Tweet

We’ve been homeschooling for the last year and a half, and we’ve been traveling. We’re currently in France, and English language books are hard to find. Not to mention, school supplies are a bit pricey! Wherever I’ve been, the Internet is a great source for free activities, ideas, games, and stories. These are some great websites I have found that help out. They’re not just for homeschoolers! Lots of these are fun for kids of any kind. If you’ve got kids in public or private school who are struggling, or just not enjoying school, this may help you put a little spark back into things.

SchoolExpress – they have a lot of free worksheets,
and a few free workbooks, coloring pages, online games, and all kinds
of stuff. They also have e-workbooks to buy.

FunBrain – games, and other stuff, almost all educational

ClassBrain - similar to funbrain

FactMonster - all kinds of good stuff on here.

Science New For Kids – this one has some really good
articles about all kinds of science, animals, etc. and also games. I like it that they let kids give a grade to each article, and encourage comments.

I found this one today…it’s for learning French, English, or Spanish. It has some great, simple games
and stuff to hear, see, and reinforce things.

Englishbanana.com is made mostly for English as a Second Language
students, but I found a lot of stuff on there that I have used for
my son. They have several printable books here

I use YouTube for a lot of stuff…you have to check ahead of time
and filter through stuff. I wouldn’t just let a kid loose on there (and you have to watch yourself too–it’s addicting!).
But there are storytelling, jokes, songs, video clips of things like
Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. We found some great French folk songs
with animation or sung by kids. We’ve found entertaining videos about the parts of speech, history, and all kinds of other things, put together by classrooms. It’s http://www.Youtube.com of course.

Kids National Geographic has a lot of games, videos and articles for kids, and the main
NationalGeographic.com has video clips.

pbskids.org has games, video clips, etc. PBS also has Sprout

NickJr has games, videos, and also ideas for things
to do offline.

I’m a member of a great Yahoo Group for homeschoolers:

Like any group, there is a lot of offtopic discussion, but there is also quite a bit of helpful information and resources. It’s a great place to ask a question about anything to do with homeschooling (you can also ask me! Just click on Contact)

And this is one to get pen pals, either online, or through snail mail:

There are plenty of stories and books to read online. Some are better quality than others, but there are some nice goodies out there. Here are a few sites to find them on:

This one is a little expensive for me, but I have downloaded their
sample books, and they have some good stuff. It’s leveled, and has
things like worksheets, flashcards, and quizzes to go with the ebooks:

http://www.readinga-z.com/

This one has free ebooks to read online. They’re old, public domain,
so some of them are a little dry and strange, but they have some good
stuff like Beatrix Potter.

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/

And just for general fun games (which are sometimes educational, or
just cool!) I like Good Experience.com’s games list He adds new
ones every once in a while. A lot of these are fun for grown-ups as well as kids!

Check back here for more as I will start posting things that my son and I are doing together, ideas, resources, etc. And tell me what you’re using! I’m always looking for free and unique ideas and websites. If you have a resource I haven’t listed, drop me a line.