Useful Homeschooling Websites

We survived the first week of homeschooling in our home. Since this is our first year of homeschooling, I've been on the hunt for anything and everything that may be useful to incorporate into the boys' daily learning. I use a mix of academic books, hands-on activities, and websites.

Each day I come across another website that has useful aspects. I figured, there have to be parents out there like me who are new the whole homeschooling process, so I figured I'd list some of the sites I've found. My sons are ten and twelve, so I don't tend to peruse the online content for smaller kids. However, there are a lot of great sites out there for all ages.

Here are a few of the ones we've found that are incredibly helpful.

HOMESCHOOLING WEBSITES

  Time4Learning.com This site has been an amazing tool to have. Since my sixth grader surprised us at the last minute and asked to be pulled from public school, we had no material to teach him with. I ordered a few textbooks from Amazon, but I wanted him to be challenged. This site is doing just that. The cost is just $19.95 per month for the first student and then an additional $14.95 for each additional student. The lessons are incredibly in depth and there is an excellent tool available for parents to use so they can set up their child's daily learning activities. There are even printable worksheets available for some of the lessons as well (great for evening homework). You go in, generate a report and select what subjects your child will be learning each day. You also have the ability to keep an eye on their grades. I like that I am involved in what my son is doing. So far, he really likes it as well.

  FreeRice.com This is probably one of my favorite sites yet for English vocabulary. I used this one with my fifth grader. It's free to play and the point of the games is to get the answer correct. When you are successful you earn ten grains of rice that go toward the United Nations World Food Programme to end hunger. It's a game with a purpose. That's always a bonus. I've noticed they have other topics available, such as humanities, math, chemistry, and so on. However, we've only tried the vocabulary games so far. This is a great tool to have to help teach your child about global issues and also how they can make a difference even when they think they can't.

 KidsGeo.com We use this free site in our home to help teach the boys all of the states, capitals, countries, and continents. They have these really simple, yet effective, state match games which only take a few minutes to complete. Both of my boys seem to like this site as well.

Geocaching.com If you haven't been geocaching, then you don't know what you're missing. This has been an excellent tool to help us teach the boys map reading and it's always a good idea to explore our world. My youngest son and I went out last week and looked for two geocaches which were nearby us. We used this website (we didn't pay for the premium option, we only used the free part) and the free phone app to explore and search for the hidden geocache. We found one of two that we were searching for. It was really fun being a detective and getting outside for some fresh air. This site lists all of the entered caches available. You can search your zip code to see which ones are close to you or which ones may be in an area you'll be visiting. It's really well organized and there are clues to help you along the way. If you get stuck, you can turn to the community or maybe even check previous visitors comments on the site. This is a just a fun outdoor activity to take part in.

XtraMath.org  This is an amazing free website to help your child with math. We have only used this site two times, but I am completely impressed. It is useful to help with everything from addition to division. The site is great for building upon math skills. My son needed some work with math, so we've been using this site to help rebuild his skills. We started simple and we're working our way up.




  Ellen McHenry's Basement Workshop  This is a really nice site, set up by what appears to be a woman full of creativity. She offers books for sale, free downloads to help with homeschooling, her own educational website list, and many other ideas. I have used this site only a few times as well. However, this is a nice resource to have. It seems to have a lot of science material available.

Well, that completes my list of websites so far. I have found quite a few sites to frequent, but I only wanted to list the ones that we have been using more and more. I'm sure there are some great ones out there and I'd love to check them out. If you have any sites you'd like to pass on to this homeschooling newbie, I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks fore reading.

Take care,
NB