Links |
| Organizations |
| Texas Home School Coalition Join THSC Association and get benefits and discounts potentially worth $100s while you support the organization which is your advocate for home school freedoms in Texas! |
| Home School Legal Defense Association The Home School Legal Defense Association is a non-profit advocacy organization established to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms. Through annual memberships, HSLDA is tens of thousands of families united in service together, providing a strong voice when and where needed. |
| Texas Home Educators is a list to serve the Home Educators of Texas in discussions of homeschool styles, philosophy, books, curriculum, events, and laws in a Christian atmosphere. This is the place to discuss and share our triumphs, our questions, and our bumps. TexHmEd is now the largest statewide homeschool list. |
| First-year homeschool support Describing themselves as a support group dedicated to supporting first-year homeschooling mothers, this website offers so much more with numerous articles, resources, and teaching utilities created to equip and encourage the new homeschooler. |
| Teen Pact - Leadership Training |
| Middle School and High School courses Work at your own pace, earn high school diploma. |
| National Home Education Research Institute Produces high-quality research (e.g., statistics, facts, findings) on home-based education (homeschooling) |
| Texas' Special Kids Non-profit ministry serving families with special needs children |
| Reference Resources |
| Homeschool Christian This site offers over 1,200 pages of free resources to support and assist homeschooling families in giving their children an outstanding education. |
| Microsoft FREE Word Viewer Word Viewer 2007 This freeware program allows users who do not own Microsoft Word to view and print documents that were created in Word. |
| Dictionary The ultimate dictionary resource which includes definitions from several major dictionaries including word origins and a nifty button to push and hear the correct pronunciation. Go to the home page for links to numerous additional reference resources including online thesaurus, almanacs, maps, etc. |
| Academic Kids Encyclopedia Looking for an online encyclopedia with beautiful pictures that can be easily enlarged, lesson plans, clip art, and coloring pages? Academic Kids encyclopedia is a beautiful resource with over 40,000 articles at your fingertips and even has an extensive math worksheet section on everything from Roman numerals to printable graph paper. |
| Knowledge Quest Maps Historical outline maps and timelines designed for the interactive study of world history and geography. |
| HomeSchool Reviews Looking for reviews from real homeshoolers before you buy? This has hundreds of reviews divided up into numerous categories. |
| Braintrain A local educational diagnostic, testing and tutoring clinic |
| The TAG (Talented and Gifted) Project Our mission is to build and strengthen relationships between individuals, families, and organizations for the benefit of intellectually gifted children and adults. . .harnessing the power of global telecommunications . . .to share information and provide mutual assistance and support. |
| Curriculum |
| Home Educators Resource HER Store is a homeschool consignment store that has a comprehensive selection of new and used curriculum. |
| Veritas Press - talks and conferences on classical homeschooling Looking for teacher training from the experts in classical education, but can't travel the country to get there? Go here to download mp3 format talks and entire conferences sponsored by Veritas Press, the leader in classical homeschooling. |
| Sonlight Sonlight is the way you wish you'd been taught. Guaranteed. Their philosophy is to create a lifelong love of learning through great books. You can't go wrong with their fabulous reading lists and they have one of the best analysis of the top math curriculums available for elementary I've seen anywhere. |
| Veritas Press Veritas Press, innovators in the resurgence of classical education among homeschoolers, states its commitment to providing Christian educators in the home and school setting with quality tools for a quality education. Dedicated to raising the bar for the American educational system, their reading lists and art resources are top notch and will challenge your concept of how old children have to be before they are capable of understanding difficult concepts. |
| KONOS Considered the granddaddy of unit studies, KONOS author Jessica Hulcy is credited with teaching parents how to work with the wiggle. Their hands-on approach to teaching has been a foundation of a number of long-term homeschoolers in our association. |
| Cornerstone Building a biblical worldview and some of the finest fine arts curriculum resources available have been favorites of ours for years. |
| Lifetime Books and Gifts Founded by long-time homeschoolers who believe in the "living books" approach to teaching, Lifetime Books and Gifts have provided literally dozens of valuable resources to our family over the years. If you love REAL books and desire to use them as your primary teaching tool, you will love this company. |
| CurrClick.com Curriculum and classes in a click! |
| Homeschool Marketplace Homeschool marketplace was founded by Chris and Ellyn Davis, formerly of Elijah Company, one of our all-time favorite resources. Chris Davis approach to homeschooling will refresh you and give you much to think about. I have NEVER been disappointed by one of their recommendations. |
| Kidzone Kidzone Fun Facts includes fun information, worksheets, and lesson plans for numerous subjects including math, language arts, geography, science, and handwriting. |
| Home School Share This amazing site has 275 FREE unit studies for all ages and 200 FREE lapbooks! If you are looking for some free studies to incorporate into your homeschool, look no further. |
| Simply Charlotte Mason Looking for ideas, resources and information on Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy? This site and its ideas can enrich any homeschool. |
| Language Arts |
| Spelling City A great website for spelling games, lists, etc. Great fun! |
| Spelling Resource Center |
| Spelling advice/worksheets Spelling advice and worksheets |
| Spell Quizzer Spelling for kids of all ages. Input your own list of words, or download free lists. Record your own voice dictating the words. |
| The Ultimate Spelling Resource Guide A guide that includes spelling strategies, commonly misspelled words, and other spelling tips and resouces. |
| Literature |
| Project Gutenberg How would you like to have access to thousands of books including many of the classics without spending a dime or leaving your home? Project Gutenberg has ebooks to download for free. |
| Bright Kids / Children's Literature & Living Books List Looking for a comprehensive list of twaddle-free books suggested by grade level? Don't know what twaddle is? You need to explore this site. |
| A Book in Time Looking for a list of books at an appropriate grade level for your children to read that deals with a particular time period in history? Look no further. |
| Math |
| Math worksheets |
| Interactive math games |
| Math Dictionary An awesome, interactive Math resource. Broken down alphabetically kids can click on a wide range of Math terms from abacus to zero! Not only will they get a definition, but they also get a little demonstration of how the concept works! From Acre, binary system, co-efficient to dodecahedron this has information to keep your child learning for hours! |
| Rainforest Math Interactive mathematics activities K-6 |
| Math-U-See One of our all-time favorite math curriculum resources. Math·U·See's goal is to help produce confident problem solvers who enjoy the study of math. |
| Daily Mental Math Activities This site offers 8 mental math problems per day for an entire school year for grades 1 - 8. There's a great assortment of questions, which get progressively more difficult throughout the year. Only five minutes per day to boost computation and problem-solving skills! |
| Social Studies/History/Geography |
| A.W. Perry Homestead Museum A recognized state historic landmark. History programs. Free guided tours to elementary students of the 1909 farmhouse, barn, root cellar, water well, and smokehouse. |
| Living History Farm The site has over 400 stories about the history of agricultural innovation and the history of the 20th century. One of the site's strengths is that it relies on a series of oral history interviews. These streaming media segments can bring an historic period or event alive for students today. |
| Best of History An award-winning portal that contains annotated links to over 1000 history web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, teacher guides, activities, games, quizzes, and more. |
| Student News Daily A current events site for older kids. Features include: Daily news articles with questions; political cartoons; examples of biased reporting; weekly quizzes. SIte offers the option of having answers emailed to you. |
| A Book in Time A Book in Time originally began as a chronological history booklist, but listings of crafts, timelines, maps, and other resources have been added over the years. Their purpose is to help history teachers find all kinds of extracurricular resources to enrich their classes! |
| Animated Atlas Animated Atlas portrays large chapters of American history quickly by animating maps and geographic features. For school, home and genealogy use. |
| A Child's Geography Award-winning resources and beautifully written how-to articles that will both encourage and teach. |
| Amy Pak's Home School in the Woods Timeline figures, lap books, unit studies, etc... |
| Science |
| Astronomy Do you have a budding astronomer or astronaut? Check out this site |
| Zoo School for homeschoolers A multi-week series of Zoology enrichment classes for K-4th graders. |
| Home Educator's Science Partnership Home Educator's Science Partnership: information on participating in a science fair for elementary and high schoolers |
| Science With Me The Fun, Easy, Visual way for children to learn science! |
| KidsHealth.org Click on a body part to watch movies, take quizzes & solve word finds. Looking for simple animation of the human heart pumping or of muscles contracting and expanding? This has dozens of video clips and diagrams that are designed with the elementary student in mind. |
| Dallas Zoo Education Educator Workshops at the Dallas Zoo. |
| Nature Study - Charlotte Mason Style Looking for excellent ideas on how to introduce your children to nature studies without workbook pages? Great articles and resource lists, as well. |
| Animals |
| Africa Wildcam Studying Africa or animals? This link will take you to a live camera feed at Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana, Africa. We've seen elephants, gazelles, crocodiles, and exotic birds. Remember, it is a live feed and they are 7 hours ahead of us, so there isn't always something exciting happening. But beware!! Wen you learn the times to tune in, this can be addicting! |
| National Zoo Animal webcams at the national zoo will enhance your study of animals without leaving your living room. |
| Lap Booking Resources |
| Miller Pads and Paper The absolute best place to get your paper and card stock for lap booking!! |
| Blank Outline Maps |
| Dinah Zike's Foldables, VKV's, & Equivalency Flips, Unique Graphic Organizers, & Manipulatives |
| Home School Share Offers many free lap books |
| Knowledge Box Central Lap book ideas for older students |
| Amy Pak's Home School in the Woods Historical unit studies incorporating lap books |
| Bible |
| Bible puzzles Printable Bible word puzzles your children will enjoy while you reinforce their knowledge of scripture |
| BibleStudio.com This site includes the Bible in a dozen different translations. It also has a Bible Atlas and Bible Dictionary. My favorite part of this site is the ability to search photos, illustrations, paintings and maps by topic, Bible reference, word, or phrase! |
| EdgezoneGames.com Looking for Bible activities for your younger family members? This site offers free printable Bible story activities with 325 free PDF downloads that cover the entire Bible! Downloads include coloring sheets, memory verses, worksheets, word searches, and crossword puzzles. |
| Art |
| Prepackaged Crafts for preschoolers Prepackaged Crafts is a way for a mom to spend 5 to 15 minutes with their preschoolers doing fun crafts without having to spend ANY time prepping. |
| Teach Art at Home Free art projects. Has a number of great art projects for young and old. |
| Miller Pads & Paper One of our favorite art suppliers! They also have a free quarterly newsletter available full of wonderful ideas to get your students creating. |
| Physical Fitness |
| President Challenge Fitness Help in setting fitness goals for your children with specific exercises and evaluations. You may also order "awards" through the website when goals are reached. |
| Southwest Aquatics of Texas Swim Team This local swim team has many members from our community. |
| College-related |
| Information for college-bound students To register your high school student for the PSAT or SAT exam, you will need to go here. In addition, this offers extensive information for parents including scholarship advice, practice exams, and study tips for students. |
| Music |
| Music Lessons DBU teacher of piano, voice, guitar, music theory, and composition. |
| Media |
| Kids learn out loud Kids.LearnOutLoud.com is your audio and video learning resource for Kids & Teens. Browse thousands of Educational Audio Books, MP3 Downloads, and Podcasts for Kids! |
| Movie guide Everyone wants to make wise media choices; however, in this world it's not easy. Here is a link that will help you. |
| Publications |
| God's World This is a great science magazine. Seven or more subscriptions qualifies for a great discount. |
| Practical Homeschooling Magazine The magazine begun by homeschooling pioneer, Mary Pride |
| The Old Schoolhouse Magazine This resource has it all - wonderful weekly e-Newsletters on various topics, an online magazine, a paper edition and an online store that sells all the "latest and greatest" homeschooling curriculum and supplies. |
| Other |
| Academic tournaments Academic tournaments for kids in 1-8 grade |
| Online Computer Classes I'm a recently retired public school teacher in the Ft. Worth area, and I'm offering an online basic computer skills class for home schoolers and others, including adults, who might want to learn more about making a computer a tool, and not just a toy. |
| Homeschool Book Fair Annual homeschool book fair in Arlington in May at the Arlington Convention Center |
| Piedmont Education Services This company provides nationally-standardized achievement tests and other products and services to almost 7,000 homeschooling families nationwide and overseas. |
| File Folder Games Looking for fun learning activities for preschool through 2nd grade? Lots of games here on numerous subjects. |
| The Fly Lady Are you looking for ideas to keep your house (and the clutter) from overwhelming and hindering your homeschool? The Fly Lady is full of practical organizational ideas that will help anyone willing to implement them. |