Free Online Homeschool Resources for High School
I personally have been homeschooling my son for nine years. This year my son will begin the final leg of his journey through school and enter high school via homeschool. Every spring/early summer before a semester I start planning for the next fall. With inflation being so high this year and prices skyrocketing I have decided to try and homeschool with as many free resources as possible. So, for my second blog on how to homeschool for free, I am going to share free online high school.
YouTube
The first place I started looking online for free resources for high school was YouTube. We have used this in the past as a supplement, but as my children have gotten older it has become more of a go-to to understand different concepts. For high school students, this has become my gold mine of college lectures available for my student and projects for my son to watch and see if he is interested in completing them. I will warn anyone using these that while YouTube is extremely helpful making a lesson plan around it is very time-consuming, so while I would recommend you try it, I want to warn you most will pick this resource as a supplement not a solution for the curriculum.
College Channels
MIT OpenCoreWare- https://www.youtube.com/c/mitocw This is MIT’s official channel for lectures from their college. The college has done a wonderful job of grouping lectures together based on subject and creating playlists with the full spectrum of each class they allow for auditing online. They also have playlists that give full episodes to the college’s podcast if you are interested in hearing abstract discussions from different professors both from the college and visiting. Here are a few examples of classes this channel covers : AI 101, Introduction to Special Relativity, Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Computer Science and Programing, and Design and Analysis of Algorithms. These are only just a few of the full class lectures that are available, but I will tell you each class is laid out in a very concise format and is great for watching in full or using to supplement any class your child is already interested in learning.
OxfordMathmatics- https://www.youtube.com/c/OxfordMathematics This is the Oxford math department’s official channel and everything on it is, you guessed it, math-based. Like MIT’s channel, this is laid out in a similar fashion and there are playlists for each topic of discussion. Unlike MIT, none of the topics are full classes, and all the playlists are one or two videos long. While this channel is helpful it is meant to supplement and not be a full class for a single person. This channel will be nice to use to clarify questions rather than teach a specific topic.
Freecodecamp.org- https://www.youtube.com/c/Freecodecamp - This is the YouTube channel for Freecodecamp.org this is a site where people can go to learn how to code for free and their YouTube channel helps supplement the lessons you would learn at their website. This is a great resource for those children and adults who are interested in learning to code. This is a completely free resource, and you can learn about programs/languages like Unity, Python, and C++. The lessons are in-depth, and they do teach about computer science and algebra as well. You can walk away from the course prepared for the different certifications they teach and lots of real-world knowledge. The channel is made to go along with their website, and this is definitely something my son will be using this fall for school.
History Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/HISTORY This is the History Channel’s official YouTube. They cover a wide variety of topics relating to historical events around the world. They also have a series of videos based on poisonous animals. This is a great source, especially if your child is more of a visual learner. I find that when I read with my son, he tends to zone out, but if we put on a video from the history channel he focuses more and will give me more information about the topic we are researching than if we were to read about it in his book.
OverSimplified https://www.youtube.com/c/OverSimplified This is a history channel as well. The narrator of this channel does a great job at keeping the viewer involved and explains history in a very simplified manner. The humor on this channel speaks to my son and allows us to have fun with history lessons. We have used this channel in the past and we will be using this channel this fall for his history class.
These are just a few of the free resources I have found on YouTube. I will be writing a blog dedicated to YouTube in the future but for completion’s sake, I wanted to mention YouTube and a few of the channels on it to remind everyone that this is a good resource for education, and it is totally free.
Math and Science
Dadsworksheets.com
https://www.dadsworksheets.com/
This is a great math site with lots of downloadable content. All the worksheets are free and come with answer keys for checking the work of your student. The site is easy to navigate and fairly basic to understand as a parent. Unfortunately, if you are looking for an explanation on how to teach specific parts of math, you will need to go elsewhere, but as a supplement to your lessons, this is great. It is great for finding problems for your children to practice. This site has worksheets for all grade levels.
Math-Drills.com
https://www.math-drills.com/
This is another great site for worksheets for grades k-12 for math practice. The site is easy to navigate, and you can save any worksheet you are interested in and print it.
PHET Interactive Simulations
https://phet.colorado.edu/
This is a site set up by the University of Boulder Colorado. This is a great site for practicing simulations for experiments with students. This allows children to see how things react in physics and chemistry, in addition, to reading about it in a textbook. This allows kids to see what they are learning in action.
Code.org https://code.org/educate/curriculum/high-school It is worth mentioning that code.org has classes for all age groups. They have full classes around computer science and coding.
Carnegie Mellon University-Open Classes https://oli.cmu.edu/course To be fair this school has many great classes for all subjects, but their anatomy and biology classes are great for high school science. Some of the classes on the open platform cost a $25 fee but there are several that are open and free and have no cost at all.
Language Arts and Reading
Project Gutenburg
https://www.gutenberg.org/
Project Gutenburg is an archive of about 60,000 free e-books for children to read. All of the books are copyright expired and free for download. The books range from about 1971 to today. You can read them on Kindles, Nooks, androids, and IPADs. There is no registration fee to view these books. You can find books such as The Great Gatsby, Ulysses, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is a great resource if you are interested in getting your children to read classics and you do not have a large budget for their books.
Easy Peasy
https://allinonehighschool.com/
Yes this is a full curriculum that is free online, but here I will specifically cover the language arts part. For high school, this site breaks up language arts into three different classes. They have the full class from start to finish and they include supplements to break it down.
Social Studies and History
Standford History Education Group https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons?f%5B0%5D=topic%3A8#main-content#main-content#main-content#main-content#main-content#main-content These are like the Carnegie Mellon open classes. You will have to create an account to have full access to all the lessons offered here, but the lessons are still completely free. This specific course shows students how to contextualize what they are reading about history and to take in the scope of the time period and the events that took place in the time period. There are several lessons on this site and it is definitely on our list for the fall.
U.S History Scene https://ushistoryscene.com/multimedia/ is an archive of college history courses. You have access to the syllabuses for the courses, all the materials, videos, video lectures, and assignments. You can literally go through the site and design all the work you wish for your children to complete for the year. The site is laid out in a way that is very easy to navigate and understand and is aesthetically pleasing, for those that need that, to stay focused on the task at hand.
Digital History
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
Digital History is an archive of lessons about US history. You can choose from a number of articles, pictures, videos, and slide shows with lessons on US History. The site is fun to browse and with the wide range of resources, you as the parent can create many lessons based on what is provided on the site.
Library of Congress https://guides.loc.gov/declaration-of-independence The library of congress gives full access to its archive online of historical documents. This makes a great way to supplement a lesson so that your child can see history as a real-life experience and not dates and figures that they can file away for later.
Art
The Virtual Instructor
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/
This is a collection of video courses for art with videos and assignments for the student to try. It is a great resource for any lesson when it comes to art and art history.
Free Online Art Classes
https://www.free-online-art-classes.com/
Lois DeWitt designed and created this site to teach art to beginners. She is an artist of 50 years. She has taught art for years and had many galleries around the world. The lessons on this site are succinct and can be completed by anyone.
Full Curriculum
PBS
https://wv.pbslearningmedia.org/
PBS learning media is a full curriculum site. It is a great resource with lessons for every subject. The lessons are broken down by class and grade. The site is easy to sift through and there are links to external sites for more information. The drawbacks are that a lot of lessons are purely video, so if your child does not enjoy watching then they may not enjoy this site as much. The benefits are the videos are well done and there is a student site with games on it for practice.
Easy Peasy
https://allinonehighschool.com/
This is one of the few free full curriculums I have found online, it is an all-in-one curriculum. The only catch is you will need to download the entire curriculum. This means you will be printing off each book for your child. The benefits are that it is completely free, aside from the cost of printing. All the lessons are written out for you already and you just need to explain to your child each lesson.
Khan Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/
This is another full and totally free curriculum. This site is very easy to navigate and goes from kindergarten to 12th grade. The drawbacks are your child will be at the computer a lot, and it is a lot of videos. There are practice sessions but keep in mind that if your child does not like to watch videos this may not be for them.
Teach With Movies https://teachwithmovies.org/for-home-school/ This one is technically not a full curriculum, but it covers all subjects. The site’s goal is to show parents how to use movies to teach most subjects. They have a full list of movies for all subject matters, and you can search based on the subject, genre, or name of the movie. The site gives a brief synopsis of each movie listed and there are suggestions of how to form a lesson around each movie and a FAQ on how to best use the site and teach through film.
This list is by no means complete, but it is a great resource for those that are looking to homeschool their high schooler, but especially if you do not have a lot of money for a curriculum to teach your child.