In the process of spending several (!!) hours a week in the blogging world, and in the homeschool/teaching blogging niche specifically, I’ve discovered many great homeschool resources. We’ve used most of these programs extensively with our own children and I’m passing along the ones that they’ve loved the most. 🙂 Some of these have affiliate links (you can read my full disclosure and privacy policy here), but the entire list represents the best of what we’ve run across so far. I hope this helps you find something that will work well for your own family!
Infants:
Homeschool Resources for Preschool:
Amanda, from Sicily’s Heart and Home, offers a child-led curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers and master classes for mothers to help you escape the “Choice Anxiety” that can come from too much research; she provides a full array of hands-on activities and learning material and shows you what to teach, when to teach it, and feel confident that what you’re working on is developmentally appropriate.
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For a complete preschool dvd set, I highly recommend Rachel and the Treeschoolers. Our boys never tire of watching these dvds, and each one comes with an accompanying cd of all the songs. My 2 year old’s favorite is “photosynthesis,” and often requests it as he’s falling asleep. I love how many fundamental science principles my boys have picked up just through these songs! This set is recommended for kids ages 2-8. Rachel, who also created the sign language program for babies and kids called Signing Time, incorporates sign language throughout this Treeschool series as well. The full set includes:
- A Rainy Day
- Plants and Flowers
- Incredible Insects
- Awesome Animals
- The Amazing Human Body
- Happy, Healthy Me
- Scientific Reasoning
- Extraordinary Earth
- Our Solar System
I’m including a link here to the full set, but you can follow links on this for individual dvds (with sing-a-long cds), or buy or rent the digital versions.
Homeschool Resources for Music:
If you’re looking for a simple kids’ show on Netflix that teaches music (and geography), I’d recommend checking out Little Einsteins. (It is on Netflix as of February, 2018, but that could always change.) It follows the Baby Einstein series (see above) and incorporates classical music, art, and world travel into each episode.
Again, here’s a link to one of the dvds, but it’s part of a whole series; you can find ways to watch it online, or buy individual dvds or the entire collection.
Homeschool Resources for Math:
Homeschool Resources for Science:
- We use MysteryScience often and love the lessons, activities, videos, and fascinating presentation of topics. I wrote about one of the lessons (making a robotic hand to understand the way in which tendons and ligaments work) in this post. These cover an extensive array of topics for all elementary grades (and the program is still growing!)
- I’ve seen several videos by Aurora Lipper, creator of Supercharged Science, and have been thoroughly impressed with her passion and expertise. These would be best for older elementary through high school students.
For science-related videos, our main two go-to’s are always Sid the Science Kid and The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That. Again, these seasons are currently available on Netflix, but since Netflix changes things up so often, I’m including links here to a sample dvd from each series. You can find ways to watch these online or buy individual episodes or whole seasons.
Homeschool Resources for Reading and Writing:
I have a full post (or series of posts) in the works on this topic, but for now, I’ll share the resources that have worked best for us in regards to learning to Read. I’ll elaborate more on how we made use of these products in future posts, but they’re all pretty self-explanatory and wonderfully helpful! My son is reading independently at 4 years old; he learned most of what he knows through these books and dvds. I read a lot with him but didn’t directly teach him very much – these shows did the heavy lifting for me ;).
- Leapfrog Letter Factory – This is the best resource ever (IMO) for teaching kids the letters and their sounds.
- Bob books – These are great beginning stories with intriguing pictures (not the best drawings, but definitely conversation-worthy!) to help advance kids through the beginning levels of reading.
- Sight Words by Rock ‘N Learn – This is another show that my boys never tire of watching; it’s a well-made animated movie that uses music to teach sight words. This gave my son a huge boost in his reading skills – paired with basic phonics instruction (by which I mean, learning the sounds of the letters), this helped boost his confidence in his own reading skills, since he could instantly recognize several words on a page.
- Early Reader books – these come in all types and we check out several new ones each week from our local library.
There’s a bit more to the story of how he learned to read, but basically this is the only “curriculum” we used and it equipped him thoroughly to be a great reader! I’ll be sure to provide a link here when I expand more fully on other little tips and tricks we used along the way. (Mostly, READING every day to/with them! 🙂 )
A Writing Curriculum for grades K – 12
If you’re looking for a high-quality writing program for your kids, I highly recommend checking out the award-winning WriteShop curriculum (for grades K – 12)! This is the most creative and inspiring writing curriculum I have seen and it lays a solid foundation for successful and enjoyable writing experiences through its detailed lesson guides, engaging and creative activities, and beautifully designed student workbooks.
Homeschool Resources for Coding:
Coding is, arguably, the new form of literacy in the 21st century. Luckily, there are endless resources that help kids make sense of the world of logic and computer language, as well as games, offline activities, and more. We’ve been using Code.org, which is a completely free database of coding programs, lessons, videos, apps, and offline activities. This website is designed for use in schools or at home; we’ve found it to be a wealth of user-friendly homeschool resources. I wrote more about this and other resources in my post on Coding for Kids.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in my post on our favorite 15 resources for screen time for kids.
Learning Resources for Teachers, Tutors, and Parents
If you’d like to visit my store to see my library of learning resources (focused on Pre-K – 3rd grade Math, Reading, and Writing, and High School Algebra and Geometry), you can check it out here:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sandra-Balisky
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