Homeschooling can cost a fortune. Textbooks, teacher's manual's with test booklets can easily run over $300! And that's just for one grade level and one subject. With most stay at home moms this could lead us away from even trying to educate our little ones. With only a single income household there is no way that I can afford to spend as much on home school supplies as I'd like to. Since buying whatever I desire is not an option I have decided to seek out as many free on-line resources as I can find. There are literally thousands from which to choose. Since there's no way I can use everything available I have chosen to focus mainly on texts in the public domain with minor reference to a few other significantly useful sites, most of what I got was information though web search on Google and yahoo and other free home schooling sites. I do upgrade often to keep my site current. This became a personal conviction when I first started having children, about 24 years ago, the beginning years has been a real challenge, now with more searching and studying this is what I came up with. It's my prayer that it blesses you and your family as it has mine.. Currently I have 6 children homeschooling and 5 grown children, so I really understand the need to educate on a strict budget.
Public domain works include those that were published before 1923. They are now copyright free. This means that the public may download, print, copy and reproduce these texts in any way they please. For instance, these books can be printed out and used in a small new home school that is low on cash but high in creativity. A solution presents itself.
Most kids love a balanced combination of
textbooks & living-books.
Teaching with a balanced combination, of textbooks and so-called living-books. The term living-books was coined by the great educator Charlotte Mason (to download, right-click, then Save Target As).
It uses books that are fun and interesting to read, books that
draw the reader into the plot and educate while entertaining.
I came across this at a site called Ambleside Online.
They have a high quality, free curriculum that follows
Charlotte Mason's principles of education, producing a thorough and
well-rounded liberal arts course of study. This curriculum is
built largely, but not completely, on public domain texts. I
started off buying old used books from antique books stores, thrift
stores, and garage sales but with moving and life's changes it became
harder to lug everything around, so this is a great alternative. I do
recommend that you buy old 18th century books, if you can afford to and
start your own library a little at a time one never knows how long most
of the free site's will be up and running. When I went in search of educational resources that would allow me to customize and create a program that would suit the needs of my children and still accommodate my pocketbook. After examining online sources of public domain texts like Project Gutenberg, Online Books Page, Internet Archive, Baldwin Project and Christian Classics Ethereal Library I realized that the main limitations to my search is the sheer quantity of books available. I needed to develop a plan of organization and determine which subjects to teach in which grade. This site serves as my main organizational system. Categories are listed on the left hand side of the page. Click on a subject page's for all the full curriculum's to go to that subject page. Each page has a list of links to books
and/or
websites in that subject. Some links suggest an appropriate
grade level and others do not. A quick glance will show you
that there are more than enough books already online to give a
thorough education to anyone, from Kindergartners up to graduating
Seniors. Plus miraculously, more appear every day!Click here for my Site:
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