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| HANDY LINKS TO HELP YOU HOMESCHOOL! ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW! AS WE FIND MORE AND MEMBERS AT LARGE CONTRIBUTE! Here are a few of our favorite Handy Links that we've gleaned over the years (and managed to keep hold of). Some we're more familiar with than others, but most should prove very helpful. Links are arranged alphabetically within subject or interest area (some links are located in several areas for ease of browsing). There is also a section for General Homeschooling Helps to help those general areas of homeschooling that aren't necessarily subject specific. Sites which we felt are an especially good value for the amount and/or quality of free materials, particularly those you would have expected to have to pay for, are highlighted with a free symbol. (Note: Always surf with care! Due to the nature of the internet, The CHOC Board makes no guarantees regarding any of the links or the appropriateness of their content. If a Link is dead or, gasp, not what we'd or you'd expect...please Contact Us through the side bar.) Please click on one of our bulleted headings below to take you to that area in on our page. |
| | Artchive. If you need to find the work of a famous (or not so famous) artist for art appreciation, this is the site for you. It provides for free a large sampling of photographs of actual works (over 200 artists and 2000 paintings) and allows you to zoom in for a closer look and print off a decent photo of it. It also divides the artists alphabetically by name or according to their historical period, so you can look at the art for a particular artist or particular art period. Commentaries are given on many artists and periods. Be aware this is a secular site and that not all pictures will be appropriate for all ages or tastes nor commentaries from a Biblical stand point. However, it is still a wonderful resource to bring to life an artist you have been studying. Blick Art Materials Lesson Plans. Blick Art Materials has rather extensive free lesson plans for all ages (k through 12!). The lessons offer a variety of skills and complexity, all offer materials list, step by step instructions and extension opportunities. These projects go beyond the "ordinary" for those looking to supplement an art program with hands on activities to example or explore what they are learning. 8 Notes is a nifty site that provides quite a bit of free sheet music for numerous instruments (piano, string, band, ensemble), music theory lessons, and blank sheet music paper to print from your home computer at a click of a mouse button for those original compositions (no more running out!). Various teaching aids are provided as well. Nothing to register for, nothing to pay for on many titles if you choose the GIF print option (it's a nominal $20 annual subscription fee if you desire to print the higher quality Adobe format or if you choose a subscription title). Once you select a piece, you can also click "play" to hear the piece played in midi format. Music is arranged by genre, artist, and ease of playing. Secular site but provides many classical and wholesome tunes and a full Christmas section with many religious titles. New! Millers Pads and Paints is an online discount art and educational supply store that not only sells art products but also provides a free newsletter with art lessons and projects for homeschooling families (approximately 12 per year). Art lessons include art history with a bio of a famous artist and samples of the artist's works. Art projects vary. They also provide an annual fall art contest for homeschooled children with categories spanning preschool to 18 year of age. Go to their website to see the current art newsletter and sign up for email reminder when their next newsletter is posted. Online Drummer provides free video-streamed drum lessons with matching printable lesson sheets taught by an experienced drummer. The top bar allows you to select which category, level, teacher and order of lessons you would like (from beginning to advanced). The "Learning Guide" from the top bar takes you into a "Learning to Read" series that teaches basic music theory as applied to drumming. We've only used those portions of this site, so we can't vouche for anything else (so surf with care especially the "discussion" sections). Really helpful for mastering certain drum techniques when a clear visual explanation is needed (it's like hiring your own drum tutor). The lessons are complete enough that a student could learn a lot about drumming by just using this site. | | Bible Explorer. This is a NEAT complete Bible program that is free. Why is it so neat? Because not only do you get a complete OT and NT interactive Bible to download onto your computer, complete with multiple translations (the modern versions are for charge, but there is the ESV which is similar to modern translations), commentaries, thesaurus, strong's concordance, cross-references, hebrew-greek lexicon, full color geographical maps, topical index, and more....You also get to access and download for free complete ebooks like "The Complete Works of Josephus," Calvin's "Institutes of Christian Religion," the complete works of Arminius, "Creeds of Christiandom," Alfred Edersheim's "History Of The Jewish Nation," and more! New free ebook downloads are made available each month, as well as some for pay options of current Christian theologians and authors (that's how they make it all free--there is a little advertising). We've found this to be a very useful program for Bible study, original source documents, and teaching Bible history. Calvary Chapel's site is the best we've found (so far) for free Bible Coloring and Activity pages that span the ages of preschool through upper elementary (with the activity pages). Lots of Bible stories covered from Old Testament through New Testament. Really well done. NEW! The Hall of Church History is a site with many layers of links that link a searcher to supporting documents on church history, most from the original source authors. A simple running narrative connects the links to help you sort through the development of church history over the years. Interactive Bible FREE Maps These are nice maps of the Bible lands, free to download, copy, or print off (as long as you include their original copyright and website address, highly useful for Bible studies, Sunday School classes, or the homeschool. (We used Internet Explorer and did not have any trouble with the map we downloaded.) Scripture Memory Challenge This site desires to stimulate Bible memorization through encouragement and challenges. There are online quizzes to take after you have completed a section or chapter. Old and New Testament included. Sharon's Place provides free, reproducible Bible activity sheets and Bible stories for children (for personal or non-profit use). | | The Fallacy Detective. This is a logic site provided by the authors of the "Thinking Toolbox" and "The Fallacy Detective." FUN site with lots of information regarding the study of logic--formal and informal! The Truth Project. Focus on the Family's premier worldview seminar developed from their concern (and personal experience) that less than 4 percent of professing Christians actually hold a biblical world view. Thirteen DVD's make up this excellent small group study. It is well worth the effort to join and purchase a set of DVD's to begin your journey into God's truth and how it defines our life spheres. StudentNewsDaily.com "is a non-profit current events website for high school students. Our goal is to build students' knowledge of current events and strengthen their critical thinking skills. This is done by providing comprehension and critical thinking questions along with published news articles and other current events items from established news organizations. We provide resources that will enable students to become informed viewers and readers of the news." CHOC Board note: we picked up this site on God's World News as a sponsored link. Go to an interview with Mike Smith and the editor of Student World News which disucsses how to help your student discern media bias (especially against family values) and develop critical thinking: | | arranged alphabetically by schooling style Cathy Duffy's Reviews. All Styles. Cathy Duffy is the author of the famous Christian Curriculum Guides for homeschooling that were extrememly helpful to the new and veteran homeschoolers over the years. As more and more curriculum came onto the market, Mrs. Duffy consolidated her favorites into a 100 Top Picks book. This website consolidates reviews of material not included in her 100 Top Picks (but that is still a lot of information about a lot of very useful curriculum that a lot of people like)! VERY helpful site. Exodus Provisions. All Styles. The Exodus store in Oregon City has a very comprehensive list of links to most of the Christian homeschool curriclum and book publishers on their website (divided by schooling styles). They are also working at uploading Amazon-style example pages to curriculum (some pages are there now). Plus, they are adding user reviews and invite homeschoolers to write reviews for curriclum Exodus carries! Their site helps continue to get better and better as time goes on. Local to our area, but they ship world wide. (We know, they were wonderful to work with to help us ship curriculum to missionaries in Khasakstan!) Please visit the above 2 links as they hold a lot of our favorites and lots of information, but below are more links we've gleaned over our years of homeschooling that often are not on someone's link page, or which we personally loved so that we put them here too, especially if they gave us FREE stuff! (Some sites we know better than others): Ambleside. Charlotte Mason Approach. This site provides free full curriculum guidelines (for grades 1 through 10) that follow the Charlotte Mason approach. The guides list suggested books for the different subject areas together with a weekly schedule. Its site also links online a number of the books which are recommended in the guides. The Charlotte Mason approach is also thoroughly explained to support implementation of the curriculum guides. Not all books suggested will appeal to all Christian families. NEW! Queen Homeschool Supplies Inc. Charlotte Mason Approach. The Queen family publishes books that support the Charlotte Mason style of education which includes books for reading aloud, copywork, dictation, language lessons, and Biblical studies. They also sell books from other publishers that fit what Charlotte Mason phrased as "living books" for history, nature studies, science and math. Escondido Tutorial Service Christian Classical Education. "Inside you will find historic and modern explanations of classical education, an analysis of the trivium and its components, ideas for the practical application of classical education to homeschooling from experienced homeschoolers and other educators, a complete curriculum guide and online catalog for grades K-12, networking opportunities with other classical educators, comprehensive links to internet resources for classical education, and much more." Gileskirk Classical Curriculum Christian Classical Education. The Goal of Gileskirk is to provide a strong Humanities or Liberal Arts survey of the disciplines of history, literature, philosophy, theology, civics, art, music, and architecture in four great epochs: Antiquity, Christendom, Modernity, and American Culture (American history).This publisher has gone out of business. Try our sources listed in Curriculum Swaps and Providers (Used) to attempt to locate a used set. Tapestry of Grace. Christian Classical/Unit Study Approach. Tapestry of Grace is a classical, unit-study approach which guides the whole family though 4 years of study of world history, with an emphasis on western/American history, using primarily good literature. When you finish the 4 years, you merely start again, moving your children to more challenging books. This Christian curriculum covers history, literature, art and music history, church history, philosophy, geography, and writing for all ages. Government is included for the high schooler. While providing the lessons for you, Tapestry does recommend at least an hour of study each week for the parent to prepare for meaningful discussions. NEW! Tree of Life School and Book Service Christian Classical Education. Tree of Life is a Canadian Classical Christian homeschool program and online bookstore that weaves Biblical worldview through analyzing literature and history with a classical attitude. You can purchase per book, or curriculum per class, or purchase the whole oversight program, or view their syllabus to help you develop your own classical program. The Well Trained Mind. Classical Education. "The Well-Trained Mind, a book published in 1999 by W.W. Norton, serves as a resource for parents wanting to educate their children according to the classical model of education. This site complements the information in the book, providing updated resources, articles, links, and other information useful to parents who are actively involved in their family's education." Susan Wise Bauer's "Story of the World" for children is based on the WTM method.
Alwright Publishing Hands On Unit Studies for Science and Electives. company is the work of a homeschooling family in Georgia. Kim Wright created hands on units for her own children, shared them with her co-op group, and now publishes them for sale. There are units such as Victorian Quilting and Sewing, Flower Arranging, Botany, Birds, The Microscope, Spiders, Arachnids, Sheep, Goats, Poultry and Photography. They use the notebook approach relying upon the child's research as well as providing basic information, lab sheets, work sheets, flash cards and such. Easy Fun School Hands On Unit Studies and Lesson Plans. EasyFunSchool.com has free articles, unit study plans, lesson plans, resource links, a newsletter, and many other features to make homeschooling more enjoyable for both child and parent. Covers language arts, Bible, history, social studies, and science for a wide range of ages. Home Science Tools. Hands On Kits and Supplies for Textbooks. Home Science Tools (formerly Home Training Tools) is a science supplies company. Has actual kits and/or printouts of materials needed for Apologia, Abeka and Bob Jones science as well as a host of the usual and unusual science supplies. HTT also provides an interesting free, monthly newsletter (upon sign up), that includes science lessons and information resources. Great company to work with! Timberdoodle Hands On Kits and Science Textbooks. This is a FUN company! It carries unique items with the hands-on learner in mind. You will find a few textbooks (mostly the "funner" kind), but as they like to emphasize hands-on learning, there are a LOT of educational games, kits, puzzles, manipulatives, science kits, art kits, etc., which promote learning without feeling like it's "school." Our favorite from them is their Simple Machines Kit which they have bought out from K'nex and sell exclusively (as K'nex no longer makes it). It is a mechanical science program for grades 1-8 all in itself with absolutely fabulous teacher documentation! Tobin's Lab Hands On Kits and Science Textbooks. This is a science materials company that sells everything from science text books to science supplies and kits to fun history/geography and art supplements. Emphasizes hands-on learning. Another FUN company! High School and Beyond. Traditional- Mixed. This website page provided by Homeschoolers of Maine contains links to numerous free full course material geared for the high schooler (scroll to the bottom of page to find the free high school curriculum links). The choice of courses was made on several criteria: the course was completely free and online; the material available was substantial--enough to constitute at least 1/2 semester of a subject area; the courses offered are those expected for college entrance; and the material, they felt, would not be objectionable to most homeschooling families (although most are secular sites). We've not tried the free course material personally, but the site looks promising for those searching for completely free high school curriculum especially for foreign language. Most courses would fall in the "traditional" styling. Evan Moore Publishers. Traditional-Unit Theme. Evan Moore will give you access to every single thing they publish for 99 cents the first month and then 9.99 each month after through its Teacher File Box service. TeacherFileBox.com covers grades Pre-K–6, although there are many materials that would be appropriate for differentiated learning environments across higher grade levels. They also allow you to set up lesson plans AND provide answer keys to units. A friend has used this service and felt it was very cost-effective. The Puritans' Homeschool Curriculum. Traditional. This site contains a mix of numerous free, curriculum for full courses in history, literature, economics, government, church history, visual basic programming, speech and debate for grades k-12. Produced to be in compliance with a reformed theological view point in accordance with the original Westminster confession. Includes student text books and teacher manuals with tests completely downloadable for free. Requires adobe acrobat (which is a free download as well). We were impressed with what we read in the history texts. CurrClick, or Curriculum in a Click. Unit Study-Theme Study. Ths site provides downloadable e-books for unit studies, lap books, research projects, and novel studies in all subject areas at reasonable fees, some even free. Mostly secular although a number of Christian publishers are also represented. *Please shop with care in private used curriculum swaps. We recommend using a PayPal to PayPal exchange for both buyer and seller protection, or pay 1/2 up front and 1/2 upon arrival. Realize you enter in any private sell at your own risk. Exodus Books is a local homeschool curriculum store that sells both new and used curriculum and books. Their website allows for used curriculum searches. They also purchase used curriculum for re-sale (see store policies). They are located in Milwaukie, Oregon. The Homeschool Buyers Co-Op is a free to join discount buyers group for homeschoolers. The company contacts vendors of popular homeschool curriculum and negotiates deals based upon the number of buyers involved. They then turn around and notify members in the group. Those who wish to participate in the deal sign up for that deal. Deals are dependent upon the number of members participating. Huge savings are made because of the power of bulk buying. Homeschool Classifieds.com states "We are one of the largest sites on the web for buying and selling new and used homeschool materials...with several thousands buyer/sellers daily." Vegsource Homeschool Swap is an active online used swap board. Look in their swaps by grade ranges for both "For Sale" and "Wanted to Buy." Secular and Christian materials sold by private individuals.* | | ABCteach.com is another website with an abundance of ideas for the younger preschool-early elementary ages, a host of forms to help the teacher, and there are some educational links that cover a broad field of interests so surf and pick and choose what you like or need. Aplus math. This site affords free interactive flashcards and printable worksheets for math. From simple addition/subtraction to beginning algebra. BOOK It Reading Program. This is a reading incentive program sponsored by Pizza Hut that has been around for 20 years. It started in the public schools but has been made available to homeschoolers for about the last 10. The concept is simple. You and your child decide upon a monthly reading goal. If your child makes his goal that month (choosing any books you would like--there is no required reading list), then you as the teacher award a ticket to him/her for a free Pizza Hut individual pizza. The program runs from October through March, and you must register in May/early June to receive your tickets in August for the following school year. Registration for the program is completely free. This was a great incentive for our early readers! Calvary Chapel's site is the best found (so far) for free Bible Coloring and Activity pages that span the ages of preschool through upper elementary (with the activity pages). Lots of bible stories covered from Old Testament through New Testament. Really well done. DLTK's site is a cornucopia of kid craft ideas, abc and math worksheets, book theme unit ideas (with art sheets as well as craft ideas and comprehension lessons), all free printable stuff (works best with Internet Explorer). It has a lot of preschool, early primary activities, as well as resources for older children. Definitely a site to spend some time with and glean from. Debbies Country. This site is links, links and more links of homeschool resources of all sorts from forms to encyclopedias to you name it. (As always be careful when surfing the web as links and content do change without notice.) Early Childhood by Time4Learning Time4Learning's "online fun self-paced learning program starts with school readiness skills such as building phonemic awareness, following instructions, and recognizing shapes, patterns, and colors." Easy Fun School EasyFunSchool.com has free articles, unit study plans, lesson plans, resource links, a newsletter, and many other features to make homeschooling more enjoyable for both child and parent. Covers language arts, Bible, history, social studies, and science for a wide range of ages. English Avenue This site, for an annual fee of about $40, provides "over 400 pages of fun phonics activities, hundreds of exciting short readers, projects, games, vocabulary activities and much more." Evan Moore Publishers provide traditional style, unit theme worksheets and workbooks that span subjects. Evan Moore will give you access to every single thing they publish for 99 cents the first month and then 9.99 each month after through its Teacher File Box service. TeacherFileBox.com covers grades Pre-K–6, although there are many materials that would be appropriate for differentiated learning environments across higher grade levels. They also allow you to set up lesson plans AND provide answer keys. A friend has used this service and felt it was very cost effective. Gamequarium is a site with links to educational games and videos to access online. Many games are represented across all subjects, mostly aimed at the elementary ages, but some high school subjects as well. School House Rock Videos, The Magic School Bus, and Bill Nye the Science Guy are included in the multi-linked repetroire. Homeschool Share This site provides free unit study plans (ages 4 through 9 or so), lap book plans, and Five in A Row resources. | | GCF Learn Free.org Goodwill Community Foundation provides a site to learn for free consumer math, life, and computer skills. We've looked through the computer skills (Word, Excel, etc.) and found them thorough. (We've not looked through their life classes and suspicion they are secular adult in worldview and likely not appropriate for most homeschool children.) There are different options for the courses--you can either go through the self tutorial (which provides tests) or sign up for one of their online seminars taught by an instructor in the field. Jan's Illustrated Computer Literacy 101. This site has free lessons on computer usage for basics, windows, word processing, data processing, web, and power point. Each area has an online course with lessons and tutorial. K12Academics This site provides links to competitions ranging from debate, robotics, math, and spelling bees (including the famous Scripps). Not all competitions are open to homeschooled students. Typing Pal Online. If you are looking for a free online typing program, here is one that is (or was at the time) really free and helpful. | | Includes Literature based programs for History Ambleside. This a website that has free Charlotte Mason approach curriculum guides (grades 1-10) that lists suggested books together with a weekly schedule. It uses a number of online books which are linked. Some good suggestions to glean from if you are interested in the Charlotte Mason or classical education approach or just a good list of literature to choose from (not all books will appeal to all Christian families). B & R Samizdat Express Publishers This is the modern idea of books on cdrom. Samizdat publishes books you read on your computer (pc or mac), collected and organized in useful and suggestive ways on CD and DVD. They offer classics and out-of-print gems, organized by author, genre, time period, theme/subject, and geographic region. Books are in plain text form and are word/phrase searchable, printable, and editable. You can buy an entire library for the price of a single printed book. (For example, 50 G. A. Henty books for $12 plus $3 s/h.) You are also given a trial program that reads the books to you aloud. The site also instructs how to copy the books to ipod or MP3 player format (there is some editing involved to format them for ipod or MP3). The disadvantage with plain text is it is not in page format (you can't just go to a page, you would have to word search to find your place again.) The advantage is it allows you to edit or format a book to suit your particular needs especially if your system needs are not compatible with other formats. Beautiful Feet A wonderful Christian, literature based history curriculum company. Also does a literature based science curriculum (through biographies of famous scientists). Buy the guides for the full program, or get the catalog for book ideas for kids reading! Book Angles.com Book Angles is the ministry of Sweet Home Press, owned by a Christian homeschool familiy, that offers reviews of popular literature books. They state on their website: "We make no excuses for our target audience—families with traditional values who want help guiding children in what to read at each stage of their development. We also approach reviews with a Christian world view and apply biblical values as we see them." Great resource for homeschooling parents trying to keep ahead of voracious readers! BOOK It Reading Program. This is a reading incentive program sponsored by Pizza Hut that has been around for 20 years. It started in the public schools but has been made available to homeschoolers for about the last 10. The concept is simple. You and your child decide upon a monthly reading goal. If your child makes his goal that month (choosing any books you would like--there is no required reading list), then you as the teacher award a ticket to him/her for a free Pizza Hut individual pizza. The program runs from October through March, and you must register in May/early June to receive your tickets in August for the following school year. Registration for the program is completely free. This was a great incentive for our early readers! Capstone Press/Blue Earth Books. Secular publisher of unique informational books. Check out the "Exploring History Through Simple Recipes" series which is a delightful unit study approach to history that involves learning about a particular period while developing some delicious meals of the times. This is a secular company, but the books in this particular series were overall balanced and wholesome, and just plain fun with lots of interesting historical tidbits! These books are available in our local library system. Classic Reader "We offer a large collection of free classic books, plays, and short stories by authors such as Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare and many others. You can read, search and even add your own annotations to any of the classic books. A selection of author biographies and portraits are also made available. All functions of this site are free to use although some functions require free registration." There are a LOT of titles in this site free for the reading! English 101 This website offers a review/supplemental grammar course for the middle/high school student for free. It includes pre-tests before each grammar unit, instruction with interactive lessons, then unit tests. A student may work at his own pace, redo each exercise or test, and receive a score for his work which you could then print as results for a portfolio. The closest I've found (so far) for a complete grammar course online for free that is both useable and understandable. Glencoe Guides. Another website for free unit study guides for literature books. Includes questions and projects. Secular, so again pick and chose, but overall very helpful. Click on your title to bring up the helps and link to the guides. Greenleaf Press A great Christian, literature based, history curriculum company. We loved their catalog suggestions and guides. Use their guides in full, or just get their catalog for great book ideas for your kids! The Gutenberg Project. A site with over 19,000 free ebooks for download. Search by author or title. Please surf carefully as this is a secular site with books which you may find are unsuitable for your family. However, many classics are represented in its inventory. HyperGrammar is a free online grammar course produced by the University of Ottowa that provides a fairly full set of grammar lessons with interactive review. One Thousand Good Books. This is a list on a classical education loop that organizes the books by title or by grade level. It includes what that Chirstian editor believes to be the 1000 essential books. As always with any list, personal tastes and appeal varies greatly, so it will be important to review any book to make sure it fits your family. Great resource though of the "great" books. Many Books.net This site provides free ebooks for download too. Most of the books are taken from the Gutenberg project above. The advantage here is there are different formats to download (ibook, PDF, doc, etc). The site is well indexed to help you find your books. The book downloads are easy and smooth AND the pdf format we did is just like looking at a real book with pages on your screen or on your printout (but no illustrations). Note: This site provides a A LOT of G. A. Henty books for free! Shmoop is a collaborative website created by college teachers from major universities to provide literature and teaching resources "to make learning and writing more fun and relevant for students in the digital age." It provides secular study guides and analysis for literature and history with a running commentary that attempts to create a passion for learning within the standard public high schooler. Included are some useful links to original source works for contrast and comparision and interesting bits of trivia. Smarr Publishers Fully integrated English courses (reading, composition, grammar, and vocabulary), philosophy course, and individual study guides for ancient, world, British, and American from a Christian worldview perspective. Spark Notes. This is a GREAT site to get free discussion supports, study questions, character lists, and TESTS for literature (everything from Shakespeare to modern). You can cut and paste or print the tests through your browser. Secular, so pick and chose, but overall very useful. Find your book title, click on its highlighted name (NOT the study guide icon--that's the one to buy); then all the free helps come up. Such A Time As This is Dr. James Stobaugh's college preparatory literary and history series. This series provides educationally sound, rigorous literature courses. Students will learn: to think critically about their world and their participation in it; to write their thoughts, primarily through essays; to articulate their thoughts through small group discussions with peers, families, broader communities, and through occasional formal speeches; to enhance vocabulary through reading and studying quality literature; to converse about the major worldviews of authors of literature, past and present; and to develop and refine their own worldviews through participating in biblical application and Christian principles in weekly studies. Tapestry of Grace. Tapestry of Grace is a classical, unit-study approach which guides the whole family though 4 years of study of world history, with an emphasis on western/American history, using primarily good literature. When you finish the 4 years, you merely start again, moving your children to more challenging books. This Christian curriculum covers history, literature, art and music history, church history, philosophy, geography, and writing for all ages. Government is included for the high schooler. While providing the lessons for you, Tapestry does recommend at least an hour of study each week for the parent to prepare for meaningful discussions. Tree of Life School and Book Service is a Canadian Classical Christian homeschool program that weaves Biblical worldview through analyzing literature and history. You can purchase per book, per curriculum set per class, or purchase the whole oversight program, or view their syllabus to help you develop your own classical reading program. TRISMS "TRISMS Curriculum is designed to impart a chronological survey and geographical progression of mankind throughout time. It is our goal to equip the home school and private, charter or public school students with skills that will prepare them for a lifetime of learning. TRISMS is more than a history study for high school and middle school. It is designed to build upon a foundation of research, discovery, and language from late elementary school through high school....Throughout the year the student will read literature, biographies, historical fiction, cultural studies, and most varieties of reference materials. TRISMS is easily adapted to a multi-level setting in the home school with all ages of students using a classical and innovative approach." WILINET This is a link to our local library system. No local homeschooler should be without it! We are fortunate that our library system carries many of the books mentioned in homeschool literature/history programs. | | ABCteach.com is another website with an abundance of ideas for the younger preschool-early elementary ages, a host of forms to help the teacher, and there are some educational links that cover a broad field of interests so surf and pick and choose what you like or need. Barbara Shelton's site includes many homeschooling articles from "how to get started" to "how to keep from burn out." Cathy Duffy's Reviews. Cathy Duffy is the author of the famous Christian Curriculum Guides for homeschooling that were extrememly helpful to the new and veteran homeschoolers over the years. As more and more curriculum came onto the market, Mrs. Duffy consolidated her favorites into a 100 Top Picks book. This is her website which is currently being constructed to include the reviews and articles from her earlier books. A LOT is there already, but look forward to even more. VERY helpful site. Debbies Country. This site is links, links and more links of homeschool resources of all sorts from forms to encyclopedias to you name it. (As always be careful when surfing the web as links and content do change without notice.) Debra Bell's Homeschool Resource Center. Debra is the author to the Ultimate Guide to Homeschool. This website contains a number of Debra's articles (hosted at Crosswalk.com) covering getting started, learning styles, co-opting, etc. DLTK's site is a cornucopia of kid craft ideas, abc and math worksheets, book theme unit ideas (with art sheets as well as craft ideas and comprehension lessons), all free printable stuff (works best with Internet Explorer). It has a lot of preschool, early primary activities, as well as resources for older children. Definitely a site to spend some time with and glean from. Donna Young.org This website contains homeschool forms, school calendars, subject planners, household planners, printables in various subjects, and planning tips for those who are home educating children. LOTS to look through! (From diploma forms to apologia science schedules). EasyTestMaker is a site that lets you, for free, create tests and even answer keys. You can create multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, true and false, etc., and download them as a Word document. Even more functions are available if you sign up for the Plus edition (at subscription price). Easy Test Maker keeps your templates stored as well. Home School Central has a Free Homeschool Study Resources page of links for nearly every subject area. Lots of stuff! Well worth surfing through. Home School Digest In the Home School Digest, a quarterly homeschool magainze, you'll "find practical tips, simple suggestions and bold Biblical challenges that make up an open forum for wrestling through the complex issues that affect homeschooling families." Their website offers some helps as well. Homeschool Resources Guide. Links, links, links, and mooooore links. Lots of lesser known Christian homeschooling links and vendors (like the Elija Company and The Farm Country General Store). If you ever found it but then lost the bookmark regarding homeschooling, it's probably here somewhere. Since there are so many links, we cannot guarantee what you'll get, so get a cup of tea, settle in for some serious surfing, have fun, but glean with care! Practical Homeschooling/Homeschool World. A homeschool help magazine that is edited by homeschool guru Mary Pride, author of the Big Books on getting started in homeschooling (which are very helpful...find them at the library). Scan the home page to read the articles posted online by top homeschooling experts. RHL School This site provides free online printable worksheets for English, math, reading, and research skills. | | Fifty States. Great site to find info on any state in the US! | | Congress for Kids. A site that makes government concepts accessible to children 4th through high school. Wall Builders. An organization formed by David Barton "dedicated to the restoration of the values upon which America was build..." Barton is well known for his Keys to Good Government series and his videos which relay the Christian foundation upon which our nation was built. The White House's official website. Great site with tours and government information. We recommend the virtual tour of the Oval office! | | Family & Friends CPR Anytime. The Family & Friends CPR Anytime Personal Learning Program allows families, friends and the general public – those who most likely would never attend a traditional CPR course – to learn the core skills of CPR in just 22 minutes using their own personal kit. The kit contains everything needed to learn basic CPR, and skills can be learned anywhere, from the comfort of a family home to a large community group setting. Also, at under $30, the CPR Anytime kit is a cost-effective way for the entire family to learn CPR at home. This kit does not provide certification in CPR. By the American Heart Association. We've personally used this kit for our family and were very pleased with the fullness of the presentation and the ease of use. Great way to extend health studies into practical skills especially if it is difficult to get away to a CPR class. Fire Safety Unit. This site is produced by the NYS Departement of State. While it is geared to the younger crowd in most of the activities (K-3), the actual information is very good and could be adapted for older children as well. Great information on fire safety with printable pages for coloring, puzzles, as well as pictures of the department in action. Really cool site. Check it out. | | The Food Timeline. If you enjoy learning history with hands on activities like cooking or doing re-enactments that involve dining, this is a fun site for you. Learn the history of common (and not so common) foods and recipes for their preparation. Secular, so the early history dates reflect that, but there are a lot of good facts and fun to be found. History/Social Study Forms. A site that contains Tapestry of Grace unit study history/social study themed forms in Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download if you don't have it). LOTS of stuff from timelines to St. Patrick Blessings to Civil War asset sheets to State quick facts, Missionary sheets, etc. Junior General. "This web site is intended to promote the use of historical simulations as a tool for teaching history by providing free resources that anyone can use. The simulations make use of historical miniatures (paper or plastic toy soldiers), maps and counters, and matrix arguments. The simulations are designed for students in grades 6 - 8. Each scenario is complete with everything needed to run the simulation except dice and rulers." The site gives paper soldier print outs, history of battles, and directions for simulations. Eclectic but fun looking! National Parks Web Rangers provides games and online interaction for our nation's national parks regarding nature, science and history. For all ages and levels of difficulties. Notgrass History. From Notgrass' website: "Our homeschooling family wants to help your homeschooling family teach the heart, soul, and mind. Our company produces a variety of original homeschool curriculum and resources to make your homeschool simpler and more effective. All of the homeschool curriculum we write has a Biblical foundation." Xenophile History This site is produced by Charles Kimball, a self-professed history buff. It is filled with various and extensive articles he has written on world history, ancient to modern, filed by geographic area. Mr. Kimball is a conservative Christian who upholds the inerrancy of the Bible and those dates indicated by the original scriptures. He also holds to a New Chronology timeline for Egyptian dynasties (see his website for discussion on that). He does not move the Bible dates as is the common modern method in secular history (such as trying to date the Exodus to the late 1200's BC) but rather moves Egyptian dynasty dates to solve some common archeaological questions. Thus, you will see a different slant to history than most typical textbooks. Excellent essays for supplemental reading on ancient history. | | Do you have a sticky exercise problem that neither you nor your child can figure out but really need to? Now? Check first with your curriculum publisher (Apologia is super to work with). But if the curriculum publisher offers no help, there are a number of homework help sites, some free, some for pay. We've not used any of the for pay sites, but they might have been nice once or twice in a desperate moment especially during the high school years. The Beehive This site offers Homework Help. Click into the appropriate grade level (Elementary, Middle School, or High School) and a menu of subjects appears. Choose your subject, and a long list of helpful sites appears. These are mostly supplemental support sites rather than "ask a question/get an answer" site...but there's a LOT there and geared towards free information. Some sites listed (such as a favorite of ours, Dr. Math ) allow you to post a question and get an answer, for free (albeit not responded to immediately). SmartThinking.com is another for pay online tutoring site. You can pay by the hour ($35) or buy more hours in bundles. Tutoring is done through an online browser experience similar to the online customer service chat many companies use. The nice thing about this site is that you can submit single written essays, including a SAT essay example, and have constructive feedback and grading. Essay evaluation prices are from $10 to $20 per essay, depending upon length. Click on "Individual" and "buy now" to see prices and subjects offered. Tutor.com Direct. This is a large firm out of New York. It offers help in subjects in math, English, science, and social studies for grades 4 through 12. The nice thing is it offers promotionals where you can get the first 60 minutes of consultation for $5. After that you can pay as you go with a one-time rate (beginning with 60 minutes/month for $35) or pay monthly (beginning $32.50 per month for 60 minutes with rollover minutes up to a year). Tutor.com states you may cancel at any time. No hidden fees. Tutors are experts in the field. | | Aplus math. This site affords free interactive flashcards and printable worksheets for math. From simple addition/subtraction to beginning algebra. Beyond Numbers is a book written by a homeschool alumni who carefully and engagingly demonstrates how the subject of math shows God's faithfulness and covenant relationship. A useful book about math and the Great Mathematician to help those who may dread the idea of having to teach math to their children or see math as a "non-biblical" subject. May be downloaded cheaply in e-book form. Brightstorm offers free 24/7 math tutorials to help support high school math subjects. Included online are over 2000 free tutorial videos on math subjects from algebra through calculus. Brightstorm also sells AP, SAT and ACT prep material (which is why the free math help is there...they want you to buy their stuff). Look for the option to sign up for the free Brightstorm log-in account to avoid bombarding your Facebook friends with Brightstorm spam. (Brightstorm attempts to get you to sign up through your Facebook account and make all your friends aware of Brightstorm). The videos are useful subject tutorials...but don't get lured into Facebook spam. Dr. Math. Can't figure it out? Ask Dr. Math! From elementary to the tough subjects (even calculus), Dr. Math can help you with your problem. Graph Paper. Free graph paper print out using .pdf and your browser to easily print graph paper from your home computer. (No more running out!) If you prefer a download, go to Waterproof-paper.com Graphing Calculator Help! For those of us going nuts trying to use the manufacturer's manual to figure out how to do math applications on a graphing calculator, Mathbits is a really great website that gives step by step instructions for math applications on the common Texas Instrument graphing calculators. Another website with basic instructional help in clear English is PrenHall. Also go to Using the TI 83-84 for a tutorial on how to use those specific calculators (both of which are allowed on the college board exams). Living Math This is the efforts of Julie Brennan, a former CPA and current homeschooling mom in the San Diego area, who discovered her bright son loved to read but had learned to hate math. She takes a Charlotte Mason approach to actually teaching math, ie, using living books to read about mathmeticians, the history of math, math applied in science, then using that as a launching off point to learn math skills. She has started a living math forum (which you can join at her website) to support others interested in a more "living" approach to learn math and is in the process of writing math curriclum and publishing it through pdf downloads on her website. Millers Marvelous Math is a math site filled with puzzles, helps, worksheets, tutorials, specialized calculators, games and gadgets. Purple Math This site has a lot of math lessons and online helps including free sites that will help you solve your math question. For upper grades (pre-Algebra, Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry, Calculus). Check out their excellent links too. Quick Math QuickMath is a free automated service for answering common math problems. "Think of it as an online calculator that solves equations and does all sorts of algebra and calculus problems - instantly and automatically! You can type in your algebra (or other math problem), hit the submit button, then see the answer. Very helpful for programs without a solution key or if the key is apparently wrong. Savvy Minds.org is local to Portland ( Savvy Minds also provides for fee summer math programs to introduce upper math concepts to students). Its website's help resources are middle and high school math focused and FREE. The content is updated and improved by the Portland math teaching community. SavvyMinds.org has free: Online math lessons including video lessons; Course summary Note cards; Graphing calculator tips; Book recommendations; Worksheets; and more Worksheet links. Great math resource! | | not just course material but actual classes taught by a teacher online Alpha Omega Academy offers online courses in a wide range of subjects and grade levels based on their Switched-on-Schoolhouse curriculum. Choose between their full diploma service program with teacher grading and support or independent study. Single course, part-time or full time offered. GCF Learn Free.org Goodwill Community Foundation provides a site to learn for free consumer math, life, and computer skills. We've looked through the computer skills (Word, Excel, etc.) and found them thorough. (We've not looked through their life classes and suspicion they are secular adult in worldview and likely not appropriate for most homeschool children.) There are different options for the courses--you can either go through the self tutorial (which provides tests) or sign up for one of their online seminars taught by an instructor in the field who provides a CEU completion certificate. Homeschool Science Academy provides online science classes from a Christian creationist/young-earth worldview. Taught by a veteran homeschool father who is a college university professor and director of a university science lab. Classes are geared towards students interested in careers in medicine, physical therapy, boiology, dentistry, forensic science, nutrition, etc. LIVE Online Math provides online math courses. Purchase full interactive teacher graded classes to independent study parent graded courses. Pre-Algebra through Algebra II currently offered. Lukeion Project is the efforts of Regan and Amy Barr, archaeologists, university teachers, and Christian homeschooling parents. They bring classical Greece and Rome alive to their online students through real time classes with vibrant illustrations. Subjects include Greek and Roman History, Latin, Mythology, Art & Architecture, and Greek & Latin Word Roots. Sign up for a semester class (high school college prep level) or for a 4-week workshop (ages 10 and above). Discounts available for additional siblings or for audits. Northstar Online Academy offers a full service online academy or individual courses that can be parent-directed. Both academy courses and indepent-learning courses are completed through their online material. Student community available. Wide range of subjects prepared from a Christian perspective for grades 6-12. PA Homeschoolers AP Online Test Preparation offers online AP test preparation courses in a wide range of subjects for homeschooled students across the county. Recommended by Mary Pride. Advanced Placement (AP) tests are given in May of each year. (AP tests offer advance placement for college admission and sometimes college credit as well.) Potters School seeks to utilize the benefits of modern technology to aid homeschooling parents. It offers a variety of junior high and senior high classes which can be purchased individually to supplement a family's homeschool. Subjects offered include upper math, writing composition, foreign language, sciences and social studies. All courses are from a biblical Christian worldview and are offered entirely online, supported online, and require participation in a weekly 90 minute live video classroom with a teacher. Teachers evaluate the student's course work and provide grades which the parent can then insert into the family's homeschool transcript. Talisker's online tutorials are live audio and chat sessions that meet for almost two hours once a week, running from late August through early May, in which the students and tutor discuss the material being studied, go over the students' work, and preview the work for the next week. Science, Math, and Literature offered for upper-junior high through high school level. Thinkwell Homeschool online packages provide a 12-month subscription to their online video instruction, 50 hours extended support, interactive exercises, pre-tests, tests, and notes...for a very reasonable price (currently $125 per subject for the basic package described above). Subjects include 6th grade through 12th grade math (through calculus), and AP biology, chemisty, physics and American government. An optional workbook and video cd may be bought to supplement the online course (but are not sold separately). These are secular videos, so the subjects are taught from a secular view point, and the math is taught by a college professor who used to be a stand up comic and who has a bit of fun with the dry topics occasionally. However the math appears to be basic math concepts and humor overall clean. Subscription is not refundable so view the sample demos carefully first. The math packages are reviewed and recommended by Sonlight for homeschoolers (and sold through Sonlight as well). | | NEW! Corrective Reading Institute provides inexpensive downloadable phonics materials. It uses the 73 phoneme approach drilled through their phoneme charts and phrase cards and also supplies syllabication charts and the Dolch list of most frequently used words in level specific spelling charts. (We would quibble over the use of the phrase cards ...we prefer the ladder method of blending early words reinforced with controlled readers and then general early reading materials for first-time readers.) Helpful placement tests are included online for free. Placement tests and instructions for remedial students are provided as well so that a student can begin at the level he or she needs. Instructions supplied for discerning hearing disabled and dyslexic students too. You can also purchase the materials with teacher instructions in a bound copy. No reading materials are supplied, so this is not as full a phonics program as others on the market, but it is a very inexpensive way to gather the phoneme tools and appears to have solid coverage of phonics and early spelling. Developed by a certified reading instructor who has worked many years with remedial students. Go Phonics. This program is highly recommended by Basic Skills. It reminds us of the wonderful Horizon/Little Patriot readers with an added Sing, Spell, Read, Write approach and some Phonics Pathways type dyslexia helps. We gleaned this off of Basic Skills website and have not seen it anywhere else nor used it, but we've included it here as we know finding controlled phonics readers linked to an incremental phonics instruction program are difficult to find. This is a complete program (with a rather impressive price tag if you buy everything), but you can purchase individual components separately in particular the controlled vocabulary readers that caught our eye. | | Answers.com is billited as the world's largest encylodictionalmanacapedia. Type in your target word(s), and you will get a dictionary entry, several ecyclopedia articles, and almanac entry with map. Secular. NEW! Behemoth.com provides an ever-growing selection of Christian family-friendly audio and video downloads at great prices. Downloads include e-books, historical and science videos, family movies, evangelical materials, homemaking skills, and more! DVA Special Markets. (From their website) "We are DVA, the largest distributor of authentic studio released special interest DVD and VHS at deep discount prices. We would like to invite you to visit our website with a special 10% discount code for educators. There you will find hundreds of great educational videos from studios like PBS, A&E, Discovery Channel, History Channel and National Geographic." The DVA material is obviously secular in content, so buyer beware; however, some are from the History Channel and PBS which were quite good at truly "cheap" prices! New Leaf Press and Master Books. This publisher specializes in Christian perspective reference materials: i.e. encyclopedia style and story style informational books that cover the areas of: Weather, Geology, Astronomy, Human Anatomy, World of Chemistry, World of Medicine, Planet Earth (with explorers), and Dinosaurs, history, biblical lands, apologetics, among others. There are also downloadable study guides for a number of the books. Fabulous books! Great Site. Great links on it to other creation sites. Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Noah Webster could best be described as an America's first curriculum writer. Concerned with the quality of books in Amercian schools (a hodge podge of used English books), He revolutionized American educational curriculum in the 1780's by producing the Blue Back Speller which taught children how to read for over 100 years. He later wrote the first American dictionary which standardized American spellings and recognized uniquely American words (such as squash). His strong Christian character and firm grasp of the principles of government shine through in his definitions. Here's another site for Webster's dictionary (since these free sites do change from time to time). | | The Accidental Scientist Science of Cooking d iscover how a pinch of curiosity can improve your cooking! Explore recipes, activities, and Webcasts that will enhance your understanding of the science behind food and cooking.
Classical Astronomy In the Classical Astronomy web site explore pages to find information about happenings in the night sky. Visit the Sky This Month page for information on current and upcoming sky events. Also visit the linked pages for extensive archives of astronomy articles from a Christian perspective. Check out their Newsletter page for info on the Classical Astronomy Update, a free email newsletter, and an archive of back issues. CYFERnet 4H Just for Kids. This site sponsored by CYFERnet has a number of fun science and technology units that are written for 4H but provided online for free. Check out the aviation "Airplanes and Flight," "Bug Club," "Space," and "Virtual Farm." Go to CYFERnet's activity page home for additional lesson plans gathered from around the nation (and world). (Secular site) GCF Learn Free.org Goodwill Community Foundation provides a site to learn free consumer math, life skills, and computer skills. We've looked through the computer skills (Computer Basics, Word, Excel, etc.) and found them thorough. There are different options for the courses--you can either go through the self tutorial (which provides tests) or sign up for one of their online seminars taught by an instructor in the field. The Electronics Club is a GREAT site for learning basic electronics theory and skills such as identifying components, soldering, reading a circuit diagram, and more. Lots of information, projects to do, and useful links! Enature. A great site to find out what that creature or plant is in your back yard! From birds, to fish, to amphibians to shells to insects to wildflowers. It offers online field guides with input help and even specific species for your location! There's even bird songs. Great nature resource for bird, plant or critter identification. Gamequarium is a site with links to educational games and videos to access online. Many games are represented across all subjects, mostly aimed at the elementary ages, but some high school subjects as well. School House Rock Videos, The Magic School Bus, and Bill Nye the Science Guy are included in the multi-linked repetroire. Home Science Tools. Home Science Tools (formerly Home Training Tools) is a science supplies company. Has actual kits and/or printouts of materials needed for Apologia, Abeka and Bob Jones science as well as a host of the usual and unusual science supplies. HTT also provides an interesting free, monthly newsletter (upon sign up), that includes science lessons and information resources. How Everyday Things Are Made - "If you've ever wondered how things are made (candy, cars, airplanes, or bottles) or you're interested in manufacturing processes (forging, casting, or injection molding), then you've come to the right place. This introductory website for kids and adults shows how 40 different products are made and includes almost 4 hours of video. Think of it as your own private online factory tour. The Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing (AIM) a cooperative venture among Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, School of Engineering, and member industrial firms. Optimized for high speed internet access. Requires Flash." Really cool site!! JETS Junior Engineer Technical Society's site to promote and encourage students to consider engineering and technical careers. The provides information, resources, and online challenges for the budding engineering student. Master Books. This publisher specializes in Christian perspective science reference materials: i.e. encyclopedia style and story style informational books that cover the areas of: Weather, Geology, Astronomy, Human Anatomy, World of Chemistry, World of Medicine, Planet Earth (with explorers), and Dinosaurs, among others. There are also downloadable study guides for a number of the books. Fabulous books! Great Site. Great links on it to other creation sites. Molecular Expressions This is a site containing "photo galleries that explore the fascinating world of optical microscopy... going where no microscope has gone before by offering one of the Web's largest collections of color photographs taken through an optical microscope (commonly referred to as "photo-micro-graphs"). Great slide photographs for those who do not have a good microscope to use in science (most student microscopes offer poor results). The pond scum gallery has video streams of microscopic pond life slides--really helpful if your biology lab's pond sample didn't yield much! Full descriptions included with each video or slide photograph. Use the "Real Player" option for best results (you will need to download Real Player if you don't have it on your computer). My CAD site provides over 40 free tutorials to learn AutoCad (you will have to have AutoCad software installed on your computer). It looks to be a good introduction to AutoCad for budding engineers. Lessons can also be purchased on cdrom for a low fee. Provides link for a free trial of AutoCad software or go to Computer Products for Education to get a student version for a fraction of the cost (homeschoolers are eligible with verification). National Parks Web Rangers provides games and online interaction for our nation's national parks regarding nature, science and history. For all ages and levels of difficulties. Neuroscience for Kids From their website "Discover the exciting world of the brain, spinal cord, neurons and the senses. Use the experiments, activities and games to help you learn about the nervous system. There are plenty of links to other web sites for you to explore." The lesson plans we viewed appeared to be geared towards the elementary age student. Online Dissection Labs:Here's a good site for online lab links for those who would like help with their dissection or would like to view a dissection without the mess. Includes frog, cow eye, sheep brain, heart, plant cells, cat and earthworm etc. Here is also a frog dissection worksheet. Periodic Table. Los Alamos Lab provides an interactive periodic table that is both informative and fascinating. Periodic Table by Elements Database has an interactive element chart, a hangman game to learn elements, an element quiz, and a printable periodic table. The Physics Classroom This site provides help for the high school physics student. It includes the Physics Tutorial (Learn basic physics concepts and review them in the Physics Tutorial. Check Your Understanding quizzes let you know you got it.), the Multimedia Physics Studio (Is physics difficult for you to visualize? Do you need to see it to understand it? Then visit the Multimedia Physics Studio.), and the Physics Help (Practice your skills in Physics Help. Hone your skills by graphing problems, recognizing forces, identifying vector magnitude and direction, and practice vector addition.). Secular site. TryEngineering This site is a resource for students (8-18), their parents, and teachers. It gives information about engineering careers, associations, colleges, AND lesson plans and games to help get your budding engineer started! Scratch Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design. Scratch is downloadable from the site free of charge, and the Scratch site offers supports for students and educators. Currently available for Mac OSX and Windows (Linnux available soon). Sparkfun Electronics is a company that likes to share, enable, and have fun with electronics. They design boards and provide tools so that engineers, students, and hobbyists can play with microcontrollers. This is a great site for the kid just starting out or the serious (or not so serious) engineer. Basic electronics tutorials and walk through instructions included for projects. NEW! Super Charged Science is the brain child of scientist Aurora Lipper, a former NASA engineer and Cal-Poly instructor who has a deep love of science and vision to help parents encourage that love in children. She has created numerous science experiments which can be downloaded online and duplicated at home. She offers a free manual and weekly experiment newsletter as well. Experiments are at various levels, k-12. We've not tried any of the free stuff, but they look promising. (Materials appear to be from a secular basis.) Quick Study Labs This site provides an online electronics course for homeschooled students, electronics summer clubs, and some cool links. Currently, courses are about $110 ($55 for lab equipment--which is reusable for other courses, $55 course registration). There are several courses, the Edison project for students ages 8-11, and Electronics I and II for students ages12-18. Electronics I and II constitute 1 semester credit of science. Taught by an enthusiastic community college electronics teacher who desires to bless the homeschool community. Virtual Science. A page full of science links including virtual caves, virtual labs, virtually EVERYTHING! We have NOT gone through a lot of these links nor reviewed the info as there is SO much stuff, so please be careful, but there is a lot of interesting looking links there! Computer Products for Education is a Microsoft authorized education reseller which sells the "big" programs (AutoCad, Adobe Creative Suites, Office, etc.) for a fraction of the price if it is used for educational purposes. Good news is that they will accept homeschoolers upon verification of their homeschool (for example: a copy of your ESD notification, copy of HSLDA card or any other homeschool organization membership, copy of recent curriculum receipts, etc.) The savings are vast for those students who are headed towards a technical degree or need a big program (like Adobe) to advance their skills. The programs are full functioning, and complete (although some features have been disabled so that you cannot sell your work...ie the clipart in Adobe is very limited or watermarked.) Personal Note: We at the CHOC Board used CPE for our daughter's purchase of Adobe Creative Suites as she was headed for journalism in college (her home experience proved invaluable and helped her get a student job in graphic publishing at the college). We plan to use them for our son for his AutoCad before he heads to engineering college. FREEHomeschool Software.com This company is a homeschool family that scours the market to find educational software to sell cheaply, and THEN adds lesson plans to them! ($7.95 per title to cover shipping and handling). We at the CHOC Board recognized many of our old favorites (like Story Weaver Deluxe by MECC) which have dropped off the general market. This company states they have tested all programs and found them to work on Windows XP, and there is a policy of 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money is refunded with no questions asked. We've not tried this particular service (although we've tried similar). The downfall is these are older programs which generally should work with XP, but ought to doesn't mean it will. Also, since these are obviously back inventories of items not generally on the market, the supplies are limited and their inventory varies daily. Most of these programs will be secular. We list them because we recognize some old wholesome favorites. Gamequarium is a site with links to educational computer games and videos to access online. Many games are represented across all subjects, mostly aimed at the elementary ages, but some high school subjects as well. School House Rock Videos, The Magic School Bus, and Bill Nye the Science Guy are included in the multi-linked repetroire. Secular. | | DynamicLearningServices Janell Schicker, M.A.,CCC, is a speech-language pathologist and co-founder/co-owner of Dynamic Learning Services which provides auditory/language processing and speech therapy. These types of issues are common and affect listening, reading, spelling, writing, memory, comprehension, test taking and social skills. These types of learning difficulties are not outgrown and cannot be helped by traditional tutoring. Cigna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield accepted. Located at 1565 Hollowell St., West Linn, Oregon, 97068. 503-722-2851. NEW! Imagination Rehab provides coaching for teachers /parents and students in different methods to rehabilitate learning. Especially good for students struggling in reading, writing, or math. Teaching is focused on student individual strengths rather than their limitations. Based on research of learning styles and multi-sensory teaching, their programs incorporate visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile and interactive games to promote learning which is especially effective for students with ADD/ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder and/or students who have experienced trauma. Free assessment provided, refundable deposit on curriculum. Pam Davis, owner and director, has over 30 years teaching experience. Located at 15280 NW Central Drive, Suite 101, Portland, OR 97229. Phone 503-956-5390. Email pam@imaginationrehab.com Little Sparrow Ministries As Little Sparrow Ministries (LSM) we encourage, assist, and provide support to home-educating Christian families, especially those with special needs children, throughout the country. Our ministry is not merely an "informational" ministry, but also a "support" ministry. We have learned to provide services through phone consultation, e-mail, workshops/seminars, specially designed materials and curriculum support, and personal contact. Most of our support is given via phone consultation and e-mail. Many of the support materials we have available are able to be transmitted via e-mail while others are sent using standard mailing channels. LSM serves families at no cost. We depend upon the Lord to work in the hearts of his people to supply what we need to carry out the various aspects of this ministry. Any materials we do supply are at very low cost. Teaching Jeremiah is a Christian homeschooling mother's blog about the joys and challenges of homeschooling a child with autism (Aspergers). It contains many helpful links and articles regarding autism and Aspergers. | | Basic Cozy Spelling is a free complete spelling course geared to 6th through 8th grade. It is provided online complete with course description, spelling rules, dictation, and 30 lessons. Sponsored by Splashes from the River. SpellCity.com is a really cool site that allows your child to enter their spelling words, drills them (voice recitation as the letters appear), and then play games like hangman with their words, and then take a spelling test with those words. Fun! | | | Alwright Publishing company is the work of a homeschooling family in Georgia. Kim Wright created hands on units for her own children, shared them with her co-op group, and now publishes them for sale. There are units such as Victorian Quilting and Sewing, Flower Arranging, Botany, Birds, The Microscope, Spiders, Arachnids, Sheep, Goats, Poultry and Photography. They use the notebook approach relying upon the child's research as well as providing basic information, lab sheets, work sheets, flash cards and such.
CurrClick, or Curriculum in a Click. Ths site provides downloadable e-books for unit studies, lap books, research projects, and novel studies in all subject areas at reasonable fees, some even free. Mostly secular although a number of Christian publishers are also represented. Easy Fun School EasyFunSchool.com has articles, unit study plans, lesson plans, resource links, a newsletter, and many other features to make homeschooling more enjoyable for both child and parent. Covers language arts, Bible, history, social studies, and science for a wide range of ages. Evan Moore Publishers provide traditional style, unit theme worksheets and workbooks that span subjects. Evan Moore will give you access to every single thing they publish for 99 cents the first month and then 9.99 each month after through its Teacher File Box service. TeacherFileBox.com covers grades Pre-K–6, although there are many materials that would be appropriate for differentiated learning environments across higher grade levels. They also allow you to set up lesson plans AND provide answer keys. A friend has used this service and felt it was very cost effective. Homeschool Share This site provides free unit study plans (ages 4 through 9 or so), lap book plans, and Five in A Row resources. Tapestry of Grace. Tapestry of Grace is a classical, unit-study approach which guides the whole family though 4 years of study of world history, with an emphasis on western/American history, using primarily good literature. When you finish the 4 years, you merely start again, moving your children to more challenging books. This Christian curriculum covers history, literature, art and music history, church history, philosophy, geography, and writing for all ages. Government is included for the high schooler. While providing the lessons for you, Tapestry does recommend at least an hour of study each week for the parent to prepare for meaningful discussions. | | (Return to top of page) |
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