I have been homeschooling my 2 kids since the beginning. Officially started “kindergarten” with my oldest the 2006/7 school year. Started kindergarten with my younger in 2010/11 school year. I have collected a LOT of resources over the years. These are just a few of the best that I have found…starting with my own sites, of course. 🙂
- My Sites
- Local Resources
- California Homeschool Links
- National Homeschool Links
- Fantastic Articles
- Online Curriculum Reviews
- Online Tools to Help Homeschool Parents
- General Homeschooling Sites
- Online Learning Resources
My Sites
- Tina’s Learning Adventures: Engaging and FUN self-directed online courses, lessons, and digital activity pages for homeschoolers!
- Homeschool Realm: Adventures with an ADHD homeschooling mom. Lots of articles, resources, and reviews!
- Savvy Homeschool Moms: A secular homeschool podcast I do with another local homeschool mom. Tons of great info and resources shared as well as interviews with experts, curriculum developers, and our most popular “A Day in the Life” of average homeschoolers, talking to regular homeschoolers!!
Local Resources
Make sure you check out the page of links to Local Homeschool Groups.
Fresno County Public Library: I seriously canNOT say enough about our local libraries! They offer SO MUCH to us! Talking to other homeschoolers around this country, we are really lucky in our area to have such a great library system here! MAKE SURE that you all get your own library cards! AND MAKE SURE to get your own online logins! You will need them to make use of all the great resources! I need to post a blog post about all the great stuff at the library…but until then, explore that website thoroughly!
California Homeschooling Links
- California Homeschool Network (CHN): An inclusive, all-volunteer organization of energetic and dedicated homeschooling families working to preserve our own educational freedom. CHN monitors and responds to legislation that may pose a threat to homeschooling. We also inform and empower homeschooling families, educate the public, and foster community among home educators in the state of California.
CHN is one of the 2 main secular CA homeschool organizations. - Homeschool Association of California (HSC): A nonprofit volunteer-run homeschool organization. HSC is here to help you navigate the homeschooling world with information, networking, and support.
HSC is the second of the 2 main secular CA homeschool organizations. - CHEFA (Christian Home Educators of the Fresno Area): A non-profit organization created for the purpose of providing information, training, and support to the Private Christian Home School Community of the Central Valley.
National Homeschooling Links
- National Home Education Research Institute: A nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and educational organization whose mission is to: produce high-quality statistics, research, and technical reports on home education…serve as a clearinghouse of research for home educators, researchers, and policymakers…and educate the public concerning the findings of all research on home education.
- HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association): A United States-based organization that seeks to aid homeschooling families through legal representation.
PLEASE NOTE: HSLDA is an Evangelical Christian organization and as such, membership furthers the causes that this very powerful group of people support. If the beliefs and causes of the Christian Right are not in line with your own, you may want to be aware of this.
Fantastic Articles
- The Bitter Homeschoolers Wish List (the ORIGINAL, by Deborah Markus): a HILARIOUS list that every homeschooler can relate to!
- Homeschooling & the Myth of Socialization: Great article about why this is such a silly thing to worry about.
- But What About the Prom?: What about it? Read this article and learn why the prom is really a non-issue.
- No Thankyou, We Don’t Believe in Socialization: Fabulous article that explains quite well why the brand of socialization that is offered in school is really not what we homeschoolers are looking for anyway!
- What Should a 4 Year Old Know? Not specifically a homeschooling article, but written by a very well known homeschooling blogger/author and a REALLY good article!
- Spark Schooling: How to Light a Fire in Your Child: Great article on how to get your kids interested in learning!
- The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar: Not a homeschool article, but good info for homeschoolers to have!
- Homeschooling the Early Years: Part 1 of a 12 part blog series I wrote. Each post links to the next.
- Research Says to Delay Academics: Another article I wrote on my blog…this is a passion of mine. Play is how young ones learn. The research supports not starting too soon. Read this article to find out why schools and so many homeschoolers are jumping the gun on the littlest students’ formal education.
- Why Education Gaps Don’t Concern Me: I wrote this short article about why we all have gaps in our education and how to look differently at how our kids are learning.
- List of Education Companies offering Free Subscriptions: Not sure if this will be valid after the pandemic…but it’s valid now!
Online Curriculum Reviews
- Secular Homeschooler Reviews: Blogger that reviews secular curriculum.
- Cathy Duffy Reviews: Cathy Duffy has been reviewing curriculum for the homeschooling community since 1984. She also reviews other resources she believes are important for those interested in homeschooling, education, the origins debate, and related political and spiritual topics.
- The Homeschool Mom: Another site with curriculum reviews.
- YouTube: Just search for reviews on YouTube of whatever curriculum you are interested in learning more about…there are tons of homeschoolers that have done video reviews of them. You could also Google search for blog reviews.
Online Tools to Help Homeschool Parents
- Timetoast Timeline Maker: Take your narrative to the next level with our gorgeous interactive timelines. Bring your story to life in a way that not only looks good but colors it with context.
- Goodreads: Track all the books you and your kids are reading, or want to read! Read and write reviews! Find book lists! I have been using Goodreads since my youngest was little and it’s AWESOME! I have fastidiously kept track of EVERY BOOK that they read and I read to them, sorted on a new shelf for each child each year…and it is really cool to be able to see how many books they were reading. And also to go back and be able to refer people to books for their children, since I can find just the books my kids read at that same age! Here’s my account, go find some new books to read!
- Pinterest: Save your links to learning resources in organized boards! Here’s my account. I have lots of homeschool boards with tons of pins!
- Symbaloo: Similar to Pinterest, but it is great to use with kiddos because you can make them their own visual links to access the sites and videos they need to be going to for learning!
- Symbaloo Learning Paths: You can use Symbaloo Learning Paths to create a gaming-style virtual lesson plan; using the best educational resources. Tile by tile, create pathways for students so they may learn at their own speed.
- Prezi: presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter. Use to present lessons to kids, and have kids present what they learned in Prezi!
- Wakelet: Save, organize, and share content from across the web with Wakelet. Save articles, videos, images, Tweets, and more, organize them into stunning collections. Again, use for your own resources or have the kiddos use to present what they learned! This one has nifty mobile apps!
- Hyperdocs: A transformative, interactive Google Doc replacing the worksheet method of delivering instruction, is the ultimate change agent in the blended learning classroom.
- Bitmoji Classroom Scenes: Using a Bitmoji of yourself in a virtual classroom that is clickable with many learning resources that are images of real-world things. Our homeschooling version could be anything! It doesn’t have to be a school classroom! Be creative and think out of the box! If learning about a specific habitat, why not build a clipart version of that habitat with clickable animals and plants and such to learn more? If learning about a time in history, maybe a scene from something you want them to learn about with clickable items from that scene? The sky’s the limit!
General Homeschooling Sites
- A to Z Home’s Cool
- Simple Homeschool
- SEA Homeschoolers (Secular Eclectic Academic)
- The Well-Trained Mind
Online Learning Resources
- Google Lit Trips: Free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth.
- Khan Academy: Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more.
- Big History Project: A free social studies course that spans 13.8 billion years. It weaves insights from many disciplines to form a single story that helps us better understand people, civilizations, and how we are connected to everything around us. Free, online social studies course for middle- and high-school students.
- Secular Charlotte Mason Resources: This is a large section of my homeschool blog that I started years ago and added to when I got permission from the owner of the Secular CM site to add her content when her site disappeared and she no longer was going to maintain it. So there is a LOT here! Charlotte Mason is a wonderful philosophy but many of the resources online are Christian based, so we have gone to the work of finding secular resources for those that prefer not to follow Ms. Mason’s religious content. It’s very doable! Check it out!
- The Artful Parent: A fantastic art blog that regularly shares truly wonderful projects to do with the kiddos! Follow her Facebook page too!
- Journey North-Mystery Class: Track sunlight to find secret sites! Mystery Class is a global game of hide-and-seek. Follow photoperiod clues to search for ten secret sites around the world. Track sunlight to solve a mystery—and discover the reasons for seasons along the way. This is SO FUN!! You can do it every year! For free!
- Crash Course History: OMG I LOOOOOVE the Green Bros! They have the videos from The Big History Project here plus a WHOLE LOT MORE!
They used to have a whole curriculum to go along with the history videos, posted for free, and for some reason took it down. Luckily someone saved it and I got a copy of the files. So here they are! Copy them to your own Google Drive! - Curiosity Stream: Streaming subscription service, but ALL DOCUMENTARIES! And very affordable!
- Poetry Teatime: Julie Bogart of Brave Writer’s website for her “Poetry Teatime”…tons of great info and ideas!
- Brave Writer Blog: Julie Bogart of Brave Writer’s blog and podcast. She writes and publishes such great stuff! Far beyond the writing curriculum that she sells! She has fantastic info on
- The River Houses: A National Network of Local Homeschool Societies. We post a wide range of easy-to-use educational ideas and “little lessons” that will enrich your homeschooling schedule all through the year.
- Night Zookeeper: Online writing tool, class blog and library of interactive lessons
- Living Math: This site is dedicated to sharing resources for math learning, exploring, and enjoying math in a dynamic and holistic manner, for all ages.
- Librivox: Free audiobooks read by volunteers from all over the world.
- PBS Learning Media: PBS and your local station have curated FREE, standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more just for teachers like you.
- CK12: A library of free online textbooks, videos, exercises, flashcards, and real-world applications for over 5000 concepts.
- DonnaYoung.org: This is a fantastic source of printables that used to be all free but now requires a minimal membership fee to be able to access. I don’t blame her at all for going this direction. She has obviously done a TON of work to create this site! I think she deserves to get some recompense! There are 2 annual membership options and both are very affordable. Things you will find here are all sorts of planners and calendars, math worksheets, and journals and you name it! She has SO MUCH here that I cannot even begin to cover it all! Check it out!
- Teachers Pay Teachers: This is an online store to purchase lesson plans created by teachers for teachers. Many homeschoolers also make and sell curriculum here! There just a wealth of great resources available here, both for free and for very affordable prices!
- Ted-Ed: Educational talks we have all come to know and love! So many are great to share with kids!
- Typical Course of Study: For those that feel like they need some sort of road map.