50+ Magical Ways to Learn Together This Week

Looking for some fun ways to learn with the kiddos? Here are oodles of ways to use fun and games to learn math, history, geography, reading, writing, science and more! Visit a museum in your area that you’ve never been to. Close your eyes, spin the globe, and put your finger down. Look to see […]

10 Fun Free Ways to Play with Geography

Looking for some fun ways to sneak in some geography this week? Here are all kinds of ways to help kids (and you!) learn about countries, maps and regions. Note: Affiliate links to Amazon are provided when helpful. Purchases from our links earn us a small commission to help keep the lights on here. I […]

Short Division Makes Math Easy

Note: This is an article that ran on my homeschooling column at Examiner around 2009 titled “Long Division Is So Last Century.” Last week a fellow homeschooling mother told me that her sons were struggling some days with long division.  I cringed and admitted we had not even started on the subject at our house.  […]

Learn French Free with The French Tutorial

Have you heard of The French Tutorial? It offers a full French course absolutely free online. The website, which has been around since 1999, says: The French Tutorial is a web-based step by step lesson covering basics, pronunciation, but also grammar, vocabulary and everyday French. It offers audio and video support for better oral comprehension, […]

Fabulous Free American Sign Language Curriculum, Classes & More

Is your child interested in learning American Sign Language? There are some really wonderful free resources for kids of all ages to learn ASL. The American Sign Language University offers wonderful free online ASL classes.  They provide four levels of classes for free, with each course building on the last and comprising of 15 in-depth […]

Kids Can Learn Native Languages FREE with 7000 Languages

Here’s a wonderful free resource for adults or kids to learn indigenous languages. 7000 Languages is a nonprofit website and app that teaches native languages such as Dakota, Cree, Balinese and Ojibwe, absolutely free. 7000 Languages explains: We create free online language-learning courses in partnership with Indigenous, minority, and refugee communities so they can keep […]

Artsology Uses Games to Teach Kids About Famous Art

Have your kids played on Artsology yet? This free site uses a wide range of games and activities to teach kids about famous art and music, from Georgia O’Keefe flower puzzles to Salvado Dali hangman to virtual graffiti tagging and jazz musician name scrambles. This is a site we visited with our older kids years […]

Free Online Ojibwe Language Class

Here’s a fantastic free resource for foreign language learning. The University of Wisconsin Au Claire allows anyone to view their live or archived Ojibwe (Chippewa) language classes absolutely free. The University says: Welcome to our Online Ojibwe Language Program, where anyone can watch our live or archived classes for free. Archived classes can be found […]

Kids Can Learn History, Mythology and More With FREE Superhero Course with Late Stan Lee

Kids Can Learn History, Mythology and More With FREE Superhero Course with Late Stan Lee

Here’s a fantastic opportunity for kids who like superheroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Avengers that will help them learn history, mythology and more.  Before his death, comic book legend Stan Lee contributed to a class on superheroes that’s now available for free on edX. The SmithsonianX course, titled “The Rise of Superheroes and […]

Free Printable Weather Tree for April

Free Printable Weather Tree for April

Here’s a fun way for kids to track the weather and sneak in some math!  Have them color a weather tree this month, with each color representing a different kind of weather. I make up a weather tree for each issue of Wild Kids Magazine, a free monthly nature magazine for kids and their grown […]

February weather tree

Free Printable Weather Tree for February

Weather trees are great ways to incorporate art, nature studies, science and even math into a fun daily project.  Here’s a free printable weather tree for February to help your kids track the month’s weather. Kids can assign a different color to each weather type, then color one leaf each day to show that day’s […]

IHA offers free U.S. History textbook online

IHA Offers FREE U.S. History Textbook Online

Here’s a great resource for high school or advanced middle school level American history. USHistory.org offers its entire U.S. history textbook free online. The 60-unit textbook covers our nation’s history “From Pre-Columbian to the New Millennium,” with chapters beginning with Native American Society on the Eve of British Colonization and ending with Toward a New […]

TypingWeb offers free trackable typing program for homeschoolers

TypingWeb Offers FREE Trackable Typing Program for Homeschoolers

Here’s a great typing resource for homeschoolers. TypingWeb offers typing lessons and games for all ages, along with the ability for parents to track typing progress and improvement. Some of the features of TypingWeb include the options to: Create classes and add students Track student progress Monitor student lessons and improvement Calculate words per minute […]

Free curricula in every subject for your 3rd grader

Free Curricula in Every Subject for Your 3rd Grader

Continuing in our series of absolutely free curricula in every subject for every grade, here’s a round-up of resources for math, science, history, language arts and more that are absolutely free for third grade. (Note from Alicia:  This post was compiled as part of a series for my homeschooling column at Examiner, which is no […]

Around the Horn Gold Rush Game

Print Out the FREE Around the Horn Game to Learn About the Gold Rush!

Here’s a fun way for kids to learn about the Gold Rush and have some fun family time along with it.  My husband developed the game “Around the Horn” to teach our kids about the Gold Rush and the little-known route that many Americans took out west — by ship.   He explained: When gold […]

Free Curriculum for Homeschooling 7th Grade

Free curricula in every subject for your 7th grader

  Homeschooling in the middle school years doesn’t have to be expensive. There are many outstanding curricula for math, science, history, language arts and more that are absolutely free. Here are some of the best free resources for 7th graders in each subject. Note: This is a tiny fraction of what’s available online for free […]

Free 700-page middle school chemistry course available online

Free 700-page middle school chemistry course available online

Looking for a comprehensive chemistry course for the middle school level? The American Chemical Society provides their entire 691-page curriculum for free as a PDF download or online resource. Middle School Chemistry: Big Ideas About the Very Small is designed to be an 8-10 week course, with each lesson requiring about 45 minutes to one […]

Free 9th Grade Animal Biology Curriculum Fat Dogs and Coughing Horses

Free 9th Grade Animal Biology Curriculum

Here’s a great freebie, courtesy of Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.  They offer their 9th grade curriculum, “Fat Dogs and Coughing Horses,” absolutely free online. They say: The 9th grade biology curriculum is already full and teachers often feel pressured by trying to cover everything during the course of the school year. With that […]

BirdSleuth free printable book guide

Free Printable Bird Guide

Here’s a wonderful freebie for your nature studies.  The Cornell Institute of Ornithology offers its 12 page BirdSleuth Explorer’s Guidebook absolutely free to download and print. The full color booklet includes lots of great stuff for identifying birds, including some fun activities and worksheets to fill out. Pages include: Wake up your ears What’s a […]

FREE printable botany plant ID cards

FREE Printable Botany Plant Quiz Cards!

Here’s a great freebie for nature studies and botany lessons.   Go Botany, a fantastic web site that has all kinds of plant identification tools, offers these printable cards.  They say: Practice your identification skills with these handy plant quiz cards! Even when you cannot get outside or sample live plant specimens, you and your […]

March Nature Studies

March Nature Studies: 10 Wonderful Ways to Learn with Nature in March

Looking for some fun ways to work nature studies into your homeschooling this month?  Here are all kinds of wonderful ways to use nature to work science, math, writing, art and more into your learning. Whether you live out in the country or are stuck inside an apartment this month, there are still ideas to […]

Facts, activity pages and more to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.

Facts, activity pages and more to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here’s an assortment of lesson plans, pages, songs, interesting info and more to use in your homeschool. abc Teach has a printable PDF bio with a multiple choice Q&A at the end. The Crafty Crow has MLK Day crafts and KidsSoup has some great crafts and activities. […]

Shakespeare Fortune Teller!

Shakespeare Fortune Teller! (and lots more Shakespeare fun)

Here’s a way to have a little fun with the kids and work in some Shakespeare. Shakespeare online has a Shakespeare Fortune Teller that lets you pick from 7 questions to see which Shakespeare quote will tell your fates. The questions are… Will I be prosperous? Will I get married? Will he change after marriage? […]

Free Innate Immune System Poster!

Here’s a fantastic science freebie! The innate immune system is your first line of defense against many pathogens. BioLegend is offering their newest poster on Innate Immune Signaling, which covers TLR, NOD, Lectin signaling pathways, and more. You can learn more about innate signaling with their webpage and request this FREE poster and many others […]