FREE Home School Resources That Are Worth Trying Out
I've yet to figure out how to homeschool totally free, but I have figured how to reduce some of our homeschool curriculum budget by incorporating free homeschooling resources. With free resources, there is often trial and error just like there is with paid resources. Not all resources are created equally, but the free homeschooling resources I am sharing with you today are high quality and if you didn't know they were free I am sure you would be willing to invest a few bucks in order to use them in your homeschool.
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Free Language Arts Resource
Jenny Phillips' The Good & the Beautiful language arts and literature curriculum is a full language arts program, and I truly mean full. The new Upper Elementary Course A which is geared towards students in grades 4 through 6 incorporates writing, sentence diagramming, spelling, geography, and literature. The course covers an entire school year of language arts. Not only is there free language arts curriculum for the late elementary/middle school students, but the site also has a K through 3rd grade language arts program for those of you with younger children. The only cost, of course, is paper and ink which is worth it for as much that is included in this program. To save cost on printing, I downloaded the readers to our Kindle. If you are thinking of using this course in your home school and printing it yourself, I recommend printing the course companion and geography/grammar cards on card stock so that the materials will hold up well during the school year.
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Free Typing Resource
If you are need of a typing program for your homeschool consider typing.com. We used typing.com for two school years after Stacie from No Idle Bread, shared that she uses it for typing with her children. Out of all the typing programs we have used which I actually paid for, my daughters like typing.com the most. The program keeps track of your children's progress so they don't have to worry about starting over each day or trying to remember where they left off. I am able to see the girls progress by signing into my teacher's account. From my teacher's account, I am able to see their wpm and the length of time they have spent on each lesson each day. I appreciate this program for these reasons. Each of my girls has her own log in information which allows them to also take a bit more responsibility since they have to keep track of this information for themselves. Typing.com does have ads on the site, but you can pay a one time fee of $7.49 per student to remove the ads for a lifetime. We currently have ads, and the girls don't have an issue with it. The ads are primarily Paypal, car, and college ads. We have yet to see anything inappropriate. If this changes, I would happily pay the $14.98 because it is a good typing program.
Free Math Resource
Math can often be a sore topic since there are so many facets to it. My daughters are whizzes in some areas of math while other areas leave them confused and frustrated. Although this free math resource isn't a full curriculum, it is a great resource to consider especially if your learner could use some supplemental work. Dadsworksheets.com has been in my arsenal since I was a tutor a few years back. There are plenty of drill worksheets for multiplication, addition, etc. Over the years, the library of free math resources has grown to include word problems, pre-algebra, geometry, and more. If you have a solid curriculum for your learner, but could use some additional resources to solidify what is being taught Dadsworksheets.com is a great place to start.
Do you know of any free resources that other home school families should know about? Please share these hidden treasures in the comments. :)