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Homeschooling for Free (All Ages)
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This edition of the CHN newsletter is primarly dedicated to listing a collection of resources for your homeschool with the added bonus of being free of charge for the most part. There are many ways to learn, and they don't have to cost money. From pre-K through college, your homeschooler - and you as a parent - can continue to learn without the burden of incurring a cost to do so. The information below is organized in different categories for your convenience. If you have a favorite, *free*, educational website to share, contact CHN with your information.
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Kindergarten & Preschool Links
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| Popular Educational Resources for Tots
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Language Arts Resources: Reading & Spelling
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Review the following websites and videos to get information on successful ways to teach your child to read.
Article: 10 Steps to Teach Your Child to Read
Link here
Video: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
21 minutes
Link here
Website: Teach a Child to Read
Link here
Dolch Sight Words
"The Dolch Sight Words list is the most commonly used set of sight words. Educator Dr. Edward William Dolch developed the list in the 1930s-40s by studying the most frequently occurring words in children’s books of that era. The list contains 220 “service words” plus 95 high-frequency nouns.
These words comprise 80% of the words you would find in a typical children’s book and 50% of the words found in writing for adults. Once a child knows this list of words, it makes reading much easier, because the child can then focus his or her attention on the remaining words.
The Dolch words are commonly divided into groups by grade level, ranging from pre-kindergarten to third grade, with a separate list of nouns. There are a total of 315 Dolch Sight Words."
Link here
Teach Your Child Spelling
Learn all about how children learn to spell, what's developmentally normal and what's not, and print out the free spelling lists by grade level.
Link here
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Sit down with your homeschoolers and both parents and kids can enjoy these free, virtual field trips of interesting places! Vacation in your jammies at these stunning, natural sites.
National Arboretum Tour
Link here
Explore Butchart Gardens
Link here
Tour a Forest
Link here
How Blueberries Grow (includes recipes)
Link here
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CT Summer Fun: Free Bowling, Movies, Reading Programs
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Summer Reading Programs
Be careful to check the deadlines as these programs have varying criteria.
Pizza Hut Book-It program offers free pizzas to reward reading time.
Link here
Six Flags Read-to-Succeed program offers free tickets for children in grades K-6 for reading time.
Homeschoolers sign up their own children (no group needed).
Link here
Barnes & Noble Summer Reading program offers children a free book. This link is for last year's program as the 2016 program is not yet listed but you can visit their website to see when current information is listed. This will give you an idea of how their program works.
Summer Movies
Many libraries offer free summer movies. There are many CT movie theaters that also offer weekly kids' movies for free or for a dollar. As of the publication of this newsletter, their summer movies are not yet posted for Summer 2016, but you can google them by early-to-mid June and see the listings.
Bow-Tie Cinemas in Hartford, Stamford and Trumbull offer a weekly Summer Kids Series. Their 2016 selections aren't posted yet, but you can google them as the school year nears and the movies are listed.
Regal Theaters offer free movies twice a week at 10AM. Price is $1 per child.
Marquee Cinemas offer free movies each week.
Showcase Cinemas offer free Bookworm Wednesday movies and the cost is a brief "book report"!
Kids Bowl Free
This amazing offer is for real; children get 2 free games as often as every day during the summer! You just have to rent bowling shoes for a couple of dollars or bring your own for free! Check each location for their summer hours. The following bowling lanes are participating in the Kids Bowl Free program.
Berlin's Lucky Lanes, 1782 Berlin Turnpike, (860) 828-4131
East Hartford's Silver Lanes,
748 Silver Lane, (860) 569-2990
Fairfield Nutmeg Bowl,
802 Villa Ave,(203) 367-7741
North Windham Willi Bowl,
292 Boston Post Rd, (860) 456-2695
New Milford Dollrbills Bowling Center,
145 Danbury Rd, (860) 350-2695
Norwich Bowling,
188 W Town St, (860) 889-7467
Plantsville Apple Valley Bowl,
1304 S Main St, (860) 628-4553
Wolcott Bowling Lanes,
955 Wolcott Rd, (203) 879-1469
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Free Homeschool Curricula
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| | Kiss Grammar
Grammar lessons for all ages.
http://kissgrammar.org/
10 Week Poetry Course for Kids
http://www.examiner.com/…/starting-monday-free-10-week-poet…
The Big History Project
13.8 billion years of history told through engaging videos, animations, articles, and classroom activities targeting middle- and high-school students.
https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive
Ron Paul Classical Homeschool Curriculum
free through 5th grade
http://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/
Coursera
Coursera provides universal access to the world’s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses for anyone to take, for free. Almost 1,100 topics!
https://www.coursera.org/
MIT Open Courseware
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Discovery K-12
offers a Non-Common Core, traditional, secular curriculum that gives students a world-view using today’s cutting-edge technologies.
http://discoveryk12.com/dk12/
Ambleside Online
is a free homeschool curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason's classically-based principles to prepare children for a life of rich relationships with everything around them: God, humanity, and the natural world.
www.amblesideonline.org
Lesson Pathways
This free K-12 curriculum contains 36 full-week lessons for science, math, history, phonics and reading. This program relies upon a variety of reading materials, activities, games, and videos to provide a multi-sensory experience. It can be used as a core curriculum or as a supplement to an existing program. Has
over 900 weekly topic units containing the BEST free educational resources found on the web. And don't forget to use our handy Planning Tool!
www.lessonpathways.com
Hundreds of Free Links
organized by subject and grade level.
http://www.onlypassionatecuriosity.com/free-homeschool-list/
Subject Area Website Links (must see!)
http://www.successful-homeschooling.com/free-homeschool-cur…
MEP (a complete math curriculum out of the UK)
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/
Easy Peasy K-12 homeschool
A free online Christian curriculum.
http://allinonehomeschool.com/
High School Curriculum (amazing site!!!)
http://hcusa.weebly.com/high-school-studies.html
An Old Fashioned Education – A free, K-12 homeschool curriculum that utilizes a combination of public domain textbooks and living books. Contains a complete 40-week schedule for Bible, math, science, social studies, language arts, literature and history.
http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/
Connections Academy – One of the most popular free virtual public school programs for grades K-12. Visit the company’s website to find out if this free online charter school is available in your state, or follow this link to read reviews of Connections Academy that were written by other homeschoolers.
Fully accredited program.
http://www.connectionsacademy.com/
Core Knowledge - This free homeschool resource contains a comprehensive, detailed guide to what your child should know in preschool through grade 8. It can be used as a foundation for designing your own curriculum.
http://www.coreknowledge.org/
Free-Ed - Free online homeschooling courses and self-study programs for a wide variety of subjects. Also includes test prep for AP, CLEP, ACT, SAT and GED, and college-level courses. A truly amazing resource for finding free homeschooling curriculum!
http://www.free-ed.net/free-ed/
K-12 – One of the leading free online public school programs. Visit the company’s website to find out if this virtual homeschooling curriculum is available in your state, or follow this link to read reviews of K-12 that were submitted by other homeschoolers.
http://www.k12.com/
Mater Amabilis - This free homeschooling curriculum for Catholics is based on the Charlotte Mason method. Contains math, reading, writing, English, literature, history, geography, science, foreign language and music studies for grades K through 12.
http://materamabilis.org/ma/
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Learn a Foreign Language
Explore the world through practice and conversations – with
millions of people from over 190 countries.
LiveMocha.com
Duolingo
a site for foreign language.
https://www.duolingo.com/
Latin (2 sites)
http://headventureland.com/moodle/
http://www.onlineuniversities.com/…/50-fun-and-educational…/
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Homeschooling High School
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While these resources are not all for free, they are specific to the high school aged homeschooler.
A lengthy list of homeschool high schools here.
CT homeschool high school resources here.
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Portfolio Review? Do I have to?
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It's the end of the homeschool year for many families and the perennial question arises, "Do I have to participate in a Portfolio Review (PR)?" The easy answer is that you do not. If you filed the Notice of Intent (NOI), which is not required by law, you are not obligated to participate. If you *did* file the NOI, you are still not required to participate in the PR if you don't want to. Again, neither the NOI or the PR are required by law; they are done at the discretion of the parent.
For further information on this topic, please read CHN's FAQ's here. (scroll down to FAQ's)
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Get on Board! CHN offers a FB page and Yahoogroup
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There's always good conversations happening here! Chat with other homeschool parents who have experience to offer or questions to ask! Connecticut Homeschool Network has a FB page you can join here. You can also join the CHN Yahoo Group, too.
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