Want to Homeschool for Free? Here’s What You Need to Know
Is it possible to homeschool for free? Can you really get free homeschool resources that provide a complete education? How difficult is it to find quality free homeschooling curriculum? This post from Leah answers these questions about how to homeschool for free.
How to Homeschool for Free
There’s no denying that homeschooling has the potential to get pretty pricey. Buying curricula, signing up for online classes, finding local co-op classes- the price tag can really add up. So if you ever see ideas for homeschooling for free, you’re tempted to jump right away. But can homeschooling really be “free”? If you’re hoping to homeschool for free (or really cheap), here are some things you need to know and some resources that might help to lower your homeschooling costs.
Create a system to organize free materials you find online
Most of the time, free homeschool materials are scattered around. One site has free math lessons, another site has free literature lapbooks, yet another has free science videos. (There are a few exceptions of free full curricula sites that I’ll talk about a little later down.) In order to be able to use all of these free resources, you’ll need some way to keep track of what you’re collecting and how you’re going to use it.
Do you ever download these great freebies that come up and then totally forget them and never open them again? I do. Often. I’ve decided that I need an organization system, and I think this would be especially important if you were saving all these downloads to be able to homeschool for free. I want to sort my download files by subject and then create a master spreadsheet with a listing of each resource, its subject, and its grade level. If you were trying to homeschool for free, you could then use this master list to pick the resources you need to fill in specific subject areas.
I would also suggest that you create a master spreadsheet each school year that will show each of your students, the school subjects that they are covering that year, and what materials you’re going to use to cover each subject. As you find new freebies or look up freebies from your master download sheet, you can plan what you’re going to use with each student and each subject for the year. With a little planning and coordination, you really can put all of these freebies to good use and save money on homeschool curricula.
{Read 10 Tips for Organizing Digital Curriculum.}
Bookmark websites with free content and use these as you plan out the resources you’re going to use for the school year
I am not sure how homeschoolers survived before the advent of the internet. Having online access puts tons of resources- free, inexpensive, or pricey- at your fingertips. I use the internet for our homeschooling every single day.
There have been a few times, however, that I saw some awesome online resource and meant to come back to the website later but didn’t bookmark it. And then, I’ll think about that site when it would be just the perfect thing to use…but I can’t remember the web address. Sometimes I can find it again by searching. But if I don’t remember enough about it, I find myself spending tons of time and maybe not even finding it again.
To prevent this, I try (not always successfully) to organize these sites in my browser bookmarks. I save them by school subject under the umbrella of “free homeschool sites.” Then, when I’m planning what to use for each child in each subject, I can easily find that awesome site I remember and include it in my plans.
Know that not all freebies and free sites are created equal
Some of the resources that I have found for free have been wonderful resources for our homeschool. We’ve used them and loved them. But some of the freebies I’ve found floating around or free websites I’ve discovered are really just not that good.
If you want to be able to use free resources and free websites to homeschool for free, you’re going to have to be willing to search through and find the resources that are really worth using. That may mean that planning your homeschooling is going to take much more time and effort than if you were to buy a curriculum that was already put together and planned out for you. Finding great free resources is possible, but it may take time to make sure that you’re really finding those quality freebies.
It would take a super long post to list every free homeschooling site out there, but here are a few that I’ve used or personally known other homeschoolers to use and like.
- Khan Academy has video classes for math, science, computer, art, history, grammar, economics, and standardized test prep. You can watch selected videos- like searching for a demonstration of a math topic that your child is struggling with- or go through a full course to use Kahn for a complete class curriculum.
- Math Drills has thousands of free printable math worksheets for all ages.
- Homeschool Share has many free lapbooks and literature unit studies for preschoolers through upper elementary students.
- Starfall has lots of free resources for learning to read- from phonics and basic letter sounds to reading sentences.
- Vocabulary Spelling City lets you make spelling and vocabulary lists for students to study. There is a paid version (which isn’t that expensive and has some nice extras), but you can get lots of use out of the free resources as well.
- Easy Peasy All-in-One-Homeschool is one of those free, full-curriculum sites that are available. The creators of this curriculum site have actually done the legwork of connecting tons of resources and coming up with lesson plans for preschool through high school.
- Ambleside Online is another full, free curriculum sites. It’s full curriculum for kindergarten through high school, using living books and a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education. It doesn’t include math but has some recommendations for what to do for the subject.
- Free typing games are another way to practice basic skills in your homeschool.
- Of course, homeschool blogs often offer free printables or free curriculum samples.
So, is it possible to homeschool free? The answer is a “yes…but.” If you keep yourself organized and know where to look for good, quality resources, you can homeschool for free or cheap.
What are your favorite free homeschool resources?
~Leah
- 5 Ways to Celebrate Spring with Nature Study - February 6, 2024
- 5 Things to Consider When You’re Thinking of Changing Your Homeschool Curriculum - September 6, 2023
- What To Do When You Just Don’t Feel Like Homeschooling - February 17, 2023
We used Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool for a few years and it worked well. Sharing the computer was hard, so we downloaded the free curricula from https://plainandnotsoplain.com/free-schooling-resources. Our library let us print it for free. With that, you still use All-in-One for science and social studies but at least they’re writing every day on worksheets, too. Helps with computer sharing as well. I still pick and choose from All-in-One because not everything fits my children’s learning styles. I need to stay really minimal in order to keep up!