elementary
Art-to-Go from the Baltimore Museum of Art (for all ages)
Every month in the school year the Baltimore Museum of Art picks a piece of art in their collection, writes up an art theory lesson for that piece, including an art project, and makes the lesson and a high quality photograph of the piece available for free download. This is the third school year they've done it, and the archives are freely available. The art they've chosen is stunning, and the projects tend to be managable at home, assuming you have or are willing to purchase materials when necessary. The collection includes art from a wide range of locations and time peri
Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading - Strategy guides for grades 2-5
Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading is an integrated reading and science curriculum for elementary school classrooms designed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California. The complete curriculum is not available to homeschoolers, but "strategy guides" are available online for free. The strategy guides are lesson plans for teaching reading, text analysis, and research skills along with science via 63 different books, from relatively simple picture books to reference books.
BBC Primary School Languages: French, Spanish & Welsh
The BBC has fun resources to help elementary aged kids learn French, Spanish and Welsh. These are the first free resources I've found that go beyond the absolute basics (i.e. colors, numbers, and a couple phrases) while remaining fun and appropriate for younger kids.
Children's Poetry Archive
The children's section of the Poetry Archive section, this site features wonderful poems either written for children, or appealing to children. Most include a recording of the poem recited by the poet, and are serchable by keyword, author and form. Also includes biographies of the poets.
A fun site to browse with your kids, and a great way for non-readers to get to experience poetry.
Khan Academy- a goldmine of free math, science and economics videos
Khan academy is an amazing resource. It's a HUGE collection of videos, all featuring a smart man with a gift for clearly explaining the complex, carefully going through a wide range of topics, all clearly organized. There's everything from classic brain teasers, to arithmetic, to high school level math, including calculus and differential equations, to biology chemistry, physics, and economics. The graphics in the videos are fairly simple, and the tone is very friendly, conversational and often funny.
Mathematics Enhancement Programme- free curriculum for all ages
This is a complete mathematics curriculum available free online, including printable practice books, lesson plans, and copy masters. It was developed for the UK, and goes from "Reception", which seems to be analogous to kindergarten in the US, up through year 11 (similar to 11th grade). There are 2 versions of the 10-11th year curriculum, only one of which seems to be for college-bound students. The collegebound version includes guidance for customizing the curriculum for advanced students. The version of the 12th year intended for collegebound students is not
"Geography4kids.com" an introduction to physical geography
Physical Geography deals with Eartch Science and why the Earth is the way it is, it doesn't deal with political boundaries, or humanity much at all. Geography4kids is friendly, thorough website with lots of pictures that teaches about physical geography. Ideal for an enthusiastic upper elementary level student up through adults.
"EEK! Environmental Education for kids" an e-mag by the WI DNR
This online magazine is produced by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and includes fun online activities and information for kids in grades 4-6, and a "Teacher resources" section with ideas, projects, and information for instructors that covers a much wider age-range. It's all free.
"Storytelling: Tales of Everyday Life" A writing lesson plan for grades 4-6
This creative lesson plan uses video of a Hawaii native's jounrey to Alaska in the 1850's to introduce the idea of journaling. This is one of a series of 4 related lesson plans. The others can be found:
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/echo07.lan.stories.lporaltrad/
The Home Physics blog
Written by a contributor to GeekDad, this blog has lots to offer the homeschooler looking to investigate physics at home. Posts recount the authors experiments with his own children, explaining what worked and what didn't. His experiments generally use equipment you're likely to have on hand at home, or can purchase for a reasonable cost, and are appropriate for a large age-range-- younger kids can benefit from being exposed to the concepts while older/more advanced kids can use the experiments to understand more comple
