Sometimes homeschooling can be expensive. And often, families who are homeschooling are operating on one income, which makes things even harder. This is where sources of free homeschool curriculum can be very helpful. And the great news is, there are lots of high-quality free curriculum choices out there for homeschoolers! On this page, I’ve listed some of the best free homeschool curriculum options for homeschoolers.
Full Curriculum Options
Ambleside Online
Ambleside Online is a free online Charlotte Mason inspired homeschool curriculum. The curriculum includes lessons in literature, history and geography, and science, along with art and music. You will need to supplement this curriculum with a separate math program, and Ambleside recommends adding a foreign language curriculum as well. The curriculum is based on a book list of living books for each grade. Many of these books are available for free online as well.
CK-12
CK-12 is a comprehensive free curriculum that uses a variety of different technology to deliver content to students. This curriculum is available for kids in all grade levels from kindergarten through college age. Families can use customizable online textbooks, called FlexBooks, as well as classes. Subjects covered include English, math, science, social studies, and technology. Parents can use classes and libraries to organize resources for kids to use.
Discovery K12
Discovery K12 is a complete online free curriculum for kids in preschool through 12th grade. It is a secular curriculum that is not aligned to common core. The free resources include lessons in reading and language arts, math, history and social studies, science, art, music, and physical education. Addition lessons are available in Spanish, health, and personal finance. Parents can also purchase a parent account which gives access to reports and additional tools.
Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool
Easy Peasy is a complete free curriculum that is available for kids in preschool through high school. It includes lessons with a Christian worldview in math, language and reading, and Bible. Science and history follow a 4 year rotation that includes World and American history, geography, and culture, as well as biology, Earth science, physics, and chemistry. The curriculum also includes lessons in art, music, and PE/Health. An online assignment hub allows you to schedule assignments and check student work.
The Good and the Beautiful
The Good and the Beautiful is a complete curriculum for kids from preschool through 8th grade. The 1st through 5th grade language curricula, along with a marine biology curriculum, are available to download for free. This curriculum focuses on exposing kids to things that are “good and beautiful”- books, art, music, and nature. It also focuses on character development. The course was created by Jenny Phillips, who comes from a Mormon background.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy, and its sister site for preschool and kindergarten, Khan Academy Kids, provide free classes in math, science, technology, history, reading and language arts, economics, and more. This is a secular site for kids from preschool through college. Kids in public school often use this site to supplement their learning as well. Classes have videos, practice exercises, and tests. Parents can use the teacher and parent dashboards to keep track of their kids’ progress. Test prep classes are also available.
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Additional Full Free Homeschool Curriculum
Brightly Beaming Resources (Letter of the Week)
Brightly Beaming resources offers preschool and elementary curriculum for kids ages 0-11. They are most famous for the Letter of the Week preschool curriculum, which is designed for kids ages 2-5. The curriculum includes weekly suggested activities in langauge and reading, math, science, social studies, art, music, Bible, and more.
Core Knowledge
This full curriculum comes from the same company that publishes “What Your ___ Grader Needs to Know.” On the website you can download complete curriculum in language arts, history and geography, science, music, and visual arts for kids in kindergarten through 5th grade. You will need to supplement this curriculum with an additional resource for math. Resources include student and teacher books, activity ideas, worksheets, and more.
Freckle
Freckle is an online resource that allows kids to practice language and math skills for free. The lessons adapt to your child, so questions get harder when kids are doing well and easier when they are struggling. Parents can sign up for a free account which allows access to limited reporting, or upgrade to a paid plan which also includes science and social studies resources.
Georgia Virtual Learning
This website offers resources for middle school and high school students in Georgia, but they are free and available for anyone to use! There are 119 courses including language, math, science, social studies, fine arts, and world languages. Several Advanced Placement courses for high schoolers are also available; these courses will prepare high schoolers to take AP tests for college credit. The courses include online textbooks and practice problems but do not include tests.
Guest Hollow
Although Guest Hollow has a number of paid homeschool curriculum resources, they offer several older archived resources for free. These include complete curricula for anatomy, chemistry, and physical science, as well as ancient history, 2 years of American history, and pre-algebra. Many of these curricula are available as free PDF downloads and are based on living books, some of which are also available online for free.
Hippo Campus
Hippo Campus is a video site that offers course videos, lesson guides, lectures, and virtual field trips for kids in any age group from middle school through college. Free homeschooling curriculum options are available in social science, math, science, and humanities. Parents and teachers can create custom playlists for their students to watch.
Homeschool College USA
This site includes a college prep curriculum that allows homeschool high school students to take college level classes, and in some cases earn college credit, for free. Most of the resources are links to take classes from other sources, but the site ties everything together with a course schedule and assignments for each course.
Little House Kindergarten
Little House Kindergarten is a full year kindergarten curriculum that is available as a PDF download. The curriculum includes free homeschooling resources in nature study, math, health, art, music, English, science, and social studies. An updated version called Around the World Kindergarten that includes a daily schedule and free lessons is also available.
Mater Amabilis
Mater Amabilis is a free Catholic Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum that is available online to students in preschool and grades K-12. Subject areas covered include religion, language arts, history, geography, science, art history, and music. If you decide to use this online curriculum with your family, you will need to find a math program to complement it as well.
An Old Fashioned Education
An Old Fashioned Education is a complete curriculum for kids in 1st through 12th grades that uses books in the public domain that are available for free on the internet. The curriculum follows a Christian worldview. It includes resources for core subjects like language, spelling, and literature, as well as math, science, history and geography, and Bible studies. The curriculum for each grade level consists of a list of books with links to the free ebooks which can be printed or read online.
Open Learning Initiative from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University has created a number of “open and free” courses that can be used by advanced high school students who are looking for college level classes. These free programs are self paced and college credit is not available. Classes cover a wide variety of subjects and many are available for free online.
Plain and Not So Plain
This free complete curriculum is available for kids from 1st grade through 9th grade. Free Lesson plans are available for each grade level in reading and math. Additional resources include 2 years of Bible curriculum, history for elementary and middle/high schoolers, and 3 different life skills curricula. Although this curriculum is pretty basic, it provides a comprehensive resource for the subjects it covers.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg provides access to over 60,000 books for free. Most of these free online books are older books that are in the public domain. Homeschool families can download and print the books, or read them on an e-reader such as a Kindle. The books are searchable by title or subject, so this is a great resource to find older textbooks to use for free!
Saylor Academy
Saylor Academy offers free self-paced college classes that can be taken independently. Credits will transfer to several colleges in the U.S. With a little planning, this could be a great way for an advanced high school student to earn some college credits for free while homeschooling.
Starfall
Starfall is a free online resource for reading and math for kids in preschool through 3rd grade. The site is perfect for new homeschoolers and includes reading lessons using phonics and sight words, math activities, songs and games. Activities are fun and interactive to keep kids engaged in what they are learning. Some of the activities are available for free, but families who want to use all of the features will need to purchase a yearly membership.
Teaching with God’s Heart for the World
Teaching with God’s Heart for the World is a one year missions-based unit study curriculum designed for elementary school aged students. This curriculum includes resources for a variety of different subjects including reading and writing, math, geography and history, science, art, and Bible studies. Individual lessons or the whole curriculum are available as printable PDFs.
Teach With Me
Teach with me offers free downloadable worksheets and activity guides for elementary school aged students. Subjects include language and reading, math, science, social studies, and arts and crafts. Resources are organized by subject and also by theme, with unique unit studies including pirates, birthdays, and mustaches!
Under the Home
Under the Home is a Charlotte Mason inspired site that offers free curriculum for students in Kindergarten through 5th grade. The lessons are based on living books, art, music, and textbooks in the public domain. In addition to language, math, science, history and geography, the site offers art lessons, as well as music, poetry, and Shakespeare. Families can access everything through the website where it is clearly organized by grade and subject.
Virtual Homeschool Group
Virtual Homeschool Group is a virtual homeschool co-op that is run by homeschool parent volunteers. Families can enroll in live classes, or free courses to take at their own pace. Everything is free and supported by volunteers and donations. The group offers courses for elementary through high school-aged students. Self-paced course resources for Saxon math and Apologia science curricula are available here as well.
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Free Homeschool Math Curriculum
North Carolina Math K-2 Resources and 3-5 Resources
This site includes resources created for math teachers in the state of North Carolina, but many of these resources will be helpful to homeschool families as well. Worksheets and lesson plans for teaching kindergarten through 2nd grade math are included, as well as assessment tools. If you are wondering if your child is keeping up with the kids in public schools, this site will be a great resource to check!
English and Reading Curriculum
Daily Grammar
Daily Grammar is a set of 440 sequential English grammar lessons that cover parts of speech and parts of sentences, as well as capitalization and punctuation. All of the lessons are available to access for free on the website, or you can purchase a book version. The lessons include practice questions, and the curriculum also includes 88 quizzes. A thorough archive makes it easy to find lessons about specific topics in grammar.
Free Homeschool History and Geography Curriculum
American Heritage Education Foundation
This Texas organization offers free American history curriculum resources to members, and membership is free. Two different history curricula are available. America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty is for kids in kindergarten through 12th grade, and America’s Heritage: An Experiment in Self Government includes resources for middle and high school students. Both curricula are written with a Biblical worldview and include comprehensive lesson plans and resources.
Docs Teach
Created by the United States national archives, Docs Teach allows teachers (or homeschooling parents!) to access primary source documents from the National Archives and create activities for kids to learn from these sources. Parents can choose from a wide selection of pre-created activities that can be sorted and searched by era, grade level, or activity type. Parents can also create their own activities using documents from the National Archives and tools included on the website.
Spartacus Educational
Spartacus Educational is a free history encyclopedia that includes articles about American, British, and world history. The articles include the text of over 33,000 primary source documents. The site also includes a wide variety of ideas and lesson plans for classroom activities that could be used by homeschool families on a tight budget. These activities are designed for kids age 11 to 18.
Science Curriculum
Elementary Life Science from The Lab of Mr. Q
The Lab of Mr. Q is a site that sells PDF science textbooks for homeschool families. The complete Life Science curriculum for elementary school aged kids is available to download for free! The curriculum includes both a student and parent book with lessons to read and activities to complete.
PhET
PhET interactive simulations from the University of Colorado Boulder provides online virtual science labs for kids in elementary school through college. Kids can play with simulators to learn about concepts in physics, chemistry, biology, Earth science, and math. The site offers 158 interactive labs for kids to try, along with lesson plans and other resources for teaching science and math.
I. Science MaTe
The Integrating Science, Math, and Technology reference curriculum is available for free on their website. This curriculum includes lessons for elementary, middle, and high school aged students- although the curriculum for older students is currently incomplete. The lessons are hands on and include both written lessons and ideas for labs that kids can complete.
Free Homeschool Foreign Language Curriculum
Duolingo
Duolingo is a fun and free app for android or iOS that allows students of any age to learn foreign languages including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and many more. Fun games and rewards will motivate kids to keep learning. A paid version of the app is also available.
Things to Keep in Mind when Choosing a Free Homeschool Curriculum
Make sure you are consistent.
It is important, no matter what curriculum you choose, to make sure that kids learn everything that they need to know in the course of a school year. Educators call this the “scope” of the curriculum.
Usually, a curriculum that is a full year long will take care of this for you. By the end of the year, kids will have covered all the things they need to know for that year. But, if you are picking and choosing lessons for different curricula, you will need to take care of this yourself.
If you are new to homeschooling, I strongly recommend choosing either a complete curriculum that includes all the subjects, or at least a separate year-long curriculum for each subject, for the first year. This will make it much easier to plan lessons and will eliminate a LOT of stress trying to figure out what to teach, and when.
There are tons of individual lessons available for free online, but for this page I tried to limit the list to resources that offer at least one full year of curriculum in at least one subject for this reason.
Check the worldview of the publisher.
No matter what your beliefs may be, it is important to make sure that the worldview of the curriculum publisher lines up with your own. Most Christian resources will include a belief statement on their site. If you can’t find one, chances are it may be a secular resource.
No matter what curriculum you choose, it is important to preview lessons and resources before handing them to your child to use for homeschooling. This is the only way to be sure that everything in the resource is appropriate for your child.
Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Having the right free homeschool curriculum can make homeschooling an amazing experience. And, having the wrong curriculum can totally ruin that experience. Different curricula work well for different families, and even different kids. If your curriculum isn’t working after a few weeks or months, it is ok to experiment with something new.
Other Ways to Get Free Homeschool Curriculum
Check the library.
One of the first places I like to look for curriculum options is our local library. Our library carries a small selection of homeschool curriculum books. For example, I borrowed Addition Facts that Stick and was able to use it without purchasing my own copy! If you can’t find a book at your library, you may be able to use interlibrary loan services to get it anyways!
Ask a friend.
If you have local friends who are homeschooling, it never hurts to ask if they have the curriculum you need, and if you can borrow from them. I have both borrowed from and loaned to friends, and this is a great way to keep costs down. Often moms who have been homeschooling for a while are happy to help a new homeschooling family out by sharing resources if they can.
Look for sales.
There is a pretty extensive secondhand market for homeschool curriculum, if you know where to look. Check for used curriculum sales in your area or on homeschool Facebook groups. Although this curriculum isn’t free, it is often available for a fraction of the price. This can be a great way to stock up on resources for your homeschool!
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