Free Republic Homeschool Forum 2008-2009

July 24, 2008 | Tired of Taxes

[Tired of Taxes]

Free Republic Homeschool Forum 2008-2009
A spot for homeschoolers on Free Republic to share information

Once again, we are reviving our Free Republic Homeschool Forum where homeschoolers can share tips and talk about curriculum for the upcoming year.

Below is a list of educational books, curricula, and other resources recommended by homeschoolers on Free Republic. This list was compiled, updated, and reformatted using the suggestions many of you gave on our last thread. (If any corrections are needed, please advise.)

Feel free to add more of your favorite books and products to the comments below. Which curriculum has worked well for your family? Share advice with other homeschoolers.

A big, hearty CONGRATULATIONS to all homeschoolers who graduated this year!

And, as always, many, many thanks to Jim Robinson and Free Republic for the continued support!

[Tired of Taxes]

***** This is a discussion thread for homeschoolers only. Please respect the purpose of this thread. Disruptive posts will be removed. *****

PLEASE WAIT FOR THE LIST TO BE PASTED IN THE FIRST COMMENT BELOW BEFORE POSTING A MESSAGE. THANK YOU!

[Tired of Taxes]

**** HOMESCHOOL RESOURCES (in alphabetical order) ****

Disclaimer: The website links below are provided only to give more information on each item. They are not intended as solicitations. Free Republic does not officially endorse any of these products. We are merely a group of Free Republic homeschoolers sharing information with each other.

*** ARTS & CRAFTS *** Draw Write Now (Art, penmanship, and storytelling) Sewing Made Easy *** CATALOGUES FOR HOMESCHOOL PRODUCTS *** Rainbow Resource R.O.C.K. Solid, Inc. *** COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES *** Ave Maria University Grove City College Immaculata University Patrick Henry College Thomas Aquinas College Christendom College Franciscan University of Steubenville *** COMPLETE CURRICULUM PACKAGES *** A Beka AlphaOmega Lifepac My Father’s World Seton Home Study School Sonlight Winter Promise (History, English) *** COMPUTER & TECHNICAL SKILLS *** e-Learning Center *** CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS *** Bright Blue Thinking Book, The Building Thinking Skills Fallacy Detective, The Mind Benders *** DIPLOMAS & TRANSCRIPTS *** North Atlantic Regional High School (in Lewiston, Maine) *** DRAMA & THEATRE *** Acting Magic *** DUAL CREDIT *** St. Petersburg College *** ENGLISH (LANGUAGE ARTS) *** Analytical Grammar Easy Grammar Systems Educators Publishing Service(Explode the Code, Ridgewood Grammar, Wordly Wise & more) Explode the Code Horizons Institute for Excellence in Writing Phonics Pathways Play ‘n’ Talk Reader Rabbit (CD) Ridgewood Grammar Rod & Staff Saxon Phonics Shurley English Spelling Power Spell to Write and Read Straight-Forward English (Garlic Press) Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons Vocabulary from Classical Roots (also see Educators Publishing Service) Word Journeys Wordly Wise Words Their Way Writing Strands (See Institute for Excellence in Writing) *** FOREIGN LANGUAGES *** Power Glide *** FREE ONLINE - LESSON PLANS & STUDIES *** AAA Math Baltimore Curriculum Lesson Plans Baseball/Sports (free online unit lessons): (a) PBS Fantasy Baseball (PDF file) (b) The Batting Cage (c) Fun with Baseball Stats (d) Learning from Baseball (e) Physics in Sports connection (online video) Basic Facts Worksheet Factory (Math) Children’s Literature Lesson Plans & Resources Core Knowledge Lesson Plans Discovery edHelper.com Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder) (Also see: Laura Ingalls Wilder Teacher Resource File Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Lesson Plans Mater Amabilis (Charlotte Mason) Math Fact Café Ocean studies (Smithsonian) OLI Carnegie Melon Scripps National Spelling Bee Study Zone Super Kids Math Worksheet Creator *** FREE REPUBLIC THREADS *** String Theory ‘blog *** HISTORY *** 1776, by David McCullough Famous Men of Rome (Greenleaf Press) Greenleaf (Famous Men series) Kingfisher History Encyclopedia Patriot’s History of the United States, A TRISMS TruthQuest History: Age of Revolution I, II, III

*** HOMESCHOOL FORUMS, STORES & SWAPS *** Love to Learn Home for Homeschoolers, A Homeschooler’s Bookshelf Homeschooler’s Curriculum Swap San Diego Homeschooling Veg Source HomeSchool Talk & Swap *** HOMESCHOOL GUIDES *** Homeschooling Revolution, The Homeschoolers’ Success Stories (by Linda Dobson) Homeschool Your Child for Free (by Laura Maery Gold, Joan M. Zielinski) Man’s Unconquerable Mind (by Gilbert Highet) Well-Trained Mind, The *** HOMESCHOOL MAGAZINES / NEWSLETTERS / NEWSPAPERS *** The Link Homeschool Humour *** LAPBOOKING *** Live & Learn Press Currclick *** LATIN *** Latina Christiana Latin’s Not So Tough *** LEGAL ADVICE *** Home School Legal Defense Association *** LITERATURE *** 100 Good Books 100 Great Books Books by Charles Dickens Books by G.A. Henty Children’s Literature Lesson Plans & Resources Eragon (by Christopher Paolini) Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew Hobbit, The & Lord of the Rings (also see “Lesson Plans”) Homeschool Detectives series Homeschooler’s Bookshelf Laura Ingalls Wilder books (also see “Lesson Plans”) Little Britches (book series) by Ralph Moody McGuffey Readers Narnia (book series) by C.S. Lewis Redwall series Spiderwick Chronicles, The Starfall Store Stobaugh’s American Literature Williwaw (by Tom Bodett) *** MATHEMATICS *** Key-To Series Math-U-See Miquon Math Saxon Math Saxon Math 54 Singapore Math Straight-Forward Math (Garlic Press) *** MUSIC *** San Francisco Symphony for Kids *** RECORDKEEPING *** Donna Young’s Free Printables The HomeSchool Mom *** REFERENCE BOOKS *** Usborne books DK Eyewitness books *** SCIENCE *** Bob Jones Chemistry Home Science Tools Jason Project Rainbow Science Home Science Tools Moody Science Videos Noeo Science Tobin’s Lab *** TELEVISION & VIDEO *** PBS Mail List *** UNIT STUDIES *** TRISMS *** VIRTUAL SCHOOLS *** Educere K-12 Florida Virtual School Switched on Schoolhouse *** WEBSITES ABOUT HOMESCHOOLERS & HOMESCHOOLING *** Successful & Famous People (who were homeschooled) *** YOUTH GROUPS *** American Heritage Girls Boy Scouts of America 4-H

[Tired of Taxes]

Ping to metmom

[LearnsFromMistakes]

Wow. Thanks for the info. already forwarded the thread to my wife. Thanks again.

[Excellence]

I recommend Core Knowledge to the curriculum resource list. http://www.coreknowledge.org

[Tired of Taxes]

FYI: The educational resources many of you recommended on our last Homeschoolers’ Forum have been added to this newly updated list. Thank you!

[I still care]

I would be very interested to see how high schooling homeschoolers like their science curriculum.

I teach a coop class on chemistry and biology to homeschoolers, and have been using apologia. But I have to admit I am not happy with it. It’s too “conversational” and very week on outlining and clarity to me. I was looking at Bob Jones, which seems strong on basics.

Within the next few weeks we need to purchase biology. We have microscopes and lab equipment, but I was having trouble figuring out exactly how they conduct labs from the BJU website. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Any ideas?

[I still care]

Wow. That’s weak, not week.

Even though my specialty is science, I CAN spell.

[TightyRighty]

I use Homeschool Tracker to keep track of all of my lessons, attendance and reports. It keeps track of grades and will give you a grade by quarter or semester. It covers everything and the best part is it's free.

Some other companies I like:

Veritas Press
Area 127
Curriculum Click - I found a great download for printables (household and school) on this website called Master Planner. It had 160 different printables for about $7.00 and it was totally worth the money.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[metmom]

This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. DaveLoneRanger has asked me to take over the management of this list. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.

[ChocChipCookie]

Excellent! Thanks so much. This year we’re going to follow Ambleside Online curriculum, found at amblesideonline.com. It’s a free curriculum that follows the spirit and content that Charlotte Mason used in her school in England in the 1800’s. Lots of great, classical literature, short lessons, emphasis on nature and the outdoors. I think it will be a good fit for us.

[MaineConservative]

Ping to RightWingTeen. Look like great resources for my kids.

[metmom]

We used Abeka and it seemed to be pretty thorough. We never did do much with BJU. It just wasn’t very popular in our area and you couldn’t find it used very easily. People around here tend to use Abeka. Several I know did use the Apologia, but opinions were mixed on it.

My daughter took some old NY Biology regents tests to see how she’d do and she did very well on them. Close to 90, IIRC.

[HungarianGypsy]

Where can I find good information on making high school transcripts? My son starts freshman year this semester.

[JenB]

Homeschool graduate, no kids yet to homeschool. I can attest that a number of titles on your list are excellent from personal experience - particularly Writing Strands and Saxon Math.

You might add some courtship links :) although my homeschooled husband and I found each other on FreeRepublic, I believe other homeschoolers have found soulmates on more, er, romance specific forums.

[metmom]

We used The Prairie Primer for one year in grade school using the Little House books. It was fine for grade school.

For English grades 1-6 and reading grades 1-3 we used Rod & Staff publishers. Their curriculum is very low cost and the English is great for teaching grammar and mechanics.

They also have a section in their website where you can bring up actual pages out of their books to see what the format is and how they teach it.

http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/

[Kevmo]

although my homeschooled husband and I found each other on FreeRepublic,
***Well, that’s pretty freeping cool...

[Liberty1970]

I’d be interested to know of homeschool/courtship sites. I operate courtshipconnection.net, which is not a match-making site as such (although a couple did meet through it). It is more for courtship discussion and links to articles and resources on courtship, and there has always been a strong homeschool influence there. I need to get back to updating it and would appreciate tips on current courtship sites and information, to update the now-musty Body of Knowledge area of the site.

[Kevmo]

We have been discussing ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda and other idiocies:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84

Proposal for the Free Republic High School Diploma.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1316882/posts

I have been using the tag “chspe” to remind myself & others about the articles that have discussed this approach.