Coming up with creative solutions for your students is an ongoing task. Most teachers have to find their own images and figure out how to make worksheets on a budget. You might need graphics for teachers to redo your bulletin board and prefer to come up with something tailored to what your class is currently studying. Whatever the reason, free graphics and teachers go together like peanut butter and jelly.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers earn 11.1% less than those with comparable education and experience in other lines of work. Making the situation a bit harder is that teachers often give students supplies from their personal stash of items. They spend additional money decorating the classroom, buying books and offering opportunities for their students.
Fortunately, there are many free resources for educators. We’ve hunted down the top free graphics for teachers out there and found a nice collection to save you time and money.
1. Our Favorite- Canva
Canva is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in creating materials with ready-made graphics. Not only do you get access to graphics, gifs, photos, templates and more, but you also get access to powerful graphic design software to create any product you could imagine. It’s easy and intuitive to use with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.
With a basic plan, you can search a library of 250 thousand design templates and over one million stock photos and graphics. You can upgrade to a Pro plan to access the whole catalog of 610,000 templates and 100 million stock photos and graphics.
For most people, this tier would cost $12.99/month, but teachers can get it absolutely free. Canva has created a special Canva for Education plan. All you need to do is sign up with an education email domain and answer a few questions.
Once they verify your account, you’ll have instant access to the whole catalog plus a host of other features, including syncing with Google Classroom and the ability to add student accounts under yours. You can create and share assignments, and students can work collaboratively on group projects in real-time.
2. MyCuteGraphics
MyCuteGraphics has tons of graphics for teachers. For example, you can choose from a wide variety of food clip art to go with a healthy eating unit. You’ll also find seasonal themes for holidays such as Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, as well as winter, summer, spring and fall clip art.
The site organizes results into themes, so under the Reading Clip Art category, you’ll find children perusing books and listening to audiobooks. These graphics work especially well for elementary teachers.
3. Clipart ETC
The Florida Center for Instructional Technology created this resource specifically for teachers. Their goal was to give educators access to free graphics that would be more useful in the classroom than basic photos and GIFs. The Clipart ETC database is full of diagrams, scientific drawings, historic landmarks and so on.
You’re free to use these images as much as you want as long as it’s for non-commercial use, which was the original intent. You’ll need to purchase a commercial license if you want to sell your creations using these images.
The site is well organized by subjects and topics. There’s also a handy search bar, and each image is keyword coded to help you find what you’re looking for. Places, science, people and literature are just a handful of the broad categories you’ll see on this site. They even have sister sites offering images, presentation elements and maps — all linked at the bottom of their home page.
4. Kidaha
Kidaha has some genuinely unique clip art for kids. While some images are by subscription, there is a free page with a decent collection of graphics for teachers. Notice the fun science-themed images of magnets and beakers. You’ll also find many human and animal characters you can use to illustrate ideas for elementary and special education students.
The standard license includes the ability to use the illustrations on worksheets, invitations and craft projects.
5. Clipart Library
Clipart Library has a complete collection of graphics for teachers. The images come in various formats, including SVG, so you can even scale them up for larger projects such as bulletin boards, hallway art and classroom decor.
The site has 76 different groupings explicitly created for educators’ use. Within each category, there are many options for artwork. While the offerings are relatively basic, if that’s all you need, you won’t have to look elsewhere.
6. Classroom Clipart
This website dedicates its clip art to teachers. There are more than 100,000 free images, illustrations and photographs sorted into 2,000 categories. You’ll find unique images for historical themes, science, sports, geography and just about any other educational topic. Each subject has subcategories for further refinements, such as Ancient Egypt or Cities and States.
Recently the site has expanded to include GIFs, which they call animations. Again, they have a lengthy list of categories to choose from, with topics like Anatomy, Halloween and Physics.
7. Public Domain Clip Art
Images here are free to use and give you a lot of variety. This website sorts them into categories and features thumbnail images for easy browsing. You’ll find things sorted by animals, holidays and even from A to Z. There are more than 25,000 choices on the site. You don’t have to register to download graphics for teachers.
The best part about using public domain clip art is that you’re completely free to use it for non-commercial projects in your classroom and to sell your work commercially. No one owns the copyright for these images. You don’t even need to give credit to the source with public domain graphics.
8. ClipartPal
The website features free clip art and connects teachers to other resources for no-cost photographs. Some require you to creditf the photographer or artist, but others are public domain pictures. The images of the galaxy and Egyptian etchings can help with history and science lessons.
9. Teachers Pay Teachers
Teachers Pay Teachers is an interesting model. Working educators upload their creations and sell them or give them away. You can search by grade level, subject or keyword. Filter the results to pull up the free items if you don’t want to pay any money. You’ll find tons of printables for bulletin boards, worksheets and classroom charts.
Most printables come as complete sets, so if you click on the snails example above, you get a series of pictures to print out for your bulletin board. If you need something and can’t find it, you can always repackage and sell it on the site. Many teachers sell their unique graphics and use the funds to buy additional items for their students.
10. Pics4Learning
If you’re looking for beautiful photographs to bring a lesson to life, Pics4Learning offers free images and adds to the database every day. View photos by subject or collection, or do a keyword search.
The site also provides lesson plans related to some of the pictures, making your job even easier. There are no citations required and no fees involved. If you’re looking for real images to use as graphics for teachers to round out your lessons, this site is a rich source.
At the bottom of the home page you’ll also find link to a rubric builder and a graphic organizer maker. Use these handy tools on their own or combine it with graphics or photos you find on the website.
11. Artvex
Most of the graphics for teachers on Artvex are in the form of clip art, but many are available as free SVGs for different-sized projects. Artists have used the site for years, but teachers find many of the illustrations important for classroom learning. You’ll find collections of animals, shapes, flags and maps. There are more than 10,000 images on the site. Browse by category or create a custom search using keywords.
12. LIFE Photo Archive
When hunting down graphics for teachers, we tried to think of the different reasons you might need images in a classroom setting. Sometimes you need photographs or illustrations to teach a point to your students or enhance lessons in your textbook. LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google, is the perfect complement to your history lessons.
Sorted by decades, you’ll find photos dating from the 1860s to the 1970s. You can also use a search feature with Google to hunt for a specific image archive. Look for a historical figure, such as Pablo Picasso, or search by event, place or culture. You’ll also see related searches and activities in the results.
Top-Notch Paid Graphics for Teachers
You absolutely don’t have to spend money on graphics for teachers to create fantastic lessons for your students. However, if you have some extra cash and enjoy making your own materials, one of these sites might be a great addition to your teaching toolkit.
1. Teachers Pay Teachers
You aren’t losing your mind — we mentioned this website already. While there are plenty of great resources for free on Teachers Pay Teachers, you’re sometime limited to more basic designs and images. Expanding your search to allow paid materials might lead you to some great deals. To offset the cost, you could sell some of your own designs.
2. Creative Fabrica
Creative Fabrica has any graphics for teachers you could possibly hope for. They have over 5 million graphics to choose from. They have also have designs, craft ideas and fonts. You can buy products individually — they even have a $1 sale page. However, the best deal, if you make things frequently, is to sign up for a monthly subscription. For $19.95 a month you get unlimited access to everything on the site. You can even request new designs from their artists.
Free Graphics for Teachers
These are just a few places where you can find images for your classroom. Just about any photo or illustration repository online has a free section. Pay attention to licensing, and filter accordingly until you find what you need. With a little legwork, you’ll gain all the resources you need to have a fabulous school year.
