Miscellaneous Homeschooling Sites
101 Ways to Save Money on Homeschooling - A book that can help you save hundreds of dollars, and you can download it here absolutely FREE! (T)
A to Z Teacher Stuff Tools - Although A to Z Teacher Stuff is a large site with much more than these tools to offer, I wanted to highlight the tools because they are so useful. You can create your own worksheets for free at the website with a Word Shapes Worksheet Generator (helpful (Y, M, O, T)
Ambleside Online - Ambleside Online is a free curriculum designed to be as close as possible to the curriculum that Charlotte Mason used in her own PNEU schools. The curriculum uses as many free online books as possible, and there is no cost to use this information or join the support group. (T)
American Homeschool Association - Large collection of links to homeschool related topics, articles, and resources (T)
American Homeschool Association - The American Homeschool Association (AHA), is a service organization sponsored in part by the publishers of Home Education Magazine. The AHA was created in 1995 to network homeschoolers on a national level. Current AHA services include an online news and discussion list which provides news, information, and resources for homeschoolers, media contacts, and education officials. (T)
Choosing and Using Resources - Choosing and Using Resources (31 page PDF) is a free resource from Heart of Wisdom and includes classics by grade level. It is an excerpt from The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach and includes information about building a homeschool library, reading the classics, utilizing the Internet, and videos and TiVo. (T)
Connect with Kids - Multimedia library, with more than 135 half-hour shows, 2,000 90-second news stories, hundreds of print articles, and 6,000 hours of original broadcast-quality footage — exclusively about children’s social, emotional and physical health. We generate an additional 70 hours of reality-based video content each month.
(Y, M, O, T)
Design YOUR Homeschooling Approach - I love this website! With no ads except for a promotion of the host she uses, Marianne Vanderkolk presents a thorough plan for intentionally designing your homeschool to be what you believe it should be. Since this is planning time for many homeschool moms, this is a good time to look over Marianne's site and evaluate where you are in your school and where you would like to be. Homeschoolers who are just starting as well as seasoned veterans will appreciate the information on this website. From the site:
"Every family is different and the exciting part about homeschooling is that you can design your own approach to learning by writing a tailor made program to fit your children's needs, abilities and personalities. As a family, you can decide what is important, what educational goals to pursue and how to go about it. Imagine developing your own individual approach that reflects these goals, complements your lifestyle and is based on your own decisions, not someone else's... View this website as your guide to plan and create an approach which suits you as a family. I am here to help you find your homeschool solutions.... Designing it Your Way!" (T)
Easy Fun School - "EasyFunSchool.com has over 1,500 pages of articles, resource links, a newsletter, and many other features to make homeschooling more enjoyable for both child and parent!" (T)
Eclectic Homeschool Online - Eclectic Homeschool Online is an extensive Christian homeschool site full of useful resources including articles, educational resources, state resources, and information for beginning homeschooling. EHO has a great site design that makes it easy to naviga (T)
Ed Heads - "Edheads helps students learn through educational games and activities... [and] has been recognized by almost every major award on the Web for our excellent educational content!" Watch a virtual (cartoon) hip replacement or knee surgery, learn about simpl (Y, M, O, T)
Factory Tours - With summer almost upon us, many of us will be traveling to the beach or to visit friends and family. This site can help you plan an educational visit to tour a factory during your travels. "[Factory Tours] celebrates American imagination and industry. What better way to appreciate those qualities than to visit and tour America at work. (Y, M, O, T)
Family to Family - "Family to Family will encourage homeschoolers who have homeschooled at least 5 years to reach out and mentor at least one family. They will be encouraged to reach out to a church member, family member or neighbor, to actively encourage them to take that (T)
Field Guide to Homeschoolers - This humorous, insightful blog post from Principled Discovery is an original way of looking at homeschoolers. "This week, we will be consulting the Field Guide to Homeschoolers to attempt to describe this fascinating specimen of educational freedom and gain a greater understanding of its habits, habitat and daily life." A recommended read. (T)
Flashcard Exchange - Touted as the world's largest flashcard directory, this site lives up to its name. From early learning to medicine and IT vocabulary, the Exchange has flashcards for almost any topic. (Y, M, O, T)
FlyLady - FlyLady.net is one of the most popular homemaking sites online. It is hard to do it justice in a summary paragraph, but I will try. FlyLady, AKA Marla Cilley, is a cheerleader for homemakers needing to put a little order in their lives. FlyLady came to th (T)
Free Forms for Homeschools - Tamra at Highland Heritage has put together a large collection of forms for a variety of unit studies, subjects, as well as several forms to help you organize your homeschool. Currently there are over 500 forms available in PDF. (T)
Free homeschool resource newsletters - The Old Schoolhouse magazine offers many great homeschooling newsletters, including ones for topical unit studies, support group leaders, military homeschoolers, single homeschoolers, and more. (T)
Get Organized Now - This site will help you to analyze your space and get it organized, whether your space is a desk or a room or an entire house. Get Organized Now has a newsletter (archives can be viewed on the site), articles, and a forum where you can connect with others (T)
Growing Together Family Education
- Growing Together is a tri-weekly on-line publication for families of preschool or elementary aged children created primarily for homeschoolers. It is eclectic, non-denominational, and non-partisan, with a focus on living books & ideas and hands-on learnin (Y,T)
Guilt-free Homeschooling - This site from veteran homeschooler Carolyn Morrison contains resources in dozens of topics. Her blog and articles are encouraging and, you guessed it, guilt-free. Enjoy browsing for homeschool helps while ridding yourself of the guilt that often sneaks into the life of a homeschool mom. (T)
Heart of Wisdom - After a dozen years of examining different teaching philosophies, learning styles--and most importantly--what God's word says about teaching children, I designed an approach of teaching based on much prayer and my experience above. I call it the Heart of Wisdom approach from Psalms 90:12, Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Not only must we renew our thinking about the context of what is taught but also the method of which is taught (Joshua 24:23, Proverbs 3:5-6; Matt 6:19-21; Romans 12:22). The Heart of Wisdom centers all teaching on God's Word. (T)
Heartwood Institute - Heartwood Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping teach children universal attributes of good character that form the foundations of community. Through research, product development, and support for teachers and families, Heartwood is contributing to a better world for all. (Y, M, O, T)
High School Ace - The Academic Homepage for High School Students (O,T)
Hillbilly Housewife - I have seen more people recommend this website on my Yahoo groups than any other. Miss Maggie, the creator of the website, is a homeschool mom who has written many articles for well-known publications and websites. The Hillbilly Housewife website, where s (T)
Home Education Magazine - Home Education Magazine has been a leader in providing home education resources since 1984 and is still owned and published by founders Mark and Helen Hegener and their third-generation homeschooling family. The HEM site presents homeschooling information in the form of news feeds, blogs, forums, and an abundance of homeschooling resources, such as articles you can read free online by the best homeschooling writers, reviews and analysis of the best new homeschooling books by all your favorite homeschooling authors, and an examination of homeschooling laws and relevant homeschooling legislation by experienced and knowledgeable homeschooling investigators. You'll also find homeschooling support groups listings, and over 12 years of homeschooling archives from Home Education Magazine. If funds for educational resources are tight, check out the article Less is More on the site. (T)
HomeSchool 2.0 - HomeSchool 2.0 brings you thoughtfully picked web and print resources, software and hands-on projects that have the potential to get homeschooling kids really excited about science and technology, with an strong emphasis on learning by doing. HomeSchool 2.0 will be a good place to visit and check for new content regularly. (T)
Homeschool Burnout - "Burnout happens to all homeschoolers at least once, sometimes more than once in our homeschooling journeys. Even those who do not follow a scope and sequence or a particular curriculum can fall victim to burnout. We all have expectations, internal and external, on ourselves and our children and those expectations can easily lead us to question why we are homeschooling and if we should continue to homeschool..." ()
Homeschool Central - Click on Study Resources on the left side of the page for links to many resources arranged by subject; includes a nice section of resources for homeschooling high school. (T)
Homeschool Diploma - If you have a student that will be graduating this spring, you might be wondering what to do about issuing a diploma. I know of a wonderful resource that can solve that problem for you! Homeschool Diploma offers several diploma options ranging from a comp (T)
Homeschool Launch File Sharing - Homeschool Launch is a file sharing platform for homeschoolers. You can benefit from the labors of other homeschoolers by downloading any of hundreds of education resources created and shared by other homeschoolers. From the rules of capitalization to unit study worksheets, you can find a variety of resources at Homeschool Launch. (T)
Homeschool Moms with a Chronic Illness - If you're a Christian parent who lives with chronic illness and you have also been 'called' to homeschool, you've found a place to call home! Trish and Cindy, co-leaders of our new homeschooling discussion group, will encourage you, pray with you, motivate you and most of all, help you remember that God knows your limitations and wants you to find rest in the midst of sticky hands and math equations! Over 100 women participate on a daily basis, sharing prayer, ideas, recipes and lots more! (T)
Homeschool Oasis - Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Barb Shelton at a Virginia homeschool convention, and while I wish I had the time to stay for some of her seminars, I did at least get to browse her booth and look over her daughter's homeschool notebooks. Barb is (T)
Homeschool Social Register - The Homeschool Social Register's description says "Properly introducing you to homeschoolers in your area." This is a great concept wherein homeschoolers register at the website and can send messages through the site to other homeschoolers in their area. (T)
Homeschool World - Mary Pride's (of Practical Homeschooling) vast homeschooling site with hundreds of articles, curriculum reviews, homeschool events, and more. (T)
Homeschool World - The official site of Practical Homeschooling magazine and The Big Book of Home Learning. (T)
Homeschool.com - Large homeschool site with message boards, articles, useful descriptions of homeschool styles, and a homeschool bookstore. (T)
Homeschooler Network - Pearson Education has put together a large homeschool resource section with over 5,000 free articles, lessons, and printables. The nicest feature of the site is that it is not limited to elementary resources like so many sites are. You will find lesson plans suitable for students preschool through high schooler. There are many excellent articles and descriptions of homeschooling styles - this site is not dedicated solely to textbook learners. There are many activities and lessons related to holidays, so this is a good place to look when you want to integrate the origins of holidays such as Labor Day into your lessons. (Y, M, O, T)
Homeschooling for Free - This is a compilation of resources listed by subject on a blog. (T)
Homeschooling Ideas - Billed as "Everything you need to know for inspired homeschooling", Homeschooling-Ideas.com is a great site with lots of ideas for learning. From articles to science experiments, there is a little bit of everything on the site. (T)
Interest-led Learning - You may have heard of interest-led learning or unschooling and be curious about what it looks like in practice. Yarns from the Heart is a blog by an unschooler whose son is on a full ride scholarship to the University of Chicago (interestingly enough, doing a work-study in a 4th grade classroom). Get a peak into the daily life of an unschooler and find out what life without curriculum is like. (T)
Keys to a Successful Homeschool Convention Experience - "Homeschool conventions are exhilarating, informative, interesting and exhausting! The best convention experience is one for which you’ve prepared yourself." Cardomom Publishers is offering a free 4 day e-course to help you prepare yourself for a successf (T)
Lesson Pathways - Online Homeschool Lessons. Free 30 day trial membership. (T)
Literature unit studies - Homeschool Share is a small website that offers almost 100 literature-based unit studies, mostly for younger students.The site also includes links to resources to be used for FIAR (Five in a Row) units. Those of you who enjoy creating lapbooks™ will like this site. (T)
National Home Education Research Institute - The National Home Education Research Institute's mission is to:
* Produce high-quality research (e.g., statistics, facts, findings) on home-based education (homeschooling).
* Serve as a clearinghouse of research for the public, researchers, homeschoolers, the media, and policy makers.
* Educate the public concerning the findings of all research on home education. (T)
Notebooking Pages - Debra at NotebookingPages.com has a very large collection of free resources available at her site in addition to the resources she has for sale. At NotebookingPages.com, Debra shares how to get started notebooking, gives many pages to get you started, and offers dozens of useful printables. If notebooking is a part of your homeschool, you will enjoy browsing the site for ideas and downloads. If you would like to learn more about notebooking, check out our notebooking page on TheHomeSchoolMom. (Y,M)
Old Fashioned Living.com - Old Fashioned Living is a large site not directly related to homeschooling but full of great ideas. The site hosts believe we can learn from the past to make the future a better place for our children, and the set out to provide the online resources to do (T)
Paula's Archives - Paula's Archives is one of the first sites I found when I started homeschooling and it has many great resources. In addition to compiling helpful posts from homeschoolers on topics like Approaching High School and What TO Do With Preschoolers During Schoo (T)
Peterson's College Planner - No matter where you are in the process of planning for college, Peterson's online college planner will guide you and help you meet deadlines. Finding a school, financial aid, admissions tests, and more are covered in depth on this site. By registering for free, you can receive personalized timelines and more. (O)
Planning a history-based unit study - Terrie Bittner's popular website has a new home on her own domain, and she has kept all of the treasures that made her Geocities site so popular. This unit study article, although written years ago, is relevant and guides you step by step through the planning process. The unit study planner forms on TheHomeSchoolMom.com will be helpful if you are planning your own units. While you are there, be sure to browse around the whole site. There are many valuable resources for homeschooling to be found. (T)
Plugged In Online - Ever wonder what the words are on that CD your child is listening to? If the new movie or book release is appropriate for your child? Plugged In was created to answer those questions and more. The site offers reviews of movies, videos, music, and televisi (T)
The Frugal Homeschooling Mom - A treasure of freebies, great deals, frugal living ideas, and more. Each week, I’ll present a new resource that will help you in your endeavors to teach your preschooler at home as cheaply as possible, or even better – FREE! (T)
Things to Buy Instead of Curriculum - This list of Things to Buy Instead of Curriculum is a great list of ways to invest your money that will pay dividends in your children's love of learning. (T)
Trivium Pursuit - A recent discussion about the stages of childhood according to Dorothy Sayers' interpretation of the mediaeval scheme of education, or the Trivium, reminded me that many parents are not familiar with the basics of a classical education. Harvey and Laurie (T)
Unit Study Helps - Created by veteran homeschooler Lynn Hogan, Unit Study Helps is full of helpful resources and information including a message board, a free e-mail homeschooling newsletter, a frequently asked questions page and more. You can sign up for Lynn's newsletter (T)
What It Costs To Homeschool - Did you ever wonder what other homeschool families spend on curricula, support groups, field trips, and more? This survey, while nearly 10 years old, gives an excellent overview of what families in the San Francisco Bay area spend on homeschooling over th (T)