We've been homeschooling for several years, and over time have cobbled together a bunch of resources that work well for us. I'd love to share what I've bookmarked and see what others are doing as well. This might be helpful for anyone looking into homeschool/unschool options, but it can also become a great directory of supplemental help for students in public school. (It's probably helpful to include age ranges and costs, where that applies.)
At the top of the list is Time4Learning.com, the core of our curriculum. It's engaging and thorough self-paced but challenging, and gives parents detailed info clearly presented on a child's activities, scores on tests and quizzes, a scheduler for specific activities or units, and more. It's very user-friendly for both parents and students, with no hint of religious or social engineering. Rather, it's very common sense and fun. Much to explore there. Good for kids from preschool through high school, and includes adjunct courses in foreign languages (powered by Rosetta) and a nice art curriculum. They have sister sites, like Time4Writing, worth exploring as well. $19.95 per month.
Our son reallllly wants to do study.com, and we want to get into that as well because it looks fantastic, but a bit pricey for us now. $40.00 a month.
Khan Academy is good for upper-level learners, and focuses on STEM subjects, though there is admirable content on history and art as well. It's totally free and a very nicely paced video-based course. You can keep track of subjects done and plan what you want to do next. Free.
CK-12 also is more STEM-focused, but includes English studies. It's fun and engaging and has great user communications. I admit we don't use it much lately, spending time on some other things, but we're going to get back into it... they have a summer learning program. You have online textbooks, apps, interactive help, study guides... so much. Good for kindergarten through high school. Free.
Other sites we've used and he likes are lizardpoint for geography, kidspast.com for history, code.org (and Khan Academy) for computer science (he taught himself java using these sites, and can now program simple animations with effects).
Videos are getting to be really good resources, with lots of YouTube channels that do the job well. Our favorites are CrashCourse (which is for upper level kids, but there's a whole family of channels including several for young learners, very engaging... SciShow Kids is one of them), GeographyNow (my son looooooves this and has created his own learning style using this. He knows so much about countries in the world, and the presenter is a warm, funny guy who just loves geography. If you want a fun and quirky math escape, I recommend vihart. Might trigger some creativity.
Some good overall education websites that can be helpful in generating lesson plans and seeing what's going on in the real world are tes.com (UK-based), teachervision.com. Lessonplanet.com is a decent searchable database of lesson plans in any subject/grade and for their monthly fee they can get you in the back door of sites you'd otherwise have to pay for. I don't use this site any longer, but it was immensely helpful when I was learning how to homeschool.
For printable worksheets, probably the best to start with are education.com (all subjects), dadsworksheets.com (for math). Teacherspayteachers.com has a lot of free resources from worksheets to unit studies, and I've found most of the paid resources are reasonably priced. These are all made by teachers, so it helps support them directly. Teachersnotebook.com is a similar site.
Owlcation is a site I just stumbled across yesterday, so I haven't had much time to look through it, but it seems promising for enrichment of current studies in lots of subject areas. Upper-level. Free.
There are tons of blogs by parents who homeschool, most of them religious in tone, but some are really quite good if that is otherwise a turnoff. One I like is tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com. Lots of free unit studies, especially for younger students.
There are so many others I could list but this is a good start, hey? I'm happy to share other sites I've found, and insights as well, for specific subjects or questions you might have, if I am able.
So... what are your favorites? Or what are your needs?
At the top of the list is Time4Learning.com, the core of our curriculum. It's engaging and thorough self-paced but challenging, and gives parents detailed info clearly presented on a child's activities, scores on tests and quizzes, a scheduler for specific activities or units, and more. It's very user-friendly for both parents and students, with no hint of religious or social engineering. Rather, it's very common sense and fun. Much to explore there. Good for kids from preschool through high school, and includes adjunct courses in foreign languages (powered by Rosetta) and a nice art curriculum. They have sister sites, like Time4Writing, worth exploring as well. $19.95 per month.
Our son reallllly wants to do study.com, and we want to get into that as well because it looks fantastic, but a bit pricey for us now. $40.00 a month.
Khan Academy is good for upper-level learners, and focuses on STEM subjects, though there is admirable content on history and art as well. It's totally free and a very nicely paced video-based course. You can keep track of subjects done and plan what you want to do next. Free.
CK-12 also is more STEM-focused, but includes English studies. It's fun and engaging and has great user communications. I admit we don't use it much lately, spending time on some other things, but we're going to get back into it... they have a summer learning program. You have online textbooks, apps, interactive help, study guides... so much. Good for kindergarten through high school. Free.
Other sites we've used and he likes are lizardpoint for geography, kidspast.com for history, code.org (and Khan Academy) for computer science (he taught himself java using these sites, and can now program simple animations with effects).
Videos are getting to be really good resources, with lots of YouTube channels that do the job well. Our favorites are CrashCourse (which is for upper level kids, but there's a whole family of channels including several for young learners, very engaging... SciShow Kids is one of them), GeographyNow (my son looooooves this and has created his own learning style using this. He knows so much about countries in the world, and the presenter is a warm, funny guy who just loves geography. If you want a fun and quirky math escape, I recommend vihart. Might trigger some creativity.
Some good overall education websites that can be helpful in generating lesson plans and seeing what's going on in the real world are tes.com (UK-based), teachervision.com. Lessonplanet.com is a decent searchable database of lesson plans in any subject/grade and for their monthly fee they can get you in the back door of sites you'd otherwise have to pay for. I don't use this site any longer, but it was immensely helpful when I was learning how to homeschool.
For printable worksheets, probably the best to start with are education.com (all subjects), dadsworksheets.com (for math). Teacherspayteachers.com has a lot of free resources from worksheets to unit studies, and I've found most of the paid resources are reasonably priced. These are all made by teachers, so it helps support them directly. Teachersnotebook.com is a similar site.
Owlcation is a site I just stumbled across yesterday, so I haven't had much time to look through it, but it seems promising for enrichment of current studies in lots of subject areas. Upper-level. Free.
There are tons of blogs by parents who homeschool, most of them religious in tone, but some are really quite good if that is otherwise a turnoff. One I like is tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com. Lots of free unit studies, especially for younger students.
There are so many others I could list but this is a good start, hey? I'm happy to share other sites I've found, and insights as well, for specific subjects or questions you might have, if I am able.
So... what are your favorites? Or what are your needs?