Online homeschool resources (1 Viewer)

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Maryann

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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?
 
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Maryann

Maryann

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In searching for year-end assessments to test our son's progress, I came across this site, to my delight! Only wish I'd found it earlier in his schooling... looks like a great and affordable resource for mathematics. Everything is available for download on CurrClick, and the site itself offers a lot of freebies... including the assessment tests.

Math Mammoth

The 7th grade test is comprehensive and very well presented. My husband the math teacher is duly impressed. Son is eager to dive in. He loves tests!
 
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Laron

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I just wanted to say this was a great thread Maryann and the original post is one I just nominated for our forums favorite 2017 posts, being organized right here.
 

anony.

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This is amazing maryann thankyou so much for putting this up here :) just what i was looking for. Ive been looking into this alot recently. This is my goal for the next couple of years, to withdraw my children from the system. I will definitely make use of this, in preparation for that. I cant keep feeding them into a system, which doesnt even slightly deserve the honour of having a hand in their life.They deserve better than that. I want them to be free and whole. and that cant happen, when they are being corrupted daily. Its funny, watching them all line up in the morning to the sound of the bell.really drives it home, how wrong the system is. U see the little ones carry on playing wjen the bell rings, not yet moulded to conform, their natural state...to ignore the bell and do what makes them happy, continue to play. Yet the older ones trudge into line like little zombies. They are trained not to think.just to DO..follow the crowd blindly.and that is a deadly combination. But, it IS very effective at subduing the spirit..."controlling" us..its exactly what they want, and NEED.. Our children as pawns. There is no nourishment for the soul in the education system, no margain for individual expression.school is the earlies form of indoctronation, phase one.it focusses on teaching them to forget who THEY really are. What would they do if we no longer gave them our precious little babies to mould to obey them? The whole system would collapse. I for one, will be very happy to play a part in that.
 
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Maryann

Maryann

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Thanks, anony. :)

Update: It appears we've outgrown Time4Learning, or rather it doesn't have what my son needs to keep him engaged, apart from Honors Algebra. Even that is sort of just okay... so this week we looked into some options for moving into a higher set of learning gears for him. We looked at the paid options for both Study.com and Shmoop.com, and concluded that shmoop has a more structured and engaging curriculum, even though study.com "looks" more promising on the surface. The upside: Time4Learning is about $20 a month. Study.com was about $60 a month. Shmoop is about $24 a month, but if you pay for a year in advance it's $150, and if you use the readily available online coupon, it's only $135 for 12 months. So there's my recommendation for higher learning... we're looking at 8th grade and beyond, using self-directed study rather than online tutors or classrooms. (Time4Learning is fantastic for lower grades though, I have to say, really quite good).
 

Tristan

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This is awesome and a great introductory to alternative schooling resources. As a first time parent with our 10 month old boy I'm prepping ahead.
im happy to find others who have experience in home/alternative schooling. Thanks Maryann!
 
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therium

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Tristan Get them started reading at age 3, that's when I started, and it was a HUGE help. I was way ahead of the class in reading skills for many years.
 
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FlowerPowerHealing

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I love the early years curriculum from Blossom & Root for my preschooler. It's a nature based homeschooling program, I believe they design curriculums up to third grade and I heard somewhere that they are adding a grade each year.

 
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