not supposed to mention this website lol but did you try lichess board editor that usually works pretty well
Is there a program where I can freely move chess pieces around? Like a sandbox

the only problem is that lichess is online I don't have internet access in the classroom. I downloaded chess pad, tarrasch, i own chessbase, fritz, houdini, and chessx- none of them has a feature like this.

also if you right click on a piece it will highlight it, and if you right click any square and drag it makes an arrow

the only other thing I could think of that isn't internet based is the chessmaster program(any version will do) you still would have to go to set up position but the program has a sort of full screen mode so it'll be a much bigger board

dang. weird how none of the GUI makers had thought of something like this. it seems like a really intuitive feature to include in any chess gui

I agree it is weird but this is what the setup would look like I think that's your best option hope that helps.(it's like 10 dollars I think)

yea that looks allright. In the meantime, Im emailing developers asking them to include a chess sandbox option in their GUI's. I already emailed ShredderChess. Am I the only one who ever thought this would be a useful tool/feature?

Arena, and I think Winboard can do it:
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/simple-basic-chessboard-for-following-instruction
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/is-there-a-physical-chess-board-app
(Arena is up to version 3.5.1 now.)

Quach:
"Guys, something has gone very very wrong.
You are talking in terms of computers.
Chess is a game of zero technology. It's like you guys are born in the Matrix and are not born in the real world."
(...all this posted onto a website forum page, by the OP)
I appreciate Quach's subtle sense of humor
I have some middle school students I'm teaching chess to, projecting my laptop on a large screen, and I found it would be really helpful if there was a program that allowed me to simply move pieces around the board, wherever I wanted, without checking if it is "legal". That way I don't have to insert a 'setup new position" every time I want to demonstrate something. And setting up a new position is not good in and of itself because the window is always smaller.
Kind of like a white board that has velcro chess pieces on it, I'd just like to move them around freely.
ideally I'd like anything that is full screen (i'll even pay for the software) that gives me free reign over moving chess pieces around on a board without any legal checks.