Monday, July 14, 2014

K-3 Free (and Inexpensive) Homeschool Resource Round-Up

Are you just starting out with your homeschool planning, but not knowing where to turn? I was like that a couple years ago when we began! I knew we wanted to homeschool, but I didn't have a set "philosophy" to guide me through those uncertain first months. Also? I didn't have the budget to just go out and buy the curriculum that most appealed to me (any of them!)

Here are some of the (free) resources we've relied on for the past couple of years, and one of the relatively inexpensive things we've used too!


Free Resources:

Ambleside Online- This is a website that is based on principles of a Charlotte Mason education. Admittedly, the first few times I explored this site trying to figure out how this might work for my brood, I kinda got a little bit cross-eyed trying to figure out what we were supposed to actually do. Then I started reading about Charlotte Mason and her ideas on education. Ah, it made so much more sense after that! That being said, I don't recommend trying to use this without having read a bit about Charlotte Mason. This is one you can use for all ages.

Easy Peasy- Easy Peasy has every grade laid out from preschool through high school. It is a site that is put together by a Christian mom of many. She wanted the curriculum to be online to keep track of what her children had done year by year (and also so it could be reused by her younger children), and made it available to other parents and caregivers. I like the concept, and you don't need much more than an good internet connection to use it.

Education.com- This is a great resource for worksheets and projects to do. I believe you are allowed five free downloads per month. I've found it easy to locate a good quality, grade-level worksheet on various topics.

Homeschool Share- Lapbooks and Unit Studies galore! (Also, they have many resources for Five in a Row, if you're using that.)

IXL- IXL is math and language arts for K-12. This is very kid-friendly, and I like that they allow your child to do 20 practice questions per day. You don't have to sign up and pay for their service, though if you want to go beyond the practice questions, you will have to. It is nice to use in addition to another math program just to gauge where your child is at currently.

Khan Academy- Khan Academy is a non-profit that has teaching videos and exercises for math, and many other subjects. For math, it is the most basic arithmetic all the way to stuff I never learned, like calculus and other difficult-sounding mathematic disciplines. (Can you tell I'm not a math buff?) I haven't spent very much time exploring their other resources, but it does look rather extensive.

Lesson Pathways- This is a good one if you want a fully guided custom curriculum (for K-5). I like how you can simply click on certain units to remove them (if say, your child has already mastered that lesson) and you can move the units around to put them in the order you want. You can even combine grade levels in a certain area of study. The only caveat I would offer for this resource is that many of the outside links are no longer good. This makes it a little frustrating, but you can easily find alternate projects or worksheets elsewhere (and you have the option to report any links you find that don't work). It does help when you want grade-level appropriate ideas. We've discovered many favorite books and authors through the ideas on this site. To use it, you only need to register with an email address. (They have never contacted me or sent me emails, in case you're worried about that!)

Simply Charlotte Mason- Can you guess what we're doing this year? Yep, we're inspired by Miss Mason and her excellent ideas concerning education. I actually have found this to be a great deal simpler than using Ambleside- at least for the way my brain works! If you want to incorporate her method into your homeschool, you just need to figure out what works better for you (whether Ambleside Online, Simply Charlotte Mason or any other Charlotte Mason website). I like the more modern books recommended here, and I like their free curriculum planner. Yes, it still takes planning, but it is totally guided and they offer sample schedules as well. (Also, both Ambleside and Simply Charlotte Mason have online forums for all of your questions!)

Inexpensive:

Five in a Row- I wanted this list to be full of FREE resources, but I couldn't leave this one out. It is not free, but you can find the volumes of this book at Amazon for relatively cheap and find most of the recommended books at the library. So it's almost free. We love using Five in a Row, because, well...we love reading. It is not intended to be a full curriculum, but it does open the door to many cool educational things to share with your little ones!



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Have you used any of these resources? Which one is your favorite?
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