Many families are starting to elect the educational choice of homeschooling for their children. There are a number of reasons why this educational choice is becoming a trend. The most popular reasons include religious beliefs, dissatisfaction with the school system, and personal family values. Regardless of the reason a family chooses to homeschool, it is important for these individuals to have a host of educational resources available to them. The internet is loaded with excellent educational material. Here is our first annual, More4kids, list of Top 10 Educational websites. While numbered from 1 to 10, they are in no particular order and each one is worthy of being a number 1 in our opinion. Enjoy, and feel free to leave comments at the bottom of this page with your favorites.
1. Discovery Education Streaming
Discovery Education Streaming, also known as “United Streaming” is an excellent educational website for the homeschool family. There are many wonderful tools and resources on this particular website that can be used as supplemental material to virtually any homeschool lesson! When composing the lesson plans for my two children, I always visit Discovery Education Streaming to locate reference materials and videos that I can incorporate into the lessons. You can choose from interactive maps, lesson plan libraries, theme focuses, and even use some of the calendar options to schedule your homeschool day!
There are virtually thousands of videos that can be used to assist teaching individuals who are visual learners. It seems when I integrate a video into a lesson plan, my children seem to gain a better understanding of the material being covered. You can stream the videos directly from this website, or you can download them to your PC for later viewing. The videos can be researched in three different ways. First, you can research by choosing a specific subject. Second, you can locate videos that are appropriate to specific age groups. Third, you can search for videos by doing a “Curriculum Standards Search” for your State.
For example, recently I reviewed the theme of “Communities” with my kindergarten and first grade student. When I conducted a search of videos on the topic of communities, I was given a number of results. These results included:
“City, Suburb, and Rural Communities”
“How Communities Grow and Change”
“Community Rules and Laws”
“Citizenship in the Community”
“Keeping Your Community Clean”
These videos range from as little as fifteen minutes to twenty minutes in length. Just perfect for the attention span of children!
http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm
2. World Book
World Book is an excellent choice as far as educational resources for the homeschool family is concerned! Here, you can conduct a basic search to locate key items of interest, or other options. Other options include an atlas, dictionary, encyclopedia, and various tools and resources that you can use in creating lesson plans and supplements to ensure that your homeschooler grasps the concept of what is being taught. There is even an option for younger children! It is appropriately named “World Book Kids”. This interactive resource is excellent for the naturally curious child who loves to explore!
3. Scholastic
Scholastic has been a favorite educational website among homeschool families for many, many years. Parents and children alike can enjoy playing a variety of games, learning all about the best books, and gaining access to special downloads offered by this website. Children who require assistance with their homework can enjoy the luxury of having homework assistance through Scholastic online. There are many excellent tools and resources available on Scholastic that can help make homeschool classrooms more interactive, educational, and exciting!
http://www.scholastic.com/kids/
4. PBS Kids
PBS Kids is another excellent choice when reviewing the top educational websites for the homeschool family. Young children can enjoy interaction with their favorite cartoon characters on PBS Kids. This includes Barney and Friends, The Teletubbies, Arthur, The Berenstain Bears, Caillou, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Curious George, Boohbah, Dragon Tales, Maya & Miguel, Mister Rogers, Noddy, Reading Rainbow, and more! Children can play games, enjoy interactive challenges, hear stories, and even print out coloring pages for art time in the homeschool classroom!
5. Yahoo! Kids
Yahoo! Kids is an excellent website that many homeschool families use as a safe place for children to interact on the internet. Children can enjoy games, music, movies, jokes, sports, create ecards, read their horoscope, and study all in one place! The Yahoo! Kids Study Guide allows children in the homeschool classroom to learn about many different things. This includes news, animals, science, dinosaurs, reference, facts, and many other different lessons. If you are looking for an excellent website to supplement the lessons in your homeschool classroom, Yahoo! Kids is an excellent choice.
6. edHelper.com
The website, edHelper.com, is an excellent educational website for the homeschool classroom. This website offers an assortment of material and lesson plans for children from preschool age to high school. This website even offers a special section dedicated to the homeschool classroom that educates children with special needs. Foreign languages are also taught on edHelper.com. There are also a number of important themes listed on this educational website that you can integrate into the homeschool classroom!
7. Room 108
Room 108 has grown into one of my favorite educational websites for the homeschool classroom. With this particular website, children can enjoy hundreds and hundreds of educational games that are geared towards teaching important concepts and more. Let’s take the topic of Social Studies, for example. Once you select this theme in Room 108, you will be given a number of different games that can be played. Examples include:
“The Animal Rescue”
“The Community”
“The USA Game”
“The Jobs Game”
“Traffic Controller”
In addition to great educational games, Room 108 also provides the homeschool teacher with many free resources to assist in teaching. For example, you can create and print alphabet tracing worksheets, create word searches to increase vocabulary skills, make math worksheets, lined paper, and many other resources that can be used in the homeschool classroom.
http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/108.html
8. Enchanted Learning
Enchanted Learning is an online educational website that many homeschool classrooms implement. This website offers many different resources that homeschool families can take advantage of. This includes:
• Various craft activities
• Many different books to print, such as “Christmas”, “Math”, and “USA”
• Picture Dictionary
• Coloring Pages
• Calendars
• Games
• Languages
• Organizers
• Interactive Learning Activities
• Printouts to Supplement Lesson Plans
If you enjoy a variety of educational resources, but do not have the time or patience to search through hundreds of websites, Enchanted Learning is the educational website for you!
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html
9. I Know That
I Know That is a wonderful educational website for individuals who wish to integrate games, interactive learning activities, and many other components to the homeschool classroom. You can find activities by age group, grade, subject matter, and subject theme. This is an excellent choice among at home educators everywhere!
10. Discovery Channel Online
The Discovery Channel online is a wonderful tool that many homeschool families use in order to teach children about all aspects of their world. Inquiring minds can take interactive virtual tours of many different places, and even discover dinosaurs through one! Many news and science topics are detailed on this particular website as well. Children can even learn very important survival skills by playing games such as “Life or Death: In the Jungle”, “Man vs. Wild”, “Life or Death: Snow Survival”.
As you can see, there are a number of educational resources available on the internet for those that homeschool their children. These websites carry a number of printables, lesson plans, themes, activities, crafts, and more. If you are an at home educator, these educational websites can provide the resources and tools that you need to in order to effectively teach your children.
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Most of the things on edHelper and enchanted learning require a paid subscription. Just thought others should know in case they assumed (like I did) that everything listed here was free.