It kind of alarms me that some homeschooling parents have a huge desire to homeschool their children for free or as little cost as possible.
I get that they’re trying to stretch a buck; aren’t we all these days? But the determination to homeschool for free (particularly at the high school level) seems a little short-sighted. In answer to such parents’ enthusiasm, all sorts of online businesses have now popped up offering “free homeschool curriculum,” but much of what they offer is worth about what you pay for it.
I won’t name sites, but I’ve clicked on the links people share in response to forum requests for “free homeschooling links,” and as far as I can tell these sites are light on substance and heavy on online advertising. The more people they attract, the more attractive they become to advertisers. Seems like that’s the reason for their existence.
That doesn’t mean that good homeschooling resources have to cost a fortune. There are many great resources available online that are no- or low-cost. If parents try looking for quality resources first and then find the low-cost options among them, instead of just looking for “FREE!”, they might be pleasantly surprised.
Here are a few sites with resources that are high-quality and free:
Classic literature and history: Project Gutenberg
Free classic literature for Amazon Kindle (List 1 and List 2)
Do you have others to add to this list? Please share the links in your comment—thanks! 🙂
://www.ck12.org/flexr/ This looks like a very serious project to get high quality textbooks, esp math and science, available for free on line. It is geared towards teachers, not homeschoolers.
Also, tp://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos.html and http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/
and of course, your public library has many text books available to borrow for free
Thanks for sharing those links, Cara 🙂
I agree that free is not always the best especially in high school. I have two sites to add to your list. Both use textbooks that are in the public domain. An Old Fashioned Education http://oldfashionededucation.com/index.html
and Ambleside Online http://www.amblesideonline.org/
Thanks for weighing in and sharing those links, Karen. Both are very good sites.