Facilitating home education is about finding a balance between what you can teach, what you want to teach, and how much time you have to prepare lesson materials.
As a home educating parent, you don’t need subscriptions to home-educate successfully. Memberships often make facilitating/organising/co-ordinating a home education a little bit easier and less time-consuming, but none of these subscriptions are essential to teach a homeschool class.
So why use memberships if you don’t need them?
-
- For home learners, memberships are a great option to enhance their learning experience and support independent learning.
-
- Memberships/subscriptions can make the facilitating of a home education easier
Homeschool subscriptions can be used…
-
- to facilitate learning at home (eg. a subject you don’t want to/feel unable to teach)
-
- as a tool to make ‘teaching’ the subject easier (eg. Khan Academy which allows you – as home educator – to act as a supply teacher; supporting the learning rather than being in charge of the teaching)
-
- and subscriptions for home-ed can act as a tutor would, providing home learners with additional learning support via tutorials to follow (and homework to complete).
As a ‘homeschool teacher’, memberships make planning the curriculum easier; as a parent, with one subject covered or a strong resource bank to use, there’s one less thing to think about in the day-to-day planning of a homeschool life.
Use subscriptions to outsource teaching specific subjects
Home educating doesn’t mean you have to teach everything. After deciding which subjects will be included in home-ed lessons, think about
-
- which subjects you’re happy to teach
-
- which you feel you can teach
-
- note what it is you like to teach
-
- highlight any subjects you’d rather not teach
and you’ll start to see the type of memberships that might be useful for your home learners.
When planning a yearly/termly home-ed curriculum, memberships are a great way to outsource specific subjects. With a membership, home learners can work through the curriculum at their own pace & can complete lessons independently. Your job is to facilitate an education for your child: Memberships are an easy way to do that.
Subscriptions provide a curriculum structure for you to build on
Using homeschool subscriptions means you (as the home educator) have an education plan to follow. This allows you to gather additional teaching materials to accompany the lesson (worksheets, extension exercises etc) to expand the lesson/take it offline.
Refresh your own knowledge to be able to teach it.
Memberships are like textbooks in that you can stay one step ahead without having to know the entire course content in order to teach it: I use Duolingo and maths subscriptions to ‘revise’ topics; scanning through modules before our homeschoolers do the lessons themselves.
Modelling how to refresh your own knowledge passively teaches home learners the idea that learning is an ongoing, revision-based process.
Use the resources/teaching materials subscriptions provide to build a home-ed resource bank for future use.
Not every resource or teaching material is going to be useful to your homeschooler at the time you have the subscription. I add any unused resources (lessons plans, additional worksheets, PDF slideshows etc) to a folder to be used in future lessons, or into ‘grab and go’ folders of work.
Choosing and using subscriptions and memberships in a homeschool classroom
Home education has to work as a team effort, and part of building that team is giving the homeschoolers a say in what and how they learn. Instead of deciding (as their teacher) what resources our homeschoolers will use, I make a list and we whittle it down together.
If we’re looking for lesson materials or memberships to use in the classroom as a teaching tool, it’s the opinion of the homeschooler which counts the most: They need to learn from it! It might be easier for me to teach from textbook-style curricula, but if the learner responds best to a game-based/competition/challenge approach to learning, a flashcard-based digital resource may be a more effective learning tool for them.
If the point of the resource is to teach a subject/course, or be included in core curriculum (for any subject), we trial-run multiple memberships before we decide on one. It saves masses of time in the long run.
Spending a few days experimenting with a membership reduces the risk of investing in a subscription that ends up not being beneficial to your homeschool.
Encourage home learners to decide which subscriptions to try and sign up for trial memberships. Dedicate the trial period to using the resource as much as possible – literally trial running it. We often combine a curriculum change with a study week, dedicating lesson time to curriculum sourcing.
N.B It’s a good idea to do a placement style test with homeschoolers before they start a trial and repeat it at the end, to objectively see if the resource has made a difference to their learning.
There are new subscriptions popping up every day and figuring out which ones to choose can be as time-consuming as the actual teaching of home-ed lessons.
The list below is of paid memberships we use (or have used) while home-educating grades KS1-KS3. It’s a list of resources useful for lesson planning, materials that work well in the classroom and that our homeschoolers enjoy.
It’s not an exhaustive list, it’s the whittled-down version of hundreds of useful, fun, informative sites available to home educators to use to plan a curriculum and teach at home. If we’re missing any great sites, please let us know! And if you want to stay updated as we add to this list, sign up below.
Paid Homeschool Subscriptions
Britannica Kids: An online, updated version of the original encyclopedias. It’s a great resource for project-led learning as students can navigate it themselves.
For educators, the resources are presented in four ability levels making it easier to create lessons that are of the right grade level for your child
IXL: IXL is an online learning platform, covering maths, social science, language arts, science and Spanish. The functionality of IXL makes it easy as a home educator to identify learning gaps based on analytics & to track how students are using the site.
We use IXL as our home-ed maths curriculum.
The Maths Factor: The #1 site I’d recommend for anyone looking to outsource primary school (KS1/KS2) maths. The online course can be used alongside the accompanying textbook ‘How to Be Good at Maths’ as a complete primary maths curriculum.
(Investing in The Maths Factor made a huge difference to the stress levels in our homeschool. Maths is a subject we have, do and will continue to outsource rather than teach.)
Reading Eggs: A brilliant game centered resource to use while teaching your child to read. The programme gives access to thousands of graded reader books to support your child’s reading progress and offers home educators ready to use activities to use as reading and writing lessons in a homeschool.
Brave Writer: If you’re looking for a writing programme to support home education, Brave Writer is a fantastic choice. The woman behind Brave Writer home-educated her five children for 17 years and has created a system for teaching writing that is inspiring, fun to teach and learn, quick to prep and there is a course to suit all types of learners, across all grades.
Skillshare: Skillshare is an online learning community. It’s a site where you can find individual tutorials and complete courses ranging in subjects from musical theory & instrument tuition; to photography, digital skills and art.
(How we use Skillshare for home-ed)
Grammarly: Grammarly is a great tool if your home learners are at the stage of self-editing their own writing and it’s an excellent source of teaching materials for home-ed grammar lessons.
Spotify: You could argue that a music subscription is a household expense rather than a home-ed one but music is a powerful tool for home educators. Spotify is our music/podcast subscription of choice. Read why here.
Drama Notebook: A fantastic resource to bring drama into a home-ed classroom.
Lesson plans, worksheets
Teachers Pay Teachers (free/paid)
Education.com (free/paid options)
Ed Place (free/paid membership options)
The links below are some examples of how we use subscriptions as curriculum, to collect resources (for unit studies/project-led learning), to simplify planning and, practically, in lessons.
As always, if there’s a site we’re missing that should definitely be included in a homeschool resource bank, let us know!
Facilitating home education is about finding a balance between what you can teach, what you want to teach, and how much time you have to prepare lesson materials.
As a home educating parent, you don’t need subscriptions to home-educate successfully. Memberships often make facilitating/organising/co-ordinating a home education a little bit easier and less time-consuming, but none of these subscriptions are essential to teach a homeschool class.
So why use memberships if you don’t need them?
-
- For home learners, memberships are a great option to enhance their learning experience and support independent learning.
-
- Memberships/subscriptions can make the facilitating of a home education easier
Homeschool subscriptions can be used…
-
- to facilitate learning at home (eg. a subject you don’t want to/feel unable to teach)
-
- as a tool to make ‘teaching’ the subject easier (eg. Khan Academy which allows you – as home educator – to act as a supply teacher; supporting the learning rather than being in charge of the teaching)
-
- and subscriptions for home-ed can act as a tutor would, providing home learners with additional learning support via tutorials to follow (and homework to complete).
As a ‘homeschool teacher’, memberships make planning the curriculum easier; as a parent, with one subject covered or a strong resource bank to use, there’s one less thing to think about in the day-to-day planning of a homeschool life.
Use subscriptions to outsource teaching specific subjects
Home educating doesn’t mean you have to teach everything. After deciding which subjects will be included in home-ed lessons, think about
-
- which subjects you’re happy to teach
-
- which you feel you can teach
-
- note what it is you like to teach
-
- highlight any subjects you’d rather not teach
and you’ll start to see the type of memberships that might be useful for your home learners.
When planning a yearly/termly home-ed curriculum, memberships are a great way to outsource specific subjects. With a membership, home learners can work through the curriculum at their own pace & can complete lessons independently. Your job is to facilitate an education for your child: Memberships are an easy way to do that.
Subscriptions provide a curriculum structure for you to build on
Using homeschool subscriptions means you (as the home educator) have an education plan to follow. This allows you to gather additional teaching materials to accompany the lesson (worksheets, extension exercises etc) to expand the lesson/take it offline.
Refresh your own knowledge to be able to teach it.
Memberships are like textbooks in that you can stay one step ahead without having to know the entire course content in order to teach it: I use Duolingo and maths subscriptions to ‘revise’ topics; scanning through modules before our homeschoolers do the lessons themselves.
Modelling how to refresh your own knowledge passively teaches home learners the idea that learning is an ongoing, revision-based process.
Use the resources/teaching materials subscriptions provide to build a home-ed resource bank for future use.
Not every resource or teaching material is going to be useful to your homeschooler at the time you have the subscription. I add any unused resources (lessons plans, additional worksheets, PDF slideshows etc) to a folder to be used in future lessons, or into ‘grab and go’ folders of work.
Choosing and using subscriptions and memberships in a homeschool classroom
Home education has to work as a team effort, and part of building that team is giving the homeschoolers a say in what and how they learn. Instead of deciding (as their teacher) what resources our homeschoolers will use, I make a list and we whittle it down together.
If we’re looking for lesson materials or memberships to use in the classroom as a teaching tool, it’s the opinion of the homeschooler which counts the most: They need to learn from it! It might be easier for me to teach from textbook-style curricula, but if the learner responds best to a game-based/competition/challenge approach to learning, a flashcard-based digital resource may be a more effective learning tool for them.
If the point of the resource is to teach a subject/course, or be included in core curriculum (for any subject), we trial-run multiple memberships before we decide on one. It saves masses of time in the long run.
Spending a few days experimenting with a membership reduces the risk of investing in a subscription that ends up not being beneficial to your homeschool.
Encourage home learners to decide which subscriptions to try and sign up for trial memberships. Dedicate the trial period to using the resource as much as possible – literally trial running it. We often combine a curriculum change with a study week, dedicating lesson time to curriculum sourcing.
N.B It’s a good idea to do a placement style test with homeschoolers before they start a trial and repeat it at the end, to objectively see if the resource has made a difference to their learning.
There are new subscriptions popping up every day and figuring out which ones to choose can be as time-consuming as the actual teaching of home-ed lessons.
The list below is of paid memberships we use (or have used) while home-educating grades KS1-KS3. It’s a list of resources useful for lesson planning, materials that work well in the classroom and that our homeschoolers enjoy.
It’s not an exhaustive list, it’s the whittled-down version of hundreds of useful, fun, informative sites available to home educators to use to plan a curriculum and teach at home. If we’re missing any great sites, please let us know! And if you want to stay updated as we add to this list, sign up below.
Paid Homeschool Subscriptions
Britannica Kids: An online, updated version of the original encyclopedias. It’s a great resource for project-led learning as students can navigate it themselves.
For educators, the resources are presented in four ability levels making it easier to create lessons that are of the right grade level for your child
IXL: IXL is an online learning platform, covering maths, social science, language arts, science and Spanish. The functionality of IXL makes it easy as a home educator to identify learning gaps based on analytics & to track how students are using the site.
We use IXL as our home-ed maths curriculum.
The Maths Factor: The #1 site I’d recommend for anyone looking to outsource primary school (KS1/KS2) maths. The online course can be used alongside the accompanying textbook ‘How to Be Good at Maths’ as a complete primary maths curriculum.
(Investing in The Maths Factor made a huge difference to the stress levels in our homeschool. Maths is a subject we have, do and will continue to outsource rather than teach.)
Reading Eggs: A brilliant game centered resource to use while teaching your child to read. The programme gives access to thousands of graded reader books to support your child’s reading progress and offers home educators ready to use activities to use as reading and writing lessons in a homeschool.
Brave Writer: If you’re looking for a writing programme to support home education, Brave Writer is a fantastic choice. The woman behind Brave Writer home-educated her five children for 17 years and has created a system for teaching writing that is inspiring, fun to teach and learn, quick to prep and there is a course to suit all types of learners, across all grades.
Skillshare: Skillshare is an online learning community. It’s a site where you can find individual tutorials and complete courses ranging in subjects from musical theory & instrument tuition; to photography, digital skills and art.
(How we use Skillshare for home-ed)
Grammarly: Grammarly is a great tool if your home learners are at the stage of self-editing their own writing and it’s an excellent source of teaching materials for home-ed grammar lessons.
Spotify: You could argue that a music subscription is a household expense rather than a home-ed one but music is a powerful tool for home educators. Spotify is our music/podcast subscription of choice. Read why here.
Drama Notebook: A fantastic resource to bring drama into a home-ed classroom.
Lesson plans, worksheets
Teachers Pay Teachers (free/paid)
Education.com (free/paid options)
Ed Place (free/paid membership options)
The links below are some examples of how we use subscriptions as curriculum, to collect resources (for unit studies/project-led learning), to simplify planning and, practically, in lessons.
Facilitating home education is about finding a balance between what you can teach, what you want to teach, and how much time you have to prepare lesson materials.
As a home educating parent, you don’t need subscriptions to home-educate successfully. Memberships often make facilitating/organising/co-ordinating a home education a little bit easier and less time-consuming, but none of these subscriptions are essential to teach a homeschool class.
So why use memberships if you don’t need them?
-
- For home learners, memberships are a great option to enhance their learning experience and support independent learning.
-
- Memberships/subscriptions can make the facilitating of a home education easier
Homeschool subscriptions can be used…
-
- to facilitate learning at home (eg. a subject you don’t want to/feel unable to teach)
-
- as a tool to make ‘teaching’ the subject easier (eg. Khan Academy which allows you – as home educator – to act as a supply teacher; supporting the learning rather than being in charge of the teaching)
-
- and subscriptions for home-ed can act as a tutor would, providing home learners with additional learning support via tutorials to follow (and homework to complete).
As a ‘homeschool teacher’, memberships make planning the curriculum easier; as a parent, with one subject covered or a strong resource bank to use, there’s one less thing to think about in the day-to-day planning of a homeschool life.
Use subscriptions to outsource teaching specific subjects
Home educating doesn’t mean you have to teach everything. After deciding which subjects will be included in home-ed lessons, think about
-
- which subjects you’re happy to teach
-
- which you feel you can teach
-
- note what it is you like to teach
-
- highlight any subjects you’d rather not teach
and you’ll start to see the type of memberships that might be useful for your home learners.
When planning a yearly/termly home-ed curriculum, memberships are a great way to outsource specific subjects. With a membership, home learners can work through the curriculum at their own pace & can complete lessons independently. Your job is to facilitate an education for your child: Memberships are an easy way to do that.
Subscriptions provide a curriculum structure for you to build on
Using homeschool subscriptions means you (as the home educator) have an education plan to follow. This allows you to gather additional teaching materials to accompany the lesson (worksheets, extension exercises etc) to expand the lesson/take it offline.
Refresh your own knowledge to be able to teach it.
Memberships are like textbooks in that you can stay one step ahead without having to know the entire course content in order to teach it: I use Duolingo and maths subscriptions to ‘revise’ topics; scanning through modules before our homeschoolers do the lessons themselves.
Modelling how to refresh your own knowledge passively teaches home learners the idea that learning is an ongoing, revision-based process.
Use the resources/teaching materials subscriptions provide to build a home-ed resource bank for future use.
Not every resource or teaching material is going to be useful to your homeschooler at the time you have the subscription. I add any unused resources (lessons plans, additional worksheets, PDF slideshows etc) to a folder to be used in future lessons, or into ‘grab and go’ folders of work.
Choosing and using subscriptions and memberships in a homeschool classroom
Home education has to work as a team effort, and part of building that team is giving the homeschoolers a say in what and how they learn. Instead of deciding (as their teacher) what resources our homeschoolers will use, I make a list and we whittle it down together.
If we’re looking for lesson materials or memberships to use in the classroom as a teaching tool, it’s the opinion of the homeschooler which counts the most: They need to learn from it! It might be easier for me to teach from textbook-style curricula, but if the learner responds best to a game-based/competition/challenge approach to learning, a flashcard-based digital resource may be a more effective learning tool for them.
If the point of the resource is to teach a subject/course, or be included in core curriculum (for any subject), we trial-run multiple memberships before we decide on one. It saves masses of time in the long run.
Spending a few days experimenting with a membership reduces the risk of investing in a subscription that ends up not being beneficial to your homeschool.
Encourage home learners to decide which subscriptions to try and sign up for trial memberships. Dedicate the trial period to using the resource as much as possible – literally trial running it. We often combine a curriculum change with a study week, dedicating lesson time to curriculum sourcing.
N.B It’s a good idea to do a placement style test with homeschoolers before they start a trial and repeat it at the end, to objectively see if the resource has made a difference to their learning.
There are new subscriptions popping up every day and figuring out which ones to choose can be as time-consuming as the actual teaching of home-ed lessons.
The list below is of paid memberships we use (or have used) while home-educating grades KS1-KS3. It’s a list of resources useful for lesson planning, materials that work well in the classroom and that our homeschoolers enjoy.
It’s not an exhaustive list, it’s the whittled-down version of hundreds of useful, fun, informative sites available to home educators to use to plan a curriculum and teach at home. If we’re missing any great sites, please let us know! And if you want to stay updated as we add to this list, sign up below.
Paid Homeschool Subscriptions
Britannica Kids: An online, updated version of the original encyclopedias. It’s a great resource for project-led learning as students can navigate it themselves.
For educators, the resources are presented in four ability levels making it easier to create lessons that are of the right grade level for your child
IXL: IXL is an online learning platform, covering maths, social science, language arts, science and Spanish. The functionality of IXL makes it easy as a home educator to identify learning gaps based on analytics & to track how students are using the site.
We use IXL as our home-ed maths curriculum.
The Maths Factor: The #1 site I’d recommend for anyone looking to outsource primary school (KS1/KS2) maths. The online course can be used alongside the accompanying textbook ‘How to Be Good at Maths’ as a complete primary maths curriculum.
(Investing in The Maths Factor made a huge difference to the stress levels in our homeschool. Maths is a subject we have, do and will continue to outsource rather than teach.)
Reading Eggs: A brilliant game centered resource to use while teaching your child to read. The programme gives access to thousands of graded reader books to support your child’s reading progress and offers home educators ready to use activities to use as reading and writing lessons in a homeschool.
Brave Writer: If you’re looking for a writing programme to support home education, Brave Writer is a fantastic choice. The woman behind Brave Writer home-educated her five children for 17 years and has created a system for teaching writing that is inspiring, fun to teach and learn, quick to prep and there is a course to suit all types of learners, across all grades.
Skillshare: Skillshare is an online learning community. It’s a site where you can find individual tutorials and complete courses ranging in subjects from musical theory & instrument tuition; to photography, digital skills and art.
(How we use Skillshare for home-ed)
Grammarly: Grammarly is a great tool if your home learners are at the stage of self-editing their own writing and it’s an excellent source of teaching materials for home-ed grammar lessons.
Spotify: You could argue that a music subscription is a household expense rather than a home-ed one but music is a powerful tool for home educators. Spotify is our music/podcast subscription of choice. Read why here.
Drama Notebook: A fantastic resource to bring drama into a home-ed classroom.
Lesson plans, worksheets
Teachers Pay Teachers (free/paid)
Education.com (free/paid options)
Ed Place (free/paid membership options)
The links below are some examples of how we use subscriptions as curriculum, to collect resources (for unit studies/project-led learning), to simplify planning and, practically, in lessons.
Facilitating home education is about finding a balance between what you can teach, what you want to teach, and how much time you have to prepare lesson materials.
As a home educating parent, you don’t need subscriptions to home-educate successfully. Memberships often make facilitating/organising/co-ordinating a home education a little bit easier and less time-consuming, but none of these subscriptions are essential to teach a homeschool class.
So why use memberships if you don’t need them?
-
- For home learners, memberships are a great option to enhance their learning experience and support independent learning.
-
- Memberships/subscriptions can make the facilitating of a home education easier
Homeschool subscriptions can be used…
-
- to facilitate learning at home (eg. a subject you don’t want to/feel unable to teach)
-
- as a tool to make ‘teaching’ the subject easier (eg. Khan Academy which allows you – as home educator – to act as a supply teacher; supporting the learning rather than being in charge of the teaching)
-
- and subscriptions for home-ed can act as a tutor would, providing home learners with additional learning support via tutorials to follow (and homework to complete).
As a ‘homeschool teacher’, memberships make planning the curriculum easier; as a parent, with one subject covered or a strong resource bank to use, there’s one less thing to think about in the day-to-day planning of a homeschool life.
Use subscriptions to outsource teaching specific subjects
Home educating doesn’t mean you have to teach everything. After deciding which subjects will be included in home-ed lessons, think about
-
- which subjects you’re happy to teach
-
- which you feel you can teach
-
- note what it is you like to teach
-
- highlight any subjects you’d rather not teach
and you’ll start to see the type of memberships that might be useful for your home learners.
When planning a yearly/termly home-ed curriculum, memberships are a great way to outsource specific subjects. With a membership, home learners can work through the curriculum at their own pace & can complete lessons independently. Your job is to facilitate an education for your child: Memberships are an easy way to do that.
Subscriptions provide a curriculum structure for you to build on
Using homeschool subscriptions means you (as the home educator) have an education plan to follow. This allows you to gather additional teaching materials to accompany the lesson (worksheets, extension exercises etc) to expand the lesson/take it offline.
Refresh your own knowledge to be able to teach it.
Memberships are like textbooks in that you can stay one step ahead without having to know the entire course content in order to teach it: I use Duolingo and maths subscriptions to ‘revise’ topics; scanning through modules before our homeschoolers do the lessons themselves.
Modelling how to refresh your own knowledge passively teaches home learners the idea that learning is an ongoing, revision-based process.
Use the resources/teaching materials subscriptions provide to build a home-ed resource bank for future use.
Not every resource or teaching material is going to be useful to your homeschooler at the time you have the subscription. I add any unused resources (lessons plans, additional worksheets, PDF slideshows etc) to a folder to be used in future lessons, or into ‘grab and go’ folders of work.
Choosing and using subscriptions and memberships in a homeschool classroom
Home education has to work as a team effort, and part of building that team is giving the homeschoolers a say in what and how they learn. Instead of deciding (as their teacher) what resources our homeschoolers will use, I make a list and we whittle it down together.
If we’re looking for lesson materials or memberships to use in the classroom as a teaching tool, it’s the opinion of the homeschooler which counts the most: They need to learn from it! It might be easier for me to teach from textbook-style curricula, but if the learner responds best to a game-based/competition/challenge approach to learning, a flashcard-based digital resource may be a more effective learning tool for them.
If the point of the resource is to teach a subject/course, or be included in core curriculum (for any subject), we trial-run multiple memberships before we decide on one. It saves masses of time in the long run.
Spending a few days experimenting with a membership reduces the risk of investing in a subscription that ends up not being beneficial to your homeschool.
Encourage home learners to decide which subscriptions to try and sign up for trial memberships. Dedicate the trial period to using the resource as much as possible – literally trial running it. We often combine a curriculum change with a study week, dedicating lesson time to curriculum sourcing.
N.B It’s a good idea to do a placement style test with homeschoolers before they start a trial and repeat it at the end, to objectively see if the resource has made a difference to their learning.
There are new subscriptions popping up every day and figuring out which ones to choose can be as time-consuming as the actual teaching of home-ed lessons.
The list below is of paid memberships we use (or have used) while home-educating grades KS1-KS3. It’s a list of resources useful for lesson planning, materials that work well in the classroom and that our homeschoolers enjoy.
It’s not an exhaustive list, it’s the whittled-down version of hundreds of useful, fun, informative sites available to home educators to use to plan a curriculum and teach at home. To stay updated as we add to this list, sign up below.
Paid Homeschool Subscriptions
Britannica Kids: An online, updated version of the original encyclopedias. It’s a great resource for project-led learning as students can navigate it themselves.
For educators, the resources are presented in four ability levels making it easier to create lessons that are of the right grade level for your child
IXL: IXL is an online learning platform, covering maths, social science, language arts, science and Spanish. The functionality of IXL makes it easy as a home educator to identify learning gaps based on analytics & to track how students are using the site.
We use IXL as our home-ed maths curriculum.
The Maths Factor: The #1 site I’d recommend for anyone looking to outsource primary school (KS1/KS2) maths. The online course can be used alongside the accompanying textbook ‘How to Be Good at Maths’ as a complete primary maths curriculum.
(Investing in The Maths Factor made a huge difference to the stress levels in our homeschool. Maths is a subject we have, do and will continue to outsource rather than teach.)
Reading Eggs: A brilliant game centered resource to use while teaching your child to read. The programme gives access to thousands of graded reader books to support your child’s reading progress and offers home educators ready to use activities to use as reading and writing lessons in a homeschool.
Brave Writer: If you’re looking for a writing programme to support home education, Brave Writer is a fantastic choice. The woman behind Brave Writer home-educated her five children for 17 years and has created a system for teaching writing that is inspiring, fun to teach and learn, quick to prep and there is a course to suit all types of learners, across all grades.
Skillshare: Skillshare is an online learning community. It’s a site where you can find individual tutorials and complete courses ranging in subjects from musical theory & instrument tuition; to photography, digital skills and art.
(How we use Skillshare for home-ed)
Grammarly: Grammarly is a great tool if your home learners are at the stage of self-editing their own writing and it’s an excellent source of teaching materials for home-ed grammar lessons.
Spotify: You could argue that a music subscription is a household expense rather than a home-ed one but music is a powerful tool for home educators. Spotify is our music/podcast subscription of choice. Read why here.
Drama Notebook: A fantastic resource to bring drama into a home-ed classroom.
Lesson plans, worksheets
Teachers Pay Teachers (free/paid)
Education.com (free/paid options)
Ed Place (free/paid membership options)
The links below are some examples of how we use subscriptions as curriculum, to collect resources (for unit studies/project-led learning), to simplify planning and, practically, in lessons.
Independent Learning: Using Grammarly to Self-Edit
As always, if there’s a site we’re missing that should definitely be included in a homeschool resource bank, let us know!