Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Free Home School Curricula

I've been wanting to gather a list of links of free home school curricula. Lots of different home schoolers do something similar, so I didn't think it was necessary to duplicate their efforts, but I find that many have just resources mixed in with actual curricula, and there is not much full curricula out there that is free.  So, here is my pathetic attempt.  I will organize by subject, including subjects for which I don't have links, so I at least have a place to put them when I come across things I like.

*A note about the term "free".  Anything that needs to be printed out first, is not without cost, but is generally less expensive than one published and sold for profit.


Math
Khan Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/

"In Fall 2013, the option to assign a playlist directly to your students from Khan Academy's site will be available." This is a really exciting development that will make it easier to use Khan Academy as a primary curriculum.  I like Singapore Primary Mathematics and use it through book 6B (approximately 6th grade).  At that point, however, I explore options for the Algebra/Geometry sequence with my child and we choose something appropriate.

This year, I have a son who will be finishing 6B and I am offering Khan Academy as an option.  From what I've read, KA works best after 2nd grade.

Language Arts
Grammar:  KISS Grammar by Ed Vavra
 http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/PBooks/index.htm

While navigating his web site can be a little confusing, this link takes you to the page from which you can download the printable workbooks.  He has all the grades and levels online, but only some are in printable workbook format.  He continues to tweak things and responds to questions on the yahoo forum, which I recommend joining.  This approach takes a little getting used to, but uses real sentences to teach grammar, so students learn grammar more thoroughly than they might other wise.

Reading: 
LibriVox   https://catalog.librivox.org/   and
Project Gutenberg   http://www.gutenberg.org/

This is one area where I don't think a curriculum is strictly necessary.   I do, however, think it a good idea to have good lists of age appropriate classics to work through.  I like the audiobooks to listen to with the whole family.  The ebooks are great for individual reading.  I'm still working on coming up with a variety of generic worksheets to round out reading comprehension and enhance meaningful discussion (we'll see if that happens).

History


Science
 High School/College Physics: The Mechanical Universe
http://iws.collin.edu/mbrooks/documents/mechanical_universe/PHYS_2425_Physics_Videos.htm

These videos are very well done.  While originally designed for college physics, they can work for high school, too.  This particular web page has worksheets that go along with some of the videos.  I will continue to look for worksheets to go with all of them.

K-8 Science:  I. Science Mate
http://www.msnucleus.org/membership/index.html

I haven't used this yet, but it looks to be comprehensive and user friendly.

Foreign Language
American Sign Language 1,2 & 3 by Dr. Bill Vicars
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/lessons/lessons.htm

 This course works for all ages.  Dr. Bill suggests .5 credits for each ASL course for K-12, but also suggests each course is worth 4 semester credits for college.  I believe there is enough material to last a whole year for K-12 and feel that giving a high school student 1.0 credit for each ASL 1, 2, and 3 course is realistic.  ASL 1 is lessons 1-15 and ASL 2 is lessons 16-30.  While he is still tweaking things to make an ASL 3, I believe you can assume that lessons 31-45 are roughly equivalent to ASL 3.

Fine Arts 

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