School closures and job uncertainty have American parents not only seeking out home learning resources, but ones that are free or inexpensive. This list is for you!
But first, this book is a must-have for any parent who’s homeschooling on a budget. Homeschool Your Child for Free has been a consistent best-seller since its release in 2000, and has been newly revised and updated:
Free Worksheets
I’ve been using these sites for years to print supplemental worksheets for my homeschoolers.
Twisty Noodle has free printables for every age and every season.
Clever Learner offers science worksheets, arts, crafts, coloring, math and handwriting practice for preschool, kindergarten and 1st graders.
Amazing Handwriting Worksheet Maker – Create stunning handwriting worksheets saving you hours of time! Choose from all common printing styles including Block Print, D’Nealian Style, Zaner Bloser, etc.
Worksheet Fun is packed with free math enrichment worksheets for grades K through 2.
Raising Our Kids is a wonderful resource for classic and vintage coloring and activity pages for children. They are organized by topic and/or holiday.
Printable Learning pages can be downloaded for free from Inkjets.com on topics ranging from holidays to history.
Carson Dellosa Education is making their March and April lessons available for FREE! You can directly download here.
Free Supplies
Angie’s Angel Help Network helps low income families obtain free or discounted computers.
School Closure was set up when the COVID-19 outbreak led to schools closing across the country. It helps parents and teachers get access to free tutoring, lessons plans, meals and supplies.
Kids in Need partners with 43 locations across the country to help distribute much needed school supplies to kids who would otherwise go without. Check their site to see if there’s a chapter in your area. These organizations support challenged communities where 70% or more of the kids are on a federal nutrition program
The Salvation Army is another place that provides free back-to-school supplies to families across the country, including free backpacks stuffed with school supplies. Find your closest Salvation Army center via ZIP code search.
If you’re low on certain supplies right now and are looking for bargains, check out the clearance sale right now at Discount School Supply:
Free Videos and Curriculum
Stossel in the Classroom will send your family free DVD’s in the mail which spark great discussions with middle and high schoolers. John Stossel’s short and engaging videos cover topics like sociology, ethics, politics and more.
A2Z Homeschooling – Offers completely free lessons plans for grades K-12. Available digitally or as printables.
Kahn Academy– A non-profit site started by educator Salman Khan to provide free educational resources for all. Organized by topic, you can access video lectures on K-12 math, science, technology, economics, art, history, and test prep. Students can use the site on their own, or through a parent account, and track progress.
Easy Peasy Homeschool – a free online resource created by homeschooling parents for homeschooling parents. It contains a complete homeschool curriculum from a Christian worldview for grades K-12.
Freedom Homeschooling offers a complete Christian-based history, geography and social studies curriculum.
Ambleside Online offers a free, user-friendly curriculum for families facing disaster and hardship. What could be more perfect during this year’s COVID-19 outbreak?
Virtual Tours – A list of ten children’s museum’s that you can “visit” for free online.
Duolingo Most of us would love to learn a second language, but feel there’s no time. Well, now’s our chance! This free language app is available for iPhone, Android, and the web and offers fun and engaging lessons for a variety of languages, including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and English.
The Wild West – Virtually travel to the great American West and learn about cowboys, lawmen, outlaws and the American Indian. The site also offers cowboy poetry, cowboy songs, recipes, and more.
5 Pencil Method gives five free drawing classes. This is a step-by-step approach to mastering the skill of drawing. Each new lesson builds on the previous lessons.
Kinderart makes it fun and easy to teach art to young children. They have free downloads and a paid membership club.
Progressive Phonics is an all-in-one reading program that is fun and totally free. Teach your children to read and write with a few minutes of instruction each day.
Free Books
Online Book Club allows you to receive and review books for free. Some of the gigs even pay you!
Goodreads has a forum where authors can request reviews for their books. If you’re chosen, the book will sent to you for free. Click here and make sure you find the newest post (page numbers are at the bottom).
Ray’s Arithmetic was published in the 1880’s and is still a solid text that’s popular for homeschoolers wanting to teach early math for free. You can download it through Google books.
Gutenberg Project – thousands of free books to read!
US Government Bookstore – You can request free publications (digitally or shipped to your home) from the government’s Pueblo distribution center on topics ranging from food and health to money and travel.
And now here’s a special discount I can offer you from one of my partners, Books-a-Million:
Free Educational Games
Xtra Math – a free math fact fluency program for parents and teachers. Use it online or download the app. XtraMath features free math videos, lessons, and activities as well as progress reports and resources for teachers and parents. The site is a valuable resource both for homework help and more in-depth lessons.
Funbrain – free educational games, comics, books, and videos for children in grades Pre-K through 8th. Their fun-filled activities focus on developing skills in math, reading, problem-solving, and literacy. Content is organized by grade level and the site does not require you to enter logins, passwords
Trivia Madness – Use Sporcle to host a family game night and battle it out using these online quiz sites. Everything from history to science to pop culture is on the table!
Tinkergarten – Parents can sign up for free and receive weekly outdoor activity guides that are fun and easy to pull off. You can also view live online sessions and access parent insights.
Arts and Crafts
Michael’s Craft Stores offers a free family activity every Wednesday on Facebook.
Homeschool.com offers a large collection of printable freebies like bookmarks, calendars, activity pages and journals.
The Crafty Classroom blog is loaded with fun printables and craft projects. Here’s her Spring freebies page.
Picturing America allows you to virtually explore the artistic masterpieces of the United States from the comfort of home.
Free Science Resources
Exploratorium – The website for this popular San Francisco children’s science center features an impressive selection of free activities, videos, printables, and interactive online resources on a variety of math and science topic
Ranger Rick – This popular children’s animal magazine, which I grew up collecting, is offering their digital edition completely free to families until the end of June.
Classic Science with Mr. Q is available as a free 36-week downloadable course for all ages. Each weekly lesson contains vocabulary words, entertaining yet informative text, worksheet pages and and at least one experiment.
NASA for Students The NASA website’s For Students section includes a great free catalog of articles, activities, videos, and games for students in grades K–12 on topics related to STEM, aeronautics, and space exploration.
Share your favorite free home learning resources in a comment below!
What an awesome list! We’ll be trying some of these out for sure. I love that many are free.
Thanks for these resources. They will come in handy for sure.
i love this list. I will send this one out to my nieces. They need some productive resources during this time.
I have used some of these resources, but some I haven’t heard of. I can’t wait to check them all out!
Great resources! As many parents are now stepping into the roll of teacher this is very helpful!
This is a huge list of free and cheap resources for teaching kids at home. I think the time is just right to engage kids with these resources while they are at home. It will help them learn new things without spending any money.
Oh my, if it is one thing I did not consider it is the extra expense that families face during this pandemic and global lockdown. When my daughter was younger she used so much paper for drawing that I eventually got her a magic artist so that I can save the trees. haha!
As a teacher, thank you so much for these resources! I am going to bookmark these and try them in my classroom, if I can.
Wow! These are great resources! I use Goodreads for myself and my kiddos and love it. Since the kiddos are out of school for awhile, it will be fun to explore your suggestions and find the ones that fit them the best!
Thanks for this compilation of resources. This will be helpful over these next couple of months
Great recommendations here and especially that so many are free. In such an uncertain time this will help many families. Great post.
These are great! We have been using ABC Mouse and I really enjoy it for my kids. I will have to look into a few of these !
This is so great and helpful as so many people are teaching their children from home.
After all these days I’ve come to the conclusion that teachers deserve a raise. This is hard! Sure this post will help
These are fantastic tips! Passing them along to our MOM friends.
I found this to be so useful! Thanks for the book links because we read a TON!
This is a great list for parents and teachers. When my grandson gets older I think I’ll purchase a few things.
Oh wow! Thanks for keeping the share. It really helps our kids.
i am certainly going to take advantage of these resources. my kiddo is at home anyways but he starts school in the fall. . . if school will be starting in the fall!