What free or inexpensive resources do you use in your homeschool?

[KristineIN]

Just curious what free things or very inexpensive things you have found and use. It's fun seeing what resources people can come up with.

Please share.
Kristine

[Myrtle]

We've been finding that some of the very best math books were from the 1960's and are being sold used for less than $10 in places like Albiris. I suppose that you'd need to know ahead of time what title you were looking for. The old Dolciani's are still available. We found our "perfect" algebra program for $7, it's all sold out now but at the time it wasn't.

Google books has free spellers, grammars, early readers, phonics programs, latin and greek grammars, (I don't have the Webster phonics program in my library yet though and it's supposed to be good), I was surfing and came across a book that teaches synthetic geometry to elementary age children. You can click on my google library link and see what all I've read through or in the process of reading through, although I'm not using any of it with my kids...yet.

In real life I found a free sail-training program for my son that teaches the kids how to sail a tall ship (see my avatar? That's the exact ship!) and once trained there will be an all kids crew sailing her on a day sail trip by the end of this month. The entire program is free to participating children. I would check into public museums in your area and see what sorts of programs they offer for children.

I'm in the process of checking out free chess clubs at libraries to sign up the kids. The one at our library doen't have enough participants and perhaps there is another at a library further away.

I have used the free interlibrary loan to look at books that I want to buy before I buy them. I got to examine Jacob's Geometry, Landau's Foundations, Art of Problem solving books. In fact, anything that is eligible for interlibrary loan at any other library in the US is something I can get my hands on if I only requested it.

[Beth in Central TX]

Free on-line resources that I use more than I thought I would are Wikipedia and Ambleside Online.

[SBP]

I love, love, love the geography at Sheppard Software (http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/)!

SBP

[Lorna]

We use National Museums a great deal. They are nearly always free in Europe, very quiet during the week and in Liverpool we were able to sign up for free three hour workshops for our little home-educators group. These workshops ranged from Indonesian Shadow Puppets, handling ancient Egyptian artefacts to bugs. We were able to go into the museum's Natural History department and have the two experts to ourselves for three hours talking to the children about geology. If your children are interested and want to ask lots of questions we have found most museums are thrilled to have them. Liverpool World Museum also does performances, lectures and educational films. All of which are free.
Libraries are also an amazing free resource. See my blog entry on our wondrous Copenhagen library (http://socksandbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/danish-library.html).
We have used some great resources from the internet too.
Recently we have been using the free resources at Ellen McHenry's science curriculum site (http://ellenjmchenry.com/id1.html). She has resources there for other subjects too. They are beautifully written and well thought out. We loved using the freebies so much we have started using what we can buy off her too.
Ds came to the end of his Spelling Workout and we have to wait a bit until his new copy arrives but I have adapted karenciavo (http://homepage.mac.com/rivendellpress/FileSharing44.html)'s spelling sheets, adding ds's words and they have been perfect. The first day ds copies out the spelling words and copies out the sentences; the second day he writes flashcards and learns them, I then do dictation using the previous day's sentences; on day three he has a spelling test. If there are any wrong (which they rarely are) on day three he writes a sentence using that word. I also use Project Gutenberg to find good sentences for my words. For example, his word might be 'consideration'. I choose a book he is reading or a good classic and search using control + f to do a search for the word 'consideration' and use the sentence that comes up.
I use many links that have been suggested here.
Free children's literary magazines:
Halfway Down the Stairs (http://www.hdsmag.com/)
Sparrow Tree Square (http://www.sparrowtreesquare.com/)
These are full of Classic Children's Literature and poetry.

Free crafts and recipes for children:

Museum of Childhood old-fashioned paper toys (http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/kids/things_to_make/index.html)
Jamboree (http://www.jamboree.freedom-in-education.co.uk/) - written by home-educated children with crafts and recipes
Origami club (http://www.origami-club.com/en/)- this site has origami step-by-step with animations. Many of the things are toys at the end and it is so easy to follow

I use the BBC radio site for 'In Our Time' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/) with Melvyn Bragg. These are podcasts covering topics at a high level but with no previous knowledge presumed. I use this for history, science, philosophy, art, religion, literature etc.
The BBC's Big Toe Books (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/kids/bigtoe/) is wonderful for frazzled moments when the children need to wind down to a good story but I am making the tea!

I'll post some more if I get a brain wave!:rolleyes:

[Cadam]

iknowthat.com

[lori in tx]

I have some math daily reviews:
http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/prodev/math/mentalmath/dailyreview.html

and

http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/E2T2/dmr.html

I downloaded it to a cd and took it to kinko's and copied them all at once.

hth
lori

[Calming Tea]

1. Lowe's Build and Grow- for free Dad and sons (or dd) can go to Lowe's and get an apron, and sit down with instructions to build a vast array of interesting and useful wooden things. They also receive a patch before leaving which I have sewn onto my son's apron. So far that I can remember he has built a firetruck, a hanging spider, a greeting card holder, a calendar holder (complete with pen and pencil holes, and the actual calendar included!), a basketball hoop for his trash can, and much more. It goes on every other week at almost any Lowe's and they provide the table and tools to use there.

2. The library- this is so obvious but not to everyone...the biggest thing that we like is the educational movies. Where else can you get as many educational movies as you want for free?

3. I am going to try this this upcoming school year for extra reading texts- but almost every local school board has a textbook depository where one can go and receive free books. You have to call to find out where they are and the best times of the year are RIGHT after the school year ends, after the schools drop off the old stuff but before the private schools come to get it.

[Angela in TN]

iknowthat.com (http://iknowthat.com)

I second this site, my boys both love it!!:D

[ThelmaLou]

I love, love, love the geography at Sheppard Software (http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/)!

SBP
Ditto Sheppard Software! Also, Fry's 1000 words, listed here:
http://www.riverspringscharter.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=425&Itemid=343

[Verena]

Just curious what free things or very inexpensive things you have found and use. It's fun seeing what resources people can come up with.

Please share.
Kristine

Only http://www.classicsforkids.com/ and United Streaming.

Other than that, the kids play an occasional math game on the 'puter, but I honestly forget what the name of the site is.

[Cricket]

Free on-line resources that I use more than I thought I would are Wikipedia and Ambleside Online.

I second Amblesideonline.org. It has lots of links to free online books.

I also like Librivox.org for free audiobooks.

[Faline]

I recently found a terrific printable map site. I've always been wanting HUGE maps!:D http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm

[Einen]

I love http://www.storynory.com (http://www.storynory.com/). There are tons of free stories read by a talented Englishwoman. Most of the stories are fairy tales and/or classics.

[Jenny in Florida]

Florida Virtual School which is free to us as Florida residents. Both of my kids have taken multiple classes with FLVS, most of which have been very good.

We also recently discovered the University of California College Prep open access courses. My son started Algebra One a couple of weeks ago and is doing very well with it.
http://www.ucopenaccess.org/

As someone else said, there's always the library, although given how frequently I let things get overdue, it's sometimes questionable just how "free" it is!

We also like LibriVox for free audio downloads.
http://librivox.org/

Both of my kids have used various online dictionaries.

We've downloaded some books from Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Oh, and I love the free literature study guides at Glencoe:
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/

And the teacher's guides from Penguin:
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/services-academic/teachersguides.html

Mine are past the age now, but when they were younger, we made frequent use of DLTK Kids for printable crafts and activities:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/

We print graph paper as needed from here:
http://www.printfreegraphpaper.com/

And there's the wonderful free art curriculum I recommend all the time:
http://members.aol.com/mrsspyboy/beginners.htm

And lots of other good ideas for art projects, both how-to and appreciation:
http://www.kinderart.com/

Neither of my kids are big on coloring, but I've found some good stuff here:
http://www.thebestkidsbooksite.com/coloringsheets.cfm

Oh, and I can't forget the Dover Sampler. You sign up (for free) and they send you an e-mail every week with samples of various Dover books. I check the message each week, download or copy anything I think we might use reasonably soon, and keep them organized into various categories so I can find them later:
http://www.doverpublications.com/sampler4/

That's all I can think of right now. I'll post again if more pops into my brain.

--Jenny

[Jenny in Florida]

Again, my kids are beyond it now, but this is the thing that first got my son reading: http://www.starfall.com/

--Jenny

[Cindyg]

We use Rosetta Stone from the library, but I know it will soon not be available. I'm hoping they replace it with something else.

Of course, the library itself is an answer to your question. We use it steadily. And the internet. I can't imagine doing this w/o the internet. Even this website. I can always get a quick answer to any homeschool-related question here.

I know United Streaming isn't free, but once you've paid for it, it kind of feels free to have access to all that content all year at the tip of your fingers. :) I can't imagine doing homeschool w/o that either.

[SBP]

This is an awesome thread! I forgot another site I use and really like, though I don't use it as often as the Sheppard Software site.

Classics for Kids (http://www.classicsforkids.com/) - great when you're studying composers :).

SBP

[Julie in GA]

National Geographic (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/)(for free outline maps)

Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page)(for public domain literature)

Diagramming Sentences (http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams2/one_pager1.htm)(examples of all types of sentences w/ diagrams). This has some examples that Mary Daly's book doesn't have.

CyberHymnal (http://cyberhymnal.org/) - for lyrics, history and tunes of hymns