best free homeschool resources

Massive List of Cheap and Free Homeschool Resources (Covid & Non-Covid)

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Are you needing help with homeschooling your kids during the COVID-19 crisis? Do you want to educate your babies while they stay at home, but don’t want to break the bank? Some of us were already educating our kids at home when the U.S. government forced the world towards social distancing.

On the flip side, many great other moms and dads out there were abruptly faced with home education as their kids were plopped down in front of them, day in and day out.

Free homeschool resources!

Disclosure: You may find affiliate links throughout this article for your convenience. Read our disclosure policy here.

Because I have a heart of gold 😂 (really, I swear I do!) I thought it would be best to post free homeschool resources, free homeschool programs, free homeschool worksheets, free homeschool printables, and more that I have gathered over the past year as well as some resources I recently found free due to the crisis going on.

I also have the perfect recommendations for parents that don’t mind paying a little extra or perhaps want some online schooling-type tools at their disposal. Either way, just know I won’t recommend something I haven’t tried myself. And I won’t talk to you about a program that is super costly – at least not in this post! This post is specifically for parents who want fun, cheap, and free home educating resources while they’re all stuck at home.

I gotcha covered!

This is list is obviously not an exhaustive list of resources, however, bookmark this page since I’ll keep adding more resources to it! Also, sign up for the newsletter if you want freebies and deals sent your way (some things I give exclusively to my readers on my newsletter list and cannot be found anywhere else!).

Free Homeschool Resources

This is a list of free homeschool links and resources in various subjects that I have curated over the past year. (I needed some resources to help me create my own history curriculum and ended up finding a whole slew of free resources!)

Free Audio Books & Video Streaming

Audible recently announced their free access with no login or signup required for their stories. https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

Pinna is offering families and teachers 2 free months of access to their audio streaming services for kids ages 3-12. Activate by going to Pinna and using promo code: PINNA4KIDS

Learn at Home has lessons you can stream for grades K-5 as well as downloadable STEM activities.

Open Culture has audiobooks and links to free online courses from professors. They also have free textbooks and movies!

Ted-Ed – Video lessons and series from top educators made into animated videos for kids.

Hippo Campus – Explore of 7,000 free videos in 13 subject areas.

Ted-Ed – Video lessons and series by top educators, made into animated videos for kids.

Masterbooks Free Audiobook Extras :
My Creation Bible – Sing-Along with Buddy Davis
Noah, Didn’t It Rain
Not Too Small At All – A Mouse Tale
The True Story of Noah’s Ark – Narrated
When Dragons’ Hearts Were Good Narration and Sing-Along

Here’s a list from Freedom Homeschooling with a long list of Science YouTube videos for kids.

Need a virtual hug from Elmo? Sesame Street offers special resources during the crisis!

Podcasts

Podcasts are something to think about during this time that you and your kiddos can listen to. Some offer free digital resources as well on their website!

But Why? – This podcast includes an episode to explain what’s happening with coronavirus to kids.

Other podcasts I found great for kids during this time (and even after!) are:

Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest offers thrilling spooky tales (kid-appropriate!).
WOW in the World
Story Pirates – also has free digital resources in their Creators Club – silly, funn, sketch comedy filled with music.
Brains On! – why and how things work
Hero Hotel – superheroes with comedy and adventure
ExtraBlurt – audio game show with different themes. Listeners shout out the answers!
Animal Safari – Fun animal knowledge and weird & wacky facts!
Tara Tremendous: The Secret Diaries – Tara acquires all of the powers of every superhero! Adventure series.

Free eBooks

Many websites have digital libraries and resources available all year long. Some even have free ebooks, while others tell you which Kindle books are free! I’ve gathered this ebook list in hopes that at least this ebook section will be most valuable to you! Perhaps now is the best time to develop a love of reading?

Epic! – This is an app I’ve personally used a lot throughout this past year for my homeschool. Sometimes when I feel stuck on what my kids can read or have an empty-brain-mom-moment, I go into my phone or iPad that has a folder on my homeschool entitled “Kids School”. Within my folder is the Epic! app. Even though they’re giving free access throughout the rest of the school year, you can actually still get this free (like I did) by emailing them, telling them that you are a homeschool. They give the apps for free to educational institutions and they, blessedly, consider homeschool as one (which it is, but a lot of other companies fail to see this). With that said, in order to unlock at-home access, students and their families need a digital invitation from a teacher or school librarian, who can sign up free to provide access to their students and even assign books to read remotely.

ReadingIQ – digital library and literacy platform for kids 12 & under.

Bedtime Math – comes with free apps, books, and printable activity pages.

Contented At Home – free kindle books with a ton of classics. Very large list too!

12-Story Library – Free ebooks and digital resources. 12-Story Library has opened up access to their full library of ebooks, each of which is paired with a unique resource web page with content updates, live news feeds, videos, image galleries, and lesson plans.

PIN free hs resources during covid

Free (and Cheap) Online Learning – Forever Free & Forever Cheap

Here’s a pretty decent list of free homeschool resources that I have collected for a while now. You can find complete, full curriculums here as well as free subject-specific resources, free teaching resources, and free planning resources. (They’re listed here in no particular order.)

Khan Acadamy – famous for their all in one free homeschooling subjects. I personally have not used this curriculum but I do know a lot of homeschool families in Facebook groups that can’t recommend this free online homeschool enough. It also has instructional videos available!

123 Homeschool4me – all subjects and grades with printable worksheets

All Kids Network – totally free with thousands of kid activities, like crafts, worksheets, coloring pages, printable mazes, dot to dot, hidden pictures, etc. Available for kids of all ages.

Arcademics – combines exciting video games with educational content with a high rate of learning!

Belouga – free for K-12 with an extensive collection of resources on various topics like social science videos and math.

Oklahoma Homeschool – free unit studies and free teaching resources. (I purchased their Scope and Sequence list called The Checklist and I use it all the time to create my own curriculum as well as ensure my kiddos are on the right path at where I want them to be. The Checklist has everything broken down by concepts and subjects and grade – such an amazing resource! Even though it says Oklahoma Homeschool, you can use The Checklist and other resources regardless of geography…I live in Texas.)

Teacher Planet – Free lessons, worksheets, rubrics, unit studies and themes, books, cool tools, top sites, etc. Great Resource! It also offers daily lesson planning forms and teaching resources, all free. A long list of teaching tools from A-Z! I’ve personally used this one myself a ton of times! You can also go here for themes and ideas for unit studies.

April Homeschool Round UP {Homeschool Collection}

Fact Monster – free timelines, videos, games, and quizzes.

K12 Reader – Reading Instruction Resources for language arts. Teacher Aides, Worksheets. Printable worksheet activities for all major elements of language arts, with more added all the time. You’ll find something from kindergarten through 12th grade including spellingreading skillsgrammarvocabulary, and composition. K12reader worksheets are aligned to the common core BUT are heavily used in remediation and homeschool environments as well so alignment is purely a guide.

Ereading Worksheets – Free unit studies and reading/language arts worksheets. Project Ideas – Need a list of ideas for different types of projects? This website has 62 very cool project ideas!

Education.com – all subjects, worksheets, unit studies. Access is limited but they do have some freebies in there. You can also subscribe to them for a monthly fee to access everything.

Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool – one of my personal favorites!! Complete homeschool subjects FOR FREE – everything you need for your kid can be taught using only this website! Pretty cool, huh? It even includes free unit studies and lesson plans. All Subjects + All Electives; Online and Offline lesson plans; printables; worksheets; teacher aides/resources.

learn to read online

Homeschool Buyers Co-op – a list of their free resources for all subjects. Long list and very lucrative information. You can also get highly discounted curriculums at this site, which I’ve used several times. It’s one of the largest, if not the largest, group of homeschoolers, coming together to get steep discounts on products that normally cost 100% retail price but because it’s exclusive to the co-op, everyone buying through the co-op gets discounts on a sliding scale.

Homeschool History Unit Study – free homeschool history unit studies and history curriculum creation ideas.

Design Your Homeschool – all subjects have freebies, plus resources for unit studies. You can also go here for history curriculum unit studies.

English Linx – free worksheets and printables for all your language arts subjects, like spelling, vocab, reading, reading comprehension, and so on. Free lesson plans, lessons, curriculum, worksheets for all subjects in language arts, plus teacher planning guides.

World History Index – History by eras, topics, continents, and methods. Absolutely everything you need to teach all history, including teaching resources and instructional resources, maps and charts and timelines, EVERYTHINGGGGGG – FREE.

Ed Helper – Free coding, Math, Reading/Comp, Spelling, Puzzles, free worksheets (they say you’ll actually want to print). Free teaching resources. Offers EducationCity.com as paid-for online curriculum. Free workbooks, reading/writing, PreK-3 activities, art, language arts/English, special education, monthly themes, daily skills reviews, critical thinking, social studies, science, book reports, and so much more. All free.

History Guide – Created for high schoolers and parents homeschooling. Includes lectures and lessons on various world history topics.

Free Education Resources – Free worksheets, resources, and more for teachers and parents. Education activities [for the classroom] for math, language arts, spelling, pretty much all subjects.

WWWVL History – Multiple links of history websites and databases. Curated history websites.

EduRef – Lessons and lesson plans organized by subjects submitted by teachers for teachers!

Teachers Pay Teachers – You can find a ton of free resources here for alllllll kinds of things. You can also opt to pay for various things. Everything here is either really cheap or free. I have a few free resources and paid resources linked up to TpT in my own shop that you can check out here.

Homeschool & Humor’s TeachersPayTeachers Shop – I can’t leave out my own free resources! ha! I have free and cheap resources you can find in my TpT shop, including planners and geography packets.

Free Stuff and Samples – Yes, that is literally the name of the site, which is a good sign! Free homeschooling resources, categorized by getting started, worksheets and planners, crafts and games.

Ben’s Guide – Free learning adventures for all ages that has games and fun activities you can do virtually on their site, walking you through everything about the US Government for kids!

NCES Kids’ Zone – National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is loaded with games about math, graphs, test your knowledge, and fun educational resources.

Reading Rockets – Learn all about reading and teaching reading for beginners to advanced readers as well as techniques for struggling readers.

Reading Eggs – We are BIG FANS are Reading Eggs! After we used ABCmouse, we transitioned into Reading Eggs and, let me tell you, it has been PERFECTION for my toddler as well as for my upper elementary kiddos. We are huge Reading Eggs fans like I said. You can get a month free trial! I urge you to try it out. This can count as your independent reading time, and they also teach phonics and grammar and have a large digital library. They also have different transitions into the program. My son and daughter completely finished it and now they’re on to Reading Eggspress! It has helped tremendously in my children’s reading skills and comprehension. I literally cannot swear by Reading Eggs enough.

The Online Reading Program That Kids Love Learn to Read! For ages 2-13

Reading Genie – Lessons plans and ideas on teaching reading.

PBS Kids Games – a TON of online games for various subject areas for elementary.

A2Z Homeschooling free lesson plans and activities in all subjects.

Coolmath4kids – Free math activities for K-6 for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions through online math games, quizzes, manipulatives, and more! For kiddos 13 and up, visit their sister site at coolmath.com.

Education Place – All free resources! For Social Studies, choose a textbook in any subject and it takes you to the website full of that subject’s information, like an online classroom! It will refer you to the exact type of BOOKS to get from the library in the exact CONCEPT and UNIT you are studying! For US History, it is divided into chapters. For all subjects of textbook support materials, go here for subjects such as reading/language arts, science, spelling, mathematics, and social studies.

Freedom Homeschooling – Curated lists (separated by website URLs, so each subject on its own website) of ALL SUBJECTS for FREE Curriculum! Amazing!

Discovery K-12 – For PreK-12. Free lessons and activities for language arts, reading, math, science, history/social studies, performing arts and P.E.

Prodigy Math – Used by many school districts, Prodigy Math has free video game style math learning.

Duolingo – free access to learn different languages!

Encantos Learning Hub – has tools for bilingual education and geography. 

The Good and The Beautiful Curriculum – Offers free complete language arts curriculum for grades PreK-8. This is the language arts curriculum we use in our homeschool! They also offer a free science curriculum called Marine Biology! They even offer a now-free extensive Book List with wholesome reads and her opinions of other books with a rating system. I refer to this quite often just to make sure I’m not letting my kids read dirt!

National Geography Web Site For Kids – a great place for information. Adventures, quizzes, contests, photography exhibits, experiments, and off-line discussions with scientists, explorers, and photographers. There are even lesson plans!

Masterbooks.com – This is a curriculum company that offers a Christian curriculum in all core subjects as well as Bible subject. They do have a Free Downloads page, though, with great study guides and additional free resources (like audiobooks, coloring pages, etc.).

Mommy Speech Therapy – Free speech therapy worksheets and forms. They also have articulation worksheets and techniques here. I used this with my oldest son!

Homeschool Share – Free lapbook templates! This is one site you’ll want to bookmark and use over and over again!

ABCmouse and Adventure Academy – for ages 2-8 for ABC mouse and up to jr. high for Adventure Academy! Save 49% if you get a year’s subscription. We used ABCmouse the year before we homeschooled and we absolutely loved how they helped build the basics foundation for my kids when they entered elementary school. And Adventure Academy is something on my watch list – I’ll probably jump into it this upcoming homeschool year!

AdventureAcademy.com – Get 1 Year for $59.99! – Click here!
Gift 1 Year of ABCmouse for 49% for Only $59.95!

WriteShop – A language arts curriculum that I absolutely love. However, they’ve listed a mega-post of language arts freebies from them here! You will absolutely love this. And you’ll probably need to bookmark this one as well.

FiveableAn inclusive social learning platform, Fiveable provides free study guides, videos, trivia, and more to help prepare students for their AP tests. This will definitely be a valuable resource for students this school year! They will have resources for all 38 AP classes and invite all students to learn with them for free!

Mr. Q’s Life Science – All of the downloadable textbooks are paid-for EXCEPT for the first book in the series, and that free homeschool science book is Elementary Life Science! It is SO COOL! You get a Student Copy + a Teacher Guide Copy. I have it downloaded, too, on my laptop and we are going to get into it in a few months (after The Good & The Beautiful’s Marine Biology is finished!). He says, “I could not make this curriculum any simpler for your child to master the concepts of science. It is completely reusable, cheap (free is good… free is our friend), adaptable to various needs at home and as fun as humanly possible.” <– True Story! It’s perfectly great! This is his main homepage {http://www.eequalsmcq.com}, but I did link the direct page to download Life Science book itself in the title. And here is a list of all of his textbooks he has available. I’m looking forward to these too!

Free Elementary Life Science downloadable textbook by Mr. Q

42 Resources And Printables For Homeschool Families – Here’s where you can find resources and printables free or super cheap by one of my new blogger friends, Shop With Me Mama!

Free School Resources Available For a Limited Time Due to the COVID-19 Outbreak

Accessibyte – remote learning via typing tutors, arcade games, flashcards, and tests. Offering a 45-day trial period during the COVID-19 crisis.

Amazon Future Engineer – free access to computer science courses grades 6-12. Includes Georgia Tech’s EarSketch (coding through music) as well as a virtual robotics program with CoderZ. Ciara and Common have both given studio-quality music “stems” that kids can remix from home using a code. Everything will be available for free until at least Fall 2020.

Character Tree – character education videos and downloadable resources for parents to use at home. Free access through June 30, 2020. For Grades 1 and 2, but can be used for all students needing basic character development. Emphasizes positive character traits, kindness, curiosity, integrity. All lessons are standards-aligned and have printable resources. Parents can sign up for their own free accounts.

Curriculum Associates – offers printable at-home activity packs for reading and math packets for grades K-8. Teacher guides available too.

DeeperDive Learning – helps parents work with their kids at home! Has “How to Read with your Child” and “Building Reading Fluency at Home” available for free for up to the first 1,000 families who sign up. When you sign up, you receive a code and access instruction within 1-2 days via email.

Time for Kids – Time Magazine’s kid magazine online. They’re offering a free digital library until the end of the school year due to the crisis. You can also view student articles here for kid journalism!

Smithsonian Education – They have a learning lab where parents and teachers can access millions of digital resources from across the Smithsonian’s museums, research centers, libraries, archives, and more. You will also find pre-packaged collections that contain lessons, activities, and recommended resources made by Smithsonian museum educators as well as thousands of classroom teachers.

2Simple, Purple Mash, Serial Mash – 2Simple is offering free access to both Purple Mash and Serial Mash for the duration of your closure. Designed for children aged 3-11. Sign up here without any financial obligation. It contains thousands of opportunities for learning in forms of spelling and grammar, maths, cross-curricular project work, and open-ended tools (story creation, game design, mapping, art and so on!).

Scholastic – There are free resources and teaching tools here year-round, but they just started a Learn at Home. Learn at Home provides 20 days’ worth of active learning journeys designed to reinforce and sustain educational opportunities for those students who are unable to attend school. For grades PreK-9. Get started right here.

VOOKS – an online streaming library, is offering a month for free during school shutdowns in addition to resources and lesson plans.

Amazing Educational Resources has a spreadsheet that they updating every few hours with companies of free resources. It’s actually pretty cool! I just saved this webpage to my Favorites. It is a looong list! You can do everything you want all in this list, for sure, without a doubt!

QNS – free resources and subscriptions for remote learning and homeschooling due to the coronavirus.

Adprima: Safe Websites – They have a ton of teacher resources here if you want to look around further. However, this site is a list of safe websites for parents and children, which is a curated list of amazing homeschool resources and crazy cool ideas!

Today.com – Curated list of homeschool freebies and resources (similar to my list here!).

free homeschool resources

TheJournal.com – They have pages and pages of free homeschool resources of all colors. Everything you need will probably be on this list.

Intuit Mintlife – They have 42 resources and printables, along with a curated list of websites, to help children learn how to manage money, for all grade levels from preschool to high school.

Parents-turned-teachers must often combine a leisure and academic environment to help their children succeed academically. While there are a variety of work station and study space ideas, It’s important to remember that it’s important create the best environment for your child that takes into account their favorite subjects, preferred study and notetaking methods, and their personal needs for stress-free focus during lessons. With a little time and effort, you can create an environment that gives your child the best chance of academic success. 

Rooms To Go’s Homeschool Room Ideas: How to Set up a Homeschool Space guide can help parents create a homeschool learning environment that can help their kids achieve academic success. The guide can help parents rise to the challenge of establishing a productive environment that limits distractions that is vital to a successful student.

– Rooms To Go

Download the guide here!

Lulus – Fun fashion activities, such as jewelry-making, knitting, and more! This is a great site for those kids passionate about hands-on creative crafts and like to make things. Special shout out to Kelly for bringing this site to my attention! Keep that passion of yours alive and you’ll discover rabbit trails that will lead you beyond your wildest dreams! Thank you for sharing this cool site with me!

Examples of Educate-At-Home Schedules

And just so you’re not lost in the dark when it comes to teaching your kids these amazing fun, cheap, and free resources, I’ve provided you a few different example schedules that you may want to implement into your daily “homeschooling” schedule!

As a side note: if you want cutesy printables for your times and blocks for your subjects, you’ll like these printable cutesy printouts I found for you {for free} from thisreadingmama.com here!

Our Personal Mirror Image of Our Homeschool Day {Homeschool & Humor}

You can get my daily homeschool schedule here for a Monday through Friday schedule for older kids, with Library Day and Field Trip Day/End of Week Review as indicated. I have been using this daily schedule I made at the beginning of our year-round homeschooling since my baby isn’t an infant anymore (more like a tornado tot).

Here’s a sneak peek at my daily M-F homeschool schedule:

Daily Schedules for the Week - Image
.

You can see an example of my weekly schedule when I had a newborn baby! I used this when baby Scout was an infant for a year. It worked out really well. LL means Language Lessons (a MasterBooks language arts curriculum).

Weekly Schedule with Baby

Here is a COVID-19 Daily Schedule I found by Teacher Truths:

COVID-19 Daily Schedule

These printable schedules let you plan out your day. Keep in mind that younger kids only need about 10-15 minutes per subject. And do lots of Brain Breaks!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9z1-RFFXcy/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

How to Create a Unit Study in 10 Steps: The Beginner’s Guide – OK, it’s by me {Homeschool & Humor}! 😉

Creating your own homeschool lesson planner calendar.
Best Free 7-step homeschool planner at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool!
Unit Study techniques to enhance any homeschool.
How to teach multiple subjects for multiple ages & kids.
How to combine subjects.
Do I have to really finish the math book? Don’t stress about finishing it all the way to the end! Read why.
How to save time as a homeschool mom.
How to Homeschool in Texas – Texas Home School Coalition (THSC)

Wrapping up, I hope you get a thing or two out of this list I put together for you. Gosh, it took me a while to put it together! LOL But I wanted you to get it as quick as possible in order for you to get your homeschool smoothed out and rockin’ and rollin’!

Leave me a comment and tell me how you’re taking control of your homeschool!

Share this post so other families can benefit from free homeschooling! Use the social media buttons below! ⬇️

homeschool and humor richie sign off

Want to read this later? Download as a PDF!

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