Freebies
I don’t know any homeschooling family that prefers to pay for good quality educational materials, when they can get them instead for free! With that in mind I generally post links to places where you can get free homeschooling materials. Some of these will change as often as once a week, so please check here often!
Seasonal Freebies
These suppliers offer free products on a rotating basis, so there is always a new and different product for you to download. Many suppliers rotate these freebies weekly, others may be monthly or quarterly. Check back regularly.
CurrClick
Free this week at CurrClick: click the logo at the left
Back to the Beach Sale:
Not strictly a freebie, but definitely a great deal! From 16-30 June 2008 CurrClick will be offering up to 75% off a whole collection of summertime e-books and audio products. Head on over to get some great deals!
***
EcoBrain
Also from the folks that brought us CurrClick is EcoBrain, an online shop for ebooks the address environmental topics. You can sign up to get a weekly free e-book. Look for homeschool helps in the kids books section!
***
In the Hands of a Child
Free this quarter at Hands of a Child: Amelia Earhart Project Pack
***
Complete Educational Programs
A free educational program is a great way to start out with homeschooling, as you haven’t made a financial commitment and can add resources that you find along the way without worrying you’ll break the bank. Probably the first two years you will want to resist buying anything “boxed” as much as possible. This gives you the time to see what kind of approach works best in your homeschool.
Two complete curricula are available online, both based at least in part on the methods of Charlotte Mason. They are:
- Old Fashioned Education
- Ambleside Online
Both are also a great resource for supplementary reading material, or a benchmark if you are unsure when your children will be ready to attempt a particular book you want to share with them. The Ambleside Online (AO) program is more strictly Charlotte Mason, and these kind folks also host Ms Mason’s writings for you to read free on their site.
Old Fashioned Education (OFE) is a site to be loved by the educational “do-it-yourselfer”! Miss Maggie created the program of study herself, for her own boys. She combines both Charlotte Mason and Classical approaches, and she also lists a huge number of free texts and books for pleasure reading. While some of the AO texts must be purchased or found in libraries, everything recommended by Miss Maggie can be found free online.
For more details on both AO and OFE, please take a look at this post. I’ve also got some advice for new homeschoolers in my Educational Program page.
***
Children’s Literature
For pleasure or for your language arts, nature study, history, etc. Public domain books can be had in a variety of formats for reading or listening. Everything at these sites is free!
My favourite three sites are:
***
Mathematics
There are numerous sites that offer free math printables or math games. Finding a curriculum that works for your family isn’t as easy as just printing off a couple of arithmetic worksheets or giving your kids some games to play, though. If you are looking for complete curricula that are available free of charge, there are three that I know of:
- Mathematics Enhancement Programme, from CIMT in the UK
- Ray’s Arithmetic, using public domain versions of the 19th century texts
- Défi-Maths, a program developed in Quebec and available free in French for homeschooling families (English workbooks are available for purchase, but it is unlikely the free homeschool edition will be translated)
A fourth program called Living Math is free, in the sense that you can access the recommended reading lists free of charge. However, the readings themselves could be very expensive unless your library stocks enough of the titles to make it possible for you to rely on loans instead of buying books. This non-traditional, textbook-free math program was designed with homeschoolers in mind.
For more information on both free and commercial math curricula, please visit my Math 1 and Math 2 pages. There are links to free resources, comparisons of approaches used in commercial curricula, and information you need about finding user support groups, getting necessary passwords, etc.
***
Free Math Samples
Math Mammoth offers a selection of samples from its various levels, if you sign up for their newsletter. These workbooks are very popular among homeschoolers. They generally cover only one concept or skill group, so are good if you want remedial help in just one or two areas. Math Mammoth can be used either as a core math curriculum or as a supplement.
Math-U-See is also exceedingly popular, and was designed with homeschoolers in mind. The gentleman who created the system has taught math in school, been a tutor in a small group setting, and is also the parent of a special needs child. The program uses video to coach the home educator, but kids love to watch the videos too! Mr. Demme has a warm, humourous personality and uses some really effective methods to help kids understand not just what to do or how to do it, but why they are doing it & when to apply those skills. Watch a free demo video online or order a free demo package complete with video. You can also take a peek around the site and check out the placement tests, sample pages, worksheet generator, etc.
***
Social Studies
Geography Matters offers a sampler of their products, including the wonderful Geography Trails books. Just sign up for their newsletter to get the free download.
If you decide to make a purchase and do not live in the United States please look for their international distributors, or buy through CurrClick and get instant downloads for the Geography Matters & the related Visual Manna books. Save on shipping!
***
Notebooking
Notebooking is kind of like scrapbooking, but for educational purposes. Notebooks can be a fun way to document your children’s learning experience, especially if you are using an approach that uses few or no textbooks.
If you are required to keep a learning portfolio for school or district officials to see that your children are receiving an adequate education, you will find that notebooking can help you put on paper some of what is actually taking place through oral narrations, discussions, recitation, etc.
Notebooking covers all subject areas - language arts, math, science, social studies, religion, etc. - and many of the printables I’ve seen could easily be used with a multi-disciplinary project or unit studies approach. Some of the printables are as simple as a pretty bordered sheet where your child can draw a picture or practice their copywork; others are set up to facilitate exploration or documentation of biographies, science experiments, nature study, grammar, etc.
Free resources for a homeschool portfolio: NotebookingPages.com
***
This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!
