Welcome to Week 1 of the Ten Weeks of Top Ten Lists sponsored by iHomeschoolNetwork. Lots of bloggers will be sharing their Top Ten lists on various topics over the next ten weeks. Today's topic: Top Ten Websites to Use for Homeschooling. Here are mine, in no particular order:
Keep in mind that I am not only a homeschooling mama but also teach upper elementary, middle, and high school literature/English classes at our co-op. You'll find my list heavy on literature and writing sites!
1. Netflix: Documentaries, biographies, histories, travel shows, and movies of all sorts—Netflix has become a vital part of our homeschooling. This post from Squidoo gives directions for how to easily find educational material on Netflix.
2. The Purdue Online Writing Lab: This is an amazing resource for all things writing and grammar.
3, 4, 5: Shmoop, Glencoe, Cummings Study Guides: Seriously, absolutely oodles of study guides, teaching ideas, inspiration, and actitivies for novels, short stories, plays and more.
6. YouTube: We use You Tube videos extensively, whether we are watching short clips to see what a particular animal looks like, learning origami, listening to music, or viewing a whole movie.
7. Math Drills: Loads of worksheets at every level to supplement whatever math curriculum you are using.
8. Pinterest: Like everyone else, I pin about three times more ideas than I will ever use, but still, Pinterest is a tremendous resource for me for organizing ideas and bookmarking sites visually. I refer to my homeschooling board almost as much as my recipe board!
9. Books Should Be Free: Hundreds of free audio books to download in mp3, iPod, or iTunes format. My kids love to listen to audiobooks, and this site has so many classics that my daughter needs for literature class. She listened to at least a couple of her novels this year rather than actually reading them herself. Why not?
10. Daily Grammar Archives: Fantastic and totally free comprehensive grammar lessons.
and a bonus, #11: (AKA, I miscounted and should now consult #7) Khan Academy: I have only just begun to tap into the incredible wealth of information at Khan Academy. Have you seen this yet? From Khan's website: "With over 3,200 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, we're on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace." Amazing stuff here.
Link up your own Top 10 favorites at Angie's Top Ten Tuesdays and check out all the iNetwork Homeschool lists
thanks for the books should be free website! what a great idea!
ReplyDeleteLove these. Most of them are known and LOVED to me but I see some new ones! About to check them out! Thanks
ReplyDeleteI listen to books at Books Should be Free every night on my iTouch! I LOVE that site! We use it for school too, but it's also my chance to "read", or listen to, all those classics I never have time for. I either listen while folding laundry or before I go to sleep at night. And Khan Academy... oh MY I found them about two weeks ago and I'm already making plans for ways to integrate it into our schooling! Great list!!
ReplyDeleteGreat list - thank you! I didn't know about several of your favourite websites, including Books Should be Free. We'll be checking them out for sure.
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