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Favorite Online Homeschool Resources

A few well-placed online homeschool resources can be of such value.

Each year when my children were young I always tried to incorporate some form of online learning. Children need to be familiar with this type of learning. It is the future.

While it has never been our PRIMARY mode of learning, as my children got older it played a more important role.

Because we are in the season of choosing and purchasing curriculum, I want to share a few of our best picks with you. Some are current. Some are past. Some are for multiple ages. Some are for youngers. Some are for olders. Some are live online courses; others are recorded. Some contain resources we access with frequency online.

All, however, win the Homegrown Learners seal of approval!

There is something for EVERYONE in this list.

Favorite Online #Homeschool Resources

Full Online Courses

The following sites offer entire online courses. Some of them are accredited, others are not.

Some offer FULL grading and are 100% hands-off for the parents, others only offer the teaching while the grading is kept track of by the parent.

Still others are more of simply presenting information for information’s sake without a grade.

I enjoyed giving my children a little bit of everything - that is the beauty of homeschooling!

Veritas Press History

The self-paced history courses from Veritas were always a HUGE hit.

From the elementary into the middle school years, my children enjoyed the engaging lessons. I enjoyed the fact that I could set them down in front of the computer for at least 45 minutes and they were getting an excellent history education.

Couple this with the suggest literature list that comes with a Veritas self paced history course and you’re set for the year.

  • Note: Until August 19 at midnight receive $100 off any self paced course!

Experience Astronomy & Experience Biology

Experience Astronomy is a full year course. There are elementary, middle, and high school levels.

My son took this course as a 6th grader and learned inordinate amounts from Luke Gilkerson, the teacher and author of the course. I loved that it was taught from a Biblical point of view and my son could also be fairly independent while taking the course.

With recorded lectures from Mr. Gilkerson, as well as supplemental activities and quizzes, this will satisfy a science requirement - and more importantly satisfy a curiosity in Astronomy.

Homeschool Spanish Academy

What a wonderful surprise Homeschool Spanish Academy has been this year!

Basically, my son is taking a 1 credit Spanish class this year online. He receives 60 sessions over the course of a year. These lesson are PRIVATE, and you wouldn’t believe how much learning can be accomplished in this way!

Using Google Hangouts, Grant logs on with his Spanish teacher twice a week (we can schedule the classes at our convenience, which is very nice) and is working through the Spanish I curriculum.

If you are looking for a wonderful Spanish provider, I suggest you look into Homeschool Spanish Academy!

Compass Classroom

Compass Classroom has long been a trusted resource for our family.

We have used Word Up! vocabulary program and Visual Latin.

This year we are using Dave Raymond’s American History video curriculum.

Raymond’s lessons are based on STORY are the entire curriculum is authored with a Biblical worldview.

Mr. D Math

Mr. D Math was my daughter’s math curriculum for high school.

She had a lot of success with Mr. D - not only is his curriculum sound and engaging, Mr. D is a wonderful person who is the biggest champion of homeschoolers you will ever meet.

Many people ask me about Saxon, Mr. D Math and Shormann.

Every child is different. In my house Saxon worked well until high school. Then, for my non-math child Mr. D Math worked well. For my highly math child, we are going with Shormann. I encourage you to investigate each one thoroughly for yourself.

Shormann Math

My son is on his second year of Shormann Math. (Eight out of the eleven students in his Challenge 1 group are using Shormann, so we’re all sold!)

We chose this for Grant because of the strong SAT/ACT test prep built in as well as the Biblical worldview. It has considerably LESS spiraling than Saxon Math, which is what seems to bog down most children.

This curriculum is recorded video - self paced. Everything is graded for you, so it could (in theory) be 100% hands off for the homeschool parent.

Students learn how to take notes, see math through a Biblical lens, and work independently. While not technically a “classroom” environment, I like that it is math from an expert and I am hands off.

Memoria Press Academy

Memoria Press has been a great choice for three full online courses for my daughter. She took AP European History and Henle Latin I and II.

A fully accredited school, Memoria’s Press’ academy is rigorous, organized, and of the highest quality.

If you are looking to 100% outsource a subject (s) - I highly recommend Memoria Press Online Academy!

HSLDA Online Academy

Many people don’t realize HSLDA has an academy.

They do (for grades 7-12), and it’s wonderful! My daughter had an exceptional experience taking AP Exposition and Composition - she will tell you it was the BEST class she took in high school. It prepared her for essay writing for college and just honed her writing skills in general.

Her teacher was encouraging, easy to contact, and provided a college letter of recommendation. I got the impression that her teacher truly CARED about each individual student and helping them succeed.

HSLDA is accredited and offers a full range of courses.

Again - this is an excellent place to outsource your high school classes!

Homeschool Printables/Resources/Recorded Lessons

Productive Homeschool (formerly Notebooking Pages)

Notebooking Pages were an INTEGRAL part of our homeschool in the elementary and middle grade years. The site is still basically the same - simply with a new name. Check out Productive Homeschooling.

Free Homeschool Resources (Notebooking Pages & More!)

SQUILT LIVE! Music Appreciation

SQUILT Music Appreciation (my baby) brings live music appreciation lessons to children ages preschool - middle school.

A membership to SQUILT LIVE! includes two live lessons each month, a curated monthly listening calendar, and access to the ENTIRE ARCHIVES of recorded lessons and lesson packets - this is FIFTY additional lessons at your disposal.

Children need beautiful music - and the byproduct of a solid music appreciation education is a child who has developed the habit of attention and the ability to listen for intricacies in any piece of music.


You Are An Artist! Clubhouse and Video Lessons

I’m sure you know about Chalk Pastels, right?

One of my children’s most fond memories was when we had an Angry Birds day in our homeschool. The highlight of that day was our Angry Birds chalk pastel tutorial.

Chalk Pastels are just such a wonderful art medium for children. And, at You ARE An Artist there is so much to choose from. My personal favorite is the American Landmarks lessons.

American Landmarks from Sea to Shining Sea

Your Morning Basket/Homeschool Solutions

Another “good thing” in our homeschool has been (and continues to be) Morning Time.

At Homeschool Solutions, Pam Barnhill has ready made morning time plans, along with a lot of other tools to help you plan your school year effectively.

I love the subscription Pam has that includes 37 different sets of Morning Time plans!

That rounds out my online homeschool resource recommendation list! Do you have a favorite online resource for homeschooling?

Tell me about it in the comments below.

Using The Story of The World as a Spine For Learning

Do you ever just wonder WHERE TO START in homeschooling?  

What can be the basis for all of your learning?

The Story of the World has been an integral part of our homeschool over the years - and served as the spine for our homeschool for many years.

I want to share how we use this basic history text and activity guide as a spine for learning in our homeschool. Along with those two things I got just a bit creative, did some research, and came up with engaging, memorable, and fun activities for my children.

Yes, we used the Story of the World at points for supplemental reading, listening, and just for fun, but his post will address how we used The Story of the World as a spine for learning in our homeschool.

Using the Story of the World as a Spine for Learning in Your Homeschool

The Story of the World was always a wonderful SPINE for all of our other learning. I pulled read-alouds, music selections, art study, science, and other subjects from our activities in Story of the World. 

Plus, this book is written by Susan Wise-Bauer. I have enormous respect for her and all of her curriculum pieces have worked well for my children. (We are fans of Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons.)

If you are on the beginning of your homeschool journey, or have never read The Well Trained Mind, I HIGHLY recommend this book. I read it before we started homeschooling and it shaped my philosophy then and continues to do so today, as well. 

The Story of the World presents the history of the world in a chronological manner that makes SENSE. I could see my children (and me!) learn about new events in history and relate them to many other events they have learned about in SOTW. They are learning history isn't isolated. Everything is connected.

Our Story

Our story (which I think is very similar to many other homeschoolers) is simple.

I was schooling my children at home without the aid of a co-op or structured program we would attend each week.I wanted a history curriculum that incorporated LIVING BOOKS, HANDS ON ACTIVITIES, and A CHRONOLOGICAL PRESENTATION.

We began  with Volume 1. Fast forward 5 years and we made it through Volume 4.

( Yes, that means it is taking us more than a year to get through each volume.  Don't hyperventilate.  That's ok! )

We stop at points that are interesting. Sometimes one chapter will take us an entire week (or two).

We spent several weeks studying Robin Hood in a delight directed way.  What fun that was! It was all inspired by an edition of the book recommended in the SOTW Activity Guide.  

I know we have TIME, and as long as my children's interest is there I'm not worried about completing the volumes in a certain time period.

Examples

In this post I will use Volume 3 - Early Modern Times as an example.  I think this is because it was my personal favorite of all 4 volumes.

I always purchased the book and activity guide.

We pull most of our read-alouds and activities from the SOTW Activity Guide.

It's important to note I didn't do anything fancy.  We notebooked through the activity guide (more on that in a minute) and I chose some of the suggested read-alouds to share with my children.

Some of our favorite read-alouds from Volume 3 were:

bloodontheriver.png

Take, for example, the above example from Chapter 3:  James, King of Two Countries.  

The student pages (included in the activity guide) include mapwork, coloring pages, and other activities. 

Example Lesson from Story of the World

  • Read the chapter aloud - have children take notes (more on that in a minute!), do narration questions and mapwork suggested in the guide. 

 

 

My son (who is 8 and in second grade) builds LEGO creations to along with our chapter, colors a coloring sheet from the activity guide, or draws while listening to the chapter. I require my daughter to take more extensive notes since she is middle grades now. 

  • Throughout the course of the week we had read-aloud to go with our chapter. This particular week it was Blood on The River, an excellent living book about a page working for Captain John Smith. 

 

I also know that Handel was living at this same time in Europe, so we completed the Handel lesson from SQUILT Volume 1.

We also had a book of Isaac Newton activities and chose a couple that interested the kids. 

One night we sat as a family and watched Nightmare in Jamestown on Netflix.

We read passages from the King James Version of the Bible.

 

  • You get the idea. Anything related to this period of time we were researching and enjoying. Use your imagination and let your children be your guide, too.

 

Yes, it took some legwork on my part. But, it's a lifestyle of learning that I believe is worth it.

The activity guide does a lot of the research for you, though, and after a while I came to enjoy the research. I am learned so much about history.

Notebooking

If you aren't familiar with notebooking, I would like to recommend my friend Jimmie's post: Getting Started With Notebooking is a great post to help you understand what it's all about!

When I put together the Volume 3 notebooks for my kids, I did the .pdf download of the student pages. Yes, I still ordered the physical Activity Guide (for the teaching notes and activity suggestions), but downloading the student pages allows me to print them for my kids, and only print what we need/want. It also keeps everything on the up and up with copyright.

Both of my children keep extensive history notebooks. They look back on them with pride and joy. It is something we will save for years to come.

This video might be helpful to you as you notebook through the curriculum.

Notebooking Pages

Since my daughter is in middle school now, I really wanted her to do a little more written work this year. With each chapter I require her to take notes. She records any terms she doesn't know, important dates, people, places, etc... 

My membership to Notebooking Pages has been such a tremendous help with notebooking. There are templates for every single event in history you can think of. There are blank templates that you can print and have the child customize. And, I don't even have time to go into how awesome the Notebooking Publisher App. is.

If you are considering using SOTW as your history curriculum, I believe the investment in a Notebooking Pages Membership is WORTH IT! 

I have printed  country pages, animal pages, and so much more - all to go with our studies in Story of the World. There are timeline pages, book of centuries pages, and pages to go with each era in history. If you need a notebooking page, Notebooking Pages has it.  I promise.

And if they don't, they will most likely make one for you upon request. 

oldsotwpost.png

Here is a simple lined notebooking page I gave my daughter after our Jamestown chapter. She narrated back from the chapter and did a beautiful job. 

jamestownnotebooking.png

She also completed a "Modern Times" notebooking sheet (I require one of these for each chapter!), which helps her take notes during the chapter.

Do you see why I love Story of the World so much?

moderntimesnotebooking.png

In the very first chapters of Volume 3 we were learning about the Incas in Peru. My son latched onto this. I was able to print a map of South America, and make another page all about Llams from the Notebooking Publisher Web App. We had a science study about Llamas for a week and it was such fun! 

 

Notebooking Pages LIFETIME Membership

 

Final Thoughts

The reasons we use Story of the World are simple:

  • Beautiful stories, in chronological order
  • Wonderful suggestions in the activity guide for extending learning
  • A Classical approach to history, which works well for my children - lots of narration and quality literature appeal to us
  • It provides a spine for all of our other learning - from science to music - from art to literature

If you're looking for a neat and simple history curriculum, The Story of the World is it.  You can do as little or as much as you want with it, and it is customizable for a wide age range. 

Story of The World Resources & More:

The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised EditionThe Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance (Second Revised Edition) (Vol. 2) (Story of the World)The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 3: Early Modern TimesThe Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 4: The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSRThe Story of the World, Activity Book 1: Ancient Times - From the Earliest Nomad to the Last Roman EmperorThe Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Activity Book 2: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the RenaissanceThe Story of the World Activity Book Three: Early Modern TimesThe Story of the World Activity Book Four: The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSRStory of the World Audiobook Collection, Volumes 1-4 Books on CDThe Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (Kingfisher Encyclopedias)

 

 

*Note:  Peace Hill Press publishes The Story of The World.  I did not receive any compensation or product for this post. I just love this curriculum and it has worked well for my children.  

Using the Story of the World as a Spine for Learning In Your Homeschool