Central West Virginia's Guide To Life

HOME SCHOOLING IN WV
By Karen Pennebaker

11/07 - Internet Resources

The internet is a gold mine for home-schoolers. No matter if you are teaching five year olds or high school seniors, sites online offer fantastic information. My very favorite site is the Library of Congress, especially the American Memory section (www.memory.loc.gov).  This is especially useful for high school students who are learning how to do research.

For the younger set of kids, www.enchantedlearning.com is a good place to start.

Another site with good information is part of enchanted learning: www.enchantedlearning.com/school/index.shtml.

For free work sheets for elementary and middle school, including excellent grammar lessons, visit www.rhlschool.com.  This site also has math, reading and research work sheets that are very well done. Another site with free work sheets is www.freeworksheets.com, with a several different subject matter covered. There is even a website hosted by Lego! Their site, www.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx obviously is commercial and wants to sell Legos, but there are fun games and it's a safe site for young children. Girls enjoy Barbie's website, barbie.everythinggirl.com/. 

NASA offers free computer software and lesson plans for various scientific areas (quest.nasa.gov). There are also interactive web-based activities that work best on a high speed internet connection, but I have been able to access several of them with our dial-up.

A huge homeschooling site, Jon's Homeschool Resources, www.midnightbeach.com/hs/,  has links to many, many other sites filled with valuable information. Another valuable website is A to Z Home's Cool, homeschooling.gomilpitas.com, where you will find links to even more homeschool sites and resources.

Homeschoolers can also use sites designed for teachers such as the Mineral Information Institute website: www.mii.org/teacherhelpers.html.  It has lesson plans, links to other resources, etc.

You may want to check out Free Education on the Internet, which offers actual courses from middle school to PhD level: www.free-ed.net/free-ed/.

Using a search engine such as Google, you can type in the topic you want and find an amazing amount of information (sometimes too much), so spend some time cruising around the educational websites. Don't forget to also spend some time in your local public library, as that is also free!