Home-Schooling and "Open Source" Materials?

Deagol asks: "After we registered our daughter for second grade yesterday at public school, I began to ponder (yet again) the question of homeschooling. There's certainly not a lack of sites out there about the topic, but I was surprised at the lack of public domain materials out there. I would think there'd more collections of public domain 'courses' since the K-12 core knowledge base is so stable and well understood. Sure, there are tons of places that will sell you kits of course materials, and quite a few home-schoolers who made their own courses (but only offer them for a fee). I assume there's more than a few homeschoolers out there on Slashdot. Are there any good sources of free home-schooling materials (including software) out there?"

Comments

Free Homeschooling Materials

[medcalf]

It is true that you won't find a great deal of actual courses freely available. The information being taught in any course/curriculum is public domain; you're paying for the time and effort it took for someone to arrange that information for you.

However, do you need actual courses? The information you're seeking *is* out there for free. It is possible to pull together a fantastic curriculum with little effort.

One book you should immediately look at is "Homeschooling Your Child for Free." I forget the author, but you can find it on the shelf at any Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc. I found a copy at my local library. It is filled with free educational resources on every subject. If there are free courses available, this book will list them.

Another useful book is "Home Education Year by Year" by Rebecca Rupp. This book will walk you through pulling your own curriculum together.

There are literally thousands of free lesson plans for teachers on the web.

All of the phonics and reading materials I use to teach our kids can be found at the library. So far all of my science material has come from the web or libraries. My kids learn handwriting from worksheets I print off the web. Most of our citizenship and art projects come off the web too.

I did purchase math and history programs, but I could easily teach those subjects using free resources as well.

Finally, go grab any books you can find by John Taylor Gatto and John Holt. Anyone who is considering homeschooling should read what they have to say about education.

~medcalf's wife

Re:The curriculum is NOT that set...

[joshki]

Sorry -- the whole socialization issue is really just a smoke-screen that people like to throw up when they can't come up with a better reason to keep kids away from all the bad influences in public schools. I don't want my children socialized in a state-run breeding ground for liberalism, and I don't think I'm the only one. That doesn't mean that my kids (when I have them) will ever be "locked in a closet," or kept from having friends, participating in activities outside the home, etc. There are many activities availble to a parent who home schools -- in fact, most areas now have groups where people organize soccer teams, track teams, chess clubs, etc, of home schooled children.

There may be people who isolate their children, but that's the exception, not the norm. I was home-schooled, and I learned to interact with people just fine. I started college when I was 13, and I fit in with the freshman without any problems. In fact, they would frequently come to me for help with the math and computer programming stuff that they couldn't do. They didn't have the critical thinking skills to handle complicated problems, I did. As a result, I got along with just about everyone. Had I gone to a public school, or to a high-school, I would have probably been ostracized for being a geek, but I managed to completely avoid having to deal with it by bypassing the immature high-school crowd. And if you want proof that I can "socialize" and deal with people, I've been a supervisor in the Navy for the last 5 years, and I've always received outstanding marks for leadership and teamwork -- even from some of the most difficult people I've ever had to work for.

On the minus side, home-schooling isn't perfect. I am currently trying to get admitted to a College in the Hampton Roads area, and found out that they will not accept me. Even though I have 117 credit hours (transferable -- I've got more than that), most of it on the dean's list -- they will not accept me into their undergraduate program because I do not have a high-school diploma from a "state accredited" school. It's a slap in the face to the whole home-school movement, and an insult to me and my education, but I have no choice but to go out and take the GED so I can get my Bachelor's degree.

recommendations from my wife

[Sharkeys-Day]

My wife selected a few links from her homeschooling bookmarks, where you can find lots of free material:

Homeschool Central - Study Resources
TeacherFeatures.com
Homeschool Support on the Internet
HomeworkCentral.com - Lesson Plans by Subject
NGA: Teaching Resources: Loan Programs
Novel Study Guides for the Classroom Teacher
Outline Maps
100 Top Map Sites
Unit Studies (huge site!)
Lesson Plans & Teacher Helps
Newton's Apple
MathWork -- Math worksheets you can create in your browser
S.C.O.R.E.
homeschooling.about.com
A to Z Home's Cool - Homeschooling Web Site
Jon's Homeschool Resource Page