NOVANews

// NOVA TOOLS · FREE FOR EVERYONE

Learn by doing.

Reading is only half of learning. NOVA Tools are free, hands-on tools you can use right now: spell words from pictures, train your times tables, build a fraction wall, tell the time on a big clock, count Australian money, watch the Moon change shape, scroll past the planets, learn to type and build numbers with blocks. No account, no sign-in and nothing to install.

9 tools252 picture words78 times-table facts12 fraction rows5 clock levels11 coins and notes200 years of Moon phases9 worlds to explore12 typing lessons7 place values

🧰 The tools

Spell ItLook at the picture, hear the word, then tap the letter tiles to spell it. 252 words to learn.Years 1–3 · free · no sign-in Times Tables TrainerPractise any table from 1 to 12, race a 60-second clock and fill a colour grid as you learn every fact.Years 2–6 · free · no sign-in Fraction WallShade a colourful wall of halves, thirds, quarters and more to see which fractions are equal.Years 3–6 · free · no sign-in Clock TrainerDrag the hands of a big clock, read the time in words and set the clock to a time, from o'clock to every minute.Years 1–4 · free · no sign-in Money CounterMake amounts with Australian coins and notes, count piles of money, work out change and learn why cash totals round to 5 cents.Years 1–5 · free · no sign-in Moon TonightSee the Moon's phase for tonight or any date, drawn the way it looks from Australia, with the dates of the next full and new Moon.Years 3–8 · free · no sign-in Solar System ExplorerScroll past the Sun and every planet at their true sizes and distances, weigh yourself on each world and shrink space down to a beach ball.Years 3–8 · free · no sign-in Typing TrainerLearn to type with all ten fingers: a coloured finger guide, 12 lessons from the home row to capital letters, and a 60-second test.Years 3–8 · free · no sign-in Place Value & Number LineBuild numbers with blocks from thousands to thousandths, trade 10 for 1, zoom into a number line, and practise comparing and rounding.Years 2–6 · free · no sign-in

What are NOVA Tools?

NOVA Tools are small, focused learning tools made by the team behind NOVA Learn. Each one does one job well. Each comes with a clear explanation of how to use it and why it helps, and links to NOVA Learn explainers on the same big ideas. They run in your web browser on a computer, a tablet or a phone.

Who are they for?

  • Kids in Years 1 to 8 who would rather practise by playing than by copying out sums and words.
  • Families who want five good minutes of practice at the kitchen table, in the car or on the couch.
  • Teachers who need a quick warm-up, a maths or literacy station, or something to put on the projector. There is nothing to set up, and students do not need accounts.

Free, private and kind

  • No account. Open a tool and start. Nobody asks for a name, an email address or a password.
  • Private. A tool saves your progress only on your own device, in your browser. The tools do not send your answers anywhere.
  • Kind. There are no lives to lose and no points taken away. A tricky word or fact just comes round again until you know it.
  • Calm. Like all our free pages, the page around a tool may show Google ads, which are set to non-personalised because our readers are children. Ads are kept out of the tools themselves.
  • For everyone. The tools work with a mouse, a touchscreen or a keyboard, label their buttons for screen readers, and tone down their animation when your device asks for less motion.

How we make them

The maths in the tools is simple and we check it ourselves, and every picture word is an everyday word that we chose and checked. We also test the maths and the word lists automatically every time we change them. For example, we check that equal fractions are always equal, that every times-table answer is right, that every clock time is written the way Australians say it, that cash totals round to the nearest 5 cents by the right rule, that the dates of the new and full Moon match published tables to within a few minutes, that every planet number matches NASA's fact sheet, that typing speed is counted the standard way, and that every number from 0 to 9999 is read out in words the Australian way.

Is there a tool you would like us to build next? Tell us.

📚 Read as well as do

Every tool links to NOVA Learn explainers on the same big ideas. Browse all 54 explainers → · Ideas for parents and teachers →