Supplies for home schools. This page has internet locations for ordering physical materials, curriculum and supplies. Get homeschooling and educational supplies for less. Free material that is available online is under the relevant page elsewhere on A to Z Home’s Cool. Use the site index or search engine above to find free online resources.

Multiple Topics

Described and Captioned Media
Provides services to benefit students who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind. Available to schools and families and are a free-loan library of described and captioned educational media and information related to accessible media. U.S. Department of Education funded.

Consumer Information Catalog
Free or nearly free booklets from the US government bookstore for learning activities, college planning, parenting concerns. Cover a huge range of subjects for families, homeschooling, bullying, colleges, distance and local school type activities.

Free Teaching Aids
Resource books, that aren’t free, which list lots of things that are available to homeschool parents as well as teachers.

Freecycle Network
Made up of many individual groups across the globe, it’s a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is run by a local volunteer moderator (them’s good people). Membership is free.

Lesson Plans
Websites that have planning home schools can use. The structured lesson plans are helpful. Usually these have goals and objectives and meet state standards for home schools.

Animals & Pets

Bear Safety in Alaska packet
Booklet and sticker to send for, or download pdf file and print for yourself.

TeachKind
Kindness to animals. Videos, DVDs, lesson plans, worksheets all free to network members. About how to affect the kind treatment of all animals.

Arts & Crafts

Free Art Supplies, Craft Supplies and Free Craft Samples
This page has so many links to internet sites that offer free craft samples and free art supplies. Take a look at what you can easily find using a computer.

Computing

Free Color Printer from Xerox
If you are running a home business, an association or large support group, a resource center or cottage school, you may qualify. You must buy all ink through them, and report on your usage. Homeschooling is a perfect enviroment for learning the value of utilizing business resources offered to the educational community including home schools.

Free Computers for Homeschoolers
Here is a list of options that can be availed to get Free Computers for Homeschoolers.

Freebyte’s Guide to Free Computers
Free used and recycled computers, mostly for schools, non-profit organizations and disadvantaged individuals.

Health & Safety

FEMA Publications
You can order printed copies of materials related to individual and community preparedness through the FEMA warehouse using our online ordering tool.

Safe Kids
Order free booklets about safety around electricity and natural gas.

Will Rogers Institute Educational Resources
Educational material on health issues for teens.

Homeschool-Specific

Tip: Many books specifically on home schooling can be found under the Dewey Decimal call numbers 371.042 and 649.68at your public library. Check with your library to see if they have a free mobile app for borrowing ebooks, audiobooks, and videos for free. My favorite is Libby.

101 Ways to Save Money on Homeschooling
This free e-book by Carletta Sanders can help you save hundreds of dollars by showing you what to buy, where to buy it, where to find freebies, how to have fun on a budget, and how to earn income from home.

Math, economics, journalism

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Free curriculum about money, monetary policy, banking supervision, financial services, and more for elementary through high school students.

The post Free Homeschooling Curriculum Materials appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.

Another reason for naming your homeschool is for a sense of identity for your children. Everyone needs to feel they belong to something so it may make it easier for your child to answer the question, “Where do you go to school?” if they have a school name to give.

By Ann Zeise and Karen Gibson

Some ideas

• Memorialize a family member or hero (JFK Memorial School)
• Proclaim your philosophy or religion (Our Faith Free School)
• Use your own last name (Gibson School)
• Your street name (Ironman Road Academy)
• Features in your environment (Oak Hill School)
• Your town name (Smallville Independent Study Program)

Sample Names from Homeschool Families

I just thought I would tell you our home school name, but first let me tell you something. This is the first year that I have taught my kids, and it is going fantastic.

My kids are 17 and 14, school was very difficult for both of them, and they were always very stressed and angry (to name a few of the symptoms of school  stress). So, when we talked about naming our school, we were thinking along the lines of how home school made them feel. After writing down how they felt and looking up words in the dictionary, we finally decided, our school name is At Ease Academy  because that’s how they feel and our emblem is a dove with a green sprig in her mouth. It’s very peaceful looking and we are proud of our name.

Karen

We are new to homeschooling this year [2007]. My son attended full day preschool and kindergarten. This year he is six and in the first grade. For many reasons we are choosing to learn at home now.

I just wanted to thank you for offering such a valuable web site to the homeschool community. I find it so extraordinary that your child is an adult and you continue to be so involved! Your CA private school information was helpful as I just completed the form a few hours ago using your sample for reference. Thank you!

We named our school Ben Franklin School of Discovery. We’ve been reading about Ben Franklin lately and my son and I were so impressed with his life and discoveries that we both agreed this is the perfect name for our homeschool this year.

Sahara A.
Homeschooling mom to one 6 year old boy in San Diego, CA

We use the name Country Day Academy for the Gifted. Because Country Days are relaxing and fun and the students are very gifted each in their own way. Sounds professional and at the same time gives the kids a sense of belonging.

Great site! I found so many interesting things and will keep checking in!

Shelley A.

Ours is called Dejadoro Academy and it was created from the first 2 letters of each of our first names in the family–in birthday order. Denise (DE), Jann (JA) Donna (DO) and Rodney (RO)…the Academy part just sounds ‘professional’ to me, so that’s why it was included.

Jann

The land that we live on was called “Duck Hill Farm” back in the 1800’s. We are very proud of this, as the tract of land can be traced back as far as William Penn settling here. We have been considering naming our school, Duck Hill Academy.

Bri

I liked all the names that I saw on your web site. Every name was very creative and I thought I would share the name we selected for our school. We call ourselves E*wHim Academy. This means Education with Him (meaning our Lord and Saviour) in mind. And we thought is looked alot like E-mail, because just about everybody has it now.

Thank you for a chance to share.

Holly L.

Our Homeschool chosen name is “Eagles Nest Academy“. We learned that Eagles mate for life so this represents our Family’s stability. Nest symbolizes our Home and an Academy is a place of learning.

Trish

Loved all the creative names on your website. Ours is GLOW which stands for God leads our way. I made T-shirts with the school logo as part of their “uniform”. Don’t like when people stare and ask “Isn’t he supposed to be in school?”

Arlene

Hello!

I thought since I had to think hard about our name I would see if you wanted to post it, but you don’t have to. Our last name is Gates and we are Christians, we also have a bigger family too, so I finally came up with name for our school. ‘HIS Gates Quiver Academy‘. I felt this summed it up pretty well, ‘HIS’ being God’s, ‘Gates’ identifies us, and ‘Quiver’ lends to the full house we have as well as to the verse ‘blessed is the man with a full quiver…’. I am pleased with it so far and hope it sticks!

Thank you for your time in this matter.

Lisa Gates
<IXOYE>

Jolie Tristan Academy of Learning

My daughter’s and son’s name put together.

Anonymous

Kingdom Keys Academy

We’ve been homeschooling our 7 kids for 13 years.

The young years contain the keys to your child entering the Kingdom of God.

Mark

Being a bilingual family (Spanish/English), we chose “Mi Casa School“. “Mi Casa” means “my house” in Spanish. We’ll probably use it until the kids are older and would like to change it.

The Beattie Family

Thought I would send you our Home School Chosen Name. Our last name is Motes and we have a very talented 13 year old who is a great artist with brothers who are following in his footsteps. He likes signing his artwork with “MotesArt” Since we think MotesArt is cool and we also love music (Mozart) we’ve given our school the name “MotesArt Academy”

 The Motes Family

I was browsing and found a site linked to yours. I would like to share our name with you. We are

The Mustard Seed Academy
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing is impossible.

We like it and think it describes us perfectly. Sometime faith is all we have. And it is plenty. Thanks;

Jill

Hi! Was just reading your page on naming your homeschool, and wanted to share our name with you.

Growing up, both my husband and myself fell in love with Jean Craighead George’s classic, My Side of the Mountain. As a way of memoralizing that for us, and encouraging reading and nature in our boys, we have names our school, My Side of the Mountain Learning.

Kana C.

We are thinking of naming our homeschool The Neverland School. My son’s last name is Neve and his first initial is R, so it could also be written Neve,R Land School. (This is his land, er, home after all.) This is also a reference to our hopes that he holds onto his youth as long as he can.

Mel

We call our school SaturDays Cool (we jokingly say we took the “h” out of school), and we are using an art-based approach project work for children 5 – 12. Are you familiar with the schools of Reggio Emilia and constructivism? That’s are context. This fall we will work with many Homeschoolers during the week to offer them support. I am really enjoying reading your very informative pages.

Katherine M.

Universal Minds Learning Center.

Universal – we learn from everything
Minds – there are more than one of us living here
Learning – all the time
Center – the children are the center of my universe.. they keep me centered

Monica

The post Naming Your Homeschool appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.

What’s the difference between online homeschooling programs and public virtual academies?

Answer from Ann Zeise:

Online schools provide courses to take on your computer over the internet as either a complete grade-based or interest-based curriculum. Some online schools are accredited. These may support a specific niche like homeschooling special needs children or could support a specific homeschooling method. The best virtual schools can be customized to your child’s interests and abilities and may be a comfortable alternative to a home school program of traditional nature. You must a have fast, reliable internet access to best utilize these online courses. Some require specific software. Many virtual online schools rely on new technologies, such as white boards and video, that could be beyond the capabilities of some home computers. Also, some online schools have been known to vanish, leaving no valid URL online. Seek out recommendations and always make sure you have offline ways of contacting virtual school type businesses including their business mailing address and phone number, and keep a portfolio at home of your student’s accomplishments.

Several states run public schools online – these are called “public virtual schools or academies”.

They cling to state standards. Do not confuse this with homeschooling. You are under public schoollaws when you enroll in a virtual public school.

The post Homeschooling Programs and Public Virtual Academies Review appeared first on A2Z Homeschool – THE A-to-Z of Homeschooling.