are best understood as short learning experiences that teachers and caregivers can integrate into a broader lesson or conversation.
What Do Sesame Street Games Teach?
The collection covers a wide variety of early-childhood topics. To keep this overview compact, I have arranged the main areas into two columns.
| Academic and school-readiness skills | Social, emotional, and life skills |
|---|---|
| Number recognition | Recognizing emotions |
| Counting and early math | Managing strong feelings |
| Letters and vocabulary | Calming strategies |
| Colors and shapes | Friendship and cooperation |
| Reading and storytelling | Flexibility and resilience |
| Curiosity and science | Health and hygiene |
| Creative arts | Daily routines |
| Financial education | Community and belonging |
| Memory and attention | Digital well-being |
| Problem-solving | Responding to difficult situations |
This broader focus is one of the collection’s greatest strengths. Children need academic skills, but they also need language for expressing feelings, strategies for calming themselves, and opportunities to understand other people’s perspectives.
Early Literacy and Language
Sesame Street has a long tradition of introducing children to letters, sounds, vocabulary, and stories. Its digital resources continue this approach through activities involving:
| Literacy skills | Common activity formats |
|---|---|
| Letter recognition | Selecting or matching letters |
| Vocabulary | Connecting words with images |
| Oral language | Listening and responding |
| Story comprehension | Following interactive stories |
| Rhyming and sound play | Songs and spoken-word games |
| Sequencing | Reconstructing events or routines |
The games are most appropriate for building familiarity and reinforcing skills. They are not a systematic phonics curriculum comparable to Starfall.
Teachers can increase the educational value by extending a game offline. After a vocabulary activity, for instance, students might identify related objects around the classroom, draw a picture, or use a new word in a sentence.
Early Math
Sesame Street’s math games introduce children to foundational concepts through familiar characters, spoken directions, and colorful visual representations.
Topics may include:
| Number skills | Related thinking skills |
|---|---|
| Number recognition | Sorting |
| Counting | Matching |
| Comparing quantities | Recognizing patterns |
| Basic operations | Spatial reasoning |
| Shapes | Estimating |
| Measurement | Solving simple problems |
One current example is Playing With Numbers, an interactive game designed to develop number recognition.
The math collection is appropriate for occasional reinforcement, but it is not extensive enough to serve as a complete mathematics program. Teachers looking for sequenced practice and performance reporting will find SplashLearn or IXL more suitable.
Social-Emotional Learning
Social-emotional learning is where Sesame Street Games stands apart from most educational game websites.
Activities help children:
| Understanding emotions | Responding constructively |
|---|---|
| Name different feelings | Use calming strategies |
| Read facial expressions | Ask an adult for help |
| Notice physical reactions | Adapt when plans change |
| Recognize another person’s feelings | Communicate a need |
| Connect feelings with situations | Work through disappointment |
For example, I Notice, I Feel, I Can guides children through a three-step strategy for managing strong emotions. Our Quiet Corner presents a safe space where Sesame Street characters work through difficult feelings.
These games are especially useful when accompanied by an adult. A teacher can pause to ask what a character might be feeling, why the feeling arose, and what other response might help.
Resources for Difficult Topics
Sesame Workshop provides materials for subjects that many general educational websites avoid. These include:
| Family and community situations | Emotional or safety-related situations |
|---|---|
| Divorce | Grief |
| Foster care | Traumatic experiences |
| Parental incarceration | Violence |
| Military caregiving | Emergencies |
| Homelessness | Displacement and resettlement |
| Parental addiction | Extreme weather |
Not every topic is presented through a game. Resources may include storybooks, videos, printable materials, and guidance for caregivers or professionals.
These materials can be valuable, but teachers should not simply give a child a game about a sensitive issue without context. Review the resource first and consider whether support from a school counselor, psychologist, administrator, or family is appropriate.
Health, Hygiene, and Daily Routines
Sesame Street resources also address everyday habits such as:
| Healthy-body topics | Daily-life topics |
|---|---|
| Brushing teeth | Getting ready for school |
| Eating well | Bedtime routines |
| Physical activity | Cleaning up |
| Visiting a doctor | Moving between activities |
| Asthma awareness | Using digital devices |
| General hygiene | Preparing for emergencies |
These activities can complement units about health, self-care, or classroom routines. Because the characters model the behaviour, children see the skill within a recognizable situation rather than as an isolated rule.
Games and Interactive Storybooks
Sesame Workshop now groups many games and storybooks together. This reflects the fact that the boundary between them is not always clear. Some resources function as conventional games, while others allow children to make choices within a narrated story.
Current examples include:
- Playing With Numbers: Develops basic number recognition.
- Digital Art Maker: Playing With Colors: Introduces colors through creative play.
- Making It Work: Helps children develop flexibility.
- I Notice, I Feel, I Can: Teaches a strategy for handling strong emotions.
- Feeling Faces: Encourages children to identify and discuss emotions.
- Our Quiet Corner: Models ways to manage difficult feelings safely.
The available collection changes over time. Some older Sesame Street games found through search engines may no longer work or may have been removed as the website transitioned away from older technologies.
Teacher Resources Beyond the Games
The Sesame Workshop resource library includes much more than games. Teachers can find:
| Classroom materials | Adult-learning resources |
|---|---|
| Printable activities | Courses |
| Storybooks | Webinars |
| Coloring pages | Topic explainers |
| Family guides | Implementation suggestions |
| Videos and songs | Professional resources |
| Conversation starters | Caregiver guidance |
Resources can be filtered by topic and age. Some are also available in Spanish, while selected materials addressing displacement and resettlement are offered in Dari, Pashto, Ukrainian, and other languages.
This wider collection is useful because teachers can build a complete learning experience around one theme. A lesson about emotions, for example, might combine a video, interactive game, picture-book discussion, and drawing activity.
Does Sesame Street Games Track Progress?
Sesame Street Games does not provide individual student accounts, teacher assignments, grades, or progress reports.
Teachers cannot use the platform to:
| Not available | What to use instead |
|---|---|
| Assign games to student profiles | Share a direct activity link |
| Monitor completion automatically | Observe students during play |
| Review individual answers | Ask follow-up questions |
| Generate progress reports | Use a checklist or anecdotal notes |
| Create adaptive learning paths | Choose activities manually |
| Import a class roster | Organize access outside the platform |
This makes the collection easy to use, but it also limits its value for formal assessment and differentiated practice.
For teacher-managed assignments and reporting, see my reviews of Khan Academy Kids, SplashLearn, and IXL.
Is Sesame Street Games Free?
The browser-based games and family resources provided through Sesame Workshop are free. Most can be opened without creating an account or purchasing a subscription.
Sesame Street content is also distributed through external services and apps. Those services may have their own advertisements, subscriptions, regional restrictions, or data practices. Teachers should distinguish between free resources hosted by Sesame Workshop and Sesame Street content offered through a separate commercial platform.
Privacy and Advertising
Sesame Workshop’s main resource website uses cookies and analytics technologies described in its privacy policy. Some resources may also link to third-party websites or media services with separate policies.
Children generally do not need to create personal profiles to play the browser-based games. This limits the amount of student information teachers must enter.
Before classroom use, teachers should:
| Check the resource | Protect students |
|---|---|
| Open and play the game first | Avoid entering student names |
| Identify external links | Use school-approved devices |
| Review cookie notices | Follow district privacy requirements |
| Confirm the game still works | Supervise younger learners |
| Check audio and accessibility | Provide alternative participation options |
Ways to Use Sesame Street Games in Class
Social-Emotional Learning
Use a game about feelings, flexibility, or calming as the opening to a class discussion. Invite students to connect the strategy with fictional scenarios rather than requiring them to disclose personal experiences.
Learning Stations
Place a selected game in a literacy, math, or social-emotional learning station. Share the direct link so students do not need to navigate the entire website.
Whole-Class Discussion
Display a game on an interactive whiteboard and make decisions together. Pause regularly to ask students to predict, explain, or suggest another solution.
School-Readiness Activities
Use games and stories about routines, cooperation, and emotional regulation to support children entering preschool or kindergarten.
Home-School Connections
Send families a direct link with one simple follow-up prompt. For example: “Play the feelings game together, then name one strategy your family uses to calm down.”
Support for Health Lessons
Use Sesame resources to introduce toothbrushing, physical activity, nutrition, doctor visits, or personal hygiene in an age-appropriate way.
Sesame Street Games Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Completely free browser-based activities | No teacher dashboard |
| Familiar and engaging characters | No assignments or progress reports |
| Strong social-emotional content | Smaller academic library than competitors |
| Covers health and family topics | Some older games are no longer available |
| No student account usually required | Resources are spread across several sections |
| Useful videos, printables, and storybooks | Limited upper-elementary content |
| Materials for sensitive situations | Not a complete curriculum |
| Selected multilingual resources | Accessibility varies by activity |
Sesame Street Games Compared With Other Platforms
| Platform | Best for | Age or grades | Price | Teacher reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sesame Street Games | Social-emotional learning and school readiness | Ages 3–6 | Free | No |
| PBS KIDS Games | Broad, character-based educational play | Pre-K–early elementary | Free | No |
| Khan Academy Kids | Structured whole-child learning | Ages 2–8 | Free | Yes |
| Starfall | Phonics and beginning reading | Pre-K–5 | Freemium | No |
| ABCya | Stand-alone educational games | Pre-K–6 | Freemium | Limited |
| SplashLearn | Adaptive math and literacy practice | Pre-K–5 | Free for teachers | Strong |
| Education.com | Worksheets and mixed resources | Pre-K–8 | Freemium | Moderate |
| IXL | Adaptive practice and diagnostics | Pre-K–12 | Paid | Extensive |
PBS KIDS Games offers a larger collection of academic and exploratory games. Khan Academy Kids provides a more structured learning path and teacher reporting, while Starfall offers more systematic phonics instruction.
Sesame Street Games is the strongest choice when the objective involves emotions, relationships, routines, resilience, health, or preparing young children for school.
Final Verdict
Sesame Street Games is a valuable free resource for preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary classrooms. Its familiar characters and simple interactions make the activities inviting, but its real educational strength lies in the range of social-emotional and everyday life topics it addresses.
The collection is not a substitute for a structured literacy or mathematics program. It also lacks assignments, adaptive practice, and progress reporting. Teachers therefore need to select activities manually and assess learning through observation, conversation, and related classroom work.
I recommend Sesame Street Games for short learning stations, whole-class discussions, school-readiness activities, health lessons, and social-emotional learning. The games become most meaningful when a teacher or caregiver helps children connect what happens on screen with their own choices and routines.
Overall rating: 4.4 out of 5
