Links
Organizations
Texas Home School Coalition
Join THSC Association and get benefits and discounts potentially worth $100s while you support the organization which is your advocate for home school freedoms in Texas!
Home School Legal Defense Association
The Home School Legal Defense Association is a non-profit advocacy organization established to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms. Through annual memberships, HSLDA is tens of thousands of families united in service together, providing a strong voice when and where needed.
Texas Home Educators
is a list to serve the Home Educators of Texas in discussions of homeschool styles, philosophy, books, curriculum, events, and laws in a Christian atmosphere. This is the place to discuss and share our triumphs, our questions, and our bumps. TexHmEd is now the largest statewide homeschool list.
First-year homeschool support
Describing themselves as a support group dedicated to supporting first-year homeschooling mothers, this website offers so much more with numerous articles, resources, and teaching utilities created to equip and encourage the new homeschooler.
Teen Pact - Leadership Training
Middle School and High School courses
Work at your own pace, earn high school diploma.
National Home Education Research Institute
Produces high-quality research (e.g., statistics, facts, findings) on home-based education (homeschooling)
Texas' Special Kids
Non-profit ministry serving families with special needs children
Reference Resources
Homeschool Christian
This site offers over 1,200 pages of free resources to support and assist homeschooling families in giving their children an outstanding education.
Microsoft FREE Word Viewer
Word Viewer 2007
This freeware program allows users who do not own Microsoft Word to view and print documents that were created in Word.
Dictionary
The ultimate dictionary resource which includes definitions from several major dictionaries including word origins and a nifty button to push and hear the correct pronunciation. Go to the home page for links to numerous additional reference resources including online thesaurus, almanacs, maps, etc.
Academic Kids Encyclopedia
Looking for an online encyclopedia with beautiful pictures that can be easily enlarged, lesson plans, clip art, and coloring pages? Academic Kids encyclopedia is a beautiful resource with over 40,000 articles at your fingertips and even has an extensive math worksheet section on everything from Roman numerals to printable graph paper.
Knowledge Quest Maps
Historical outline maps and timelines designed for the interactive study of world history and geography.
HomeSchool Reviews
Looking for reviews from real homeshoolers before you buy? This has hundreds of reviews divided up into numerous categories.
Braintrain
A local educational diagnostic, testing and tutoring clinic
The TAG (Talented and Gifted) Project
Our mission is to build and strengthen relationships between individuals, families, and organizations for the benefit of intellectually gifted children and adults. . .harnessing the power of global telecommunications . . .to share information and provide mutual assistance and support.
Curriculum
Home Educators Resource
HER Store is a homeschool consignment store that has a comprehensive selection of new and used curriculum.
Veritas Press - talks and conferences on classical homeschooling
Looking for teacher training from the experts in classical education, but can't travel the country to get there? Go here to download mp3 format talks and entire conferences sponsored by Veritas Press, the leader in classical homeschooling.
Sonlight
Sonlight is the way you wish you'd been taught. Guaranteed. Their philosophy is to create a lifelong love of learning through great books. You can't go wrong with their fabulous reading lists and they have one of the best analysis of the top math curriculums available for elementary I've seen anywhere.
Veritas Press
Veritas Press, innovators in the resurgence of classical education among homeschoolers, states its commitment to providing Christian educators in the home and school setting with quality tools for a quality education. Dedicated to raising the bar for the American educational system, their reading lists and art resources are top notch and will challenge your concept of how old children have to be before they are capable of understanding difficult concepts.
KONOS
Considered the granddaddy of unit studies, KONOS author Jessica Hulcy is credited with teaching parents how to work with the wiggle. Their hands-on approach to teaching has been a foundation of a number of long-term homeschoolers in our association.
Cornerstone
Building a biblical worldview and some of the finest fine arts curriculum resources available have been favorites of ours for years.
Lifetime Books and Gifts
Founded by long-time homeschoolers who believe in the "living books" approach to teaching, Lifetime Books and Gifts have provided literally dozens of valuable resources to our family over the years. If you love REAL books and desire to use them as your primary teaching tool, you will love this company.
CurrClick.com
Curriculum and classes in a click!
Homeschool Marketplace
Homeschool marketplace was founded by Chris and Ellyn Davis, formerly of Elijah Company, one of our all-time favorite resources. Chris Davis approach to homeschooling will refresh you and give you much to think about. I have NEVER been disappointed by one of their recommendations.
Kidzone
Kidzone Fun Facts includes fun information, worksheets, and lesson plans for numerous subjects including math, language arts, geography, science, and handwriting.
Home School Share
This amazing site has 275 FREE unit studies for all ages and 200 FREE lapbooks! If you are looking for some free studies to incorporate into your homeschool, look no further.
Simply Charlotte Mason
Looking for ideas, resources and information on Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy? This site and its ideas can enrich any homeschool.
Language Arts
Spelling City
A great website for spelling games, lists, etc. Great fun!
Spelling advice/worksheets
Spelling advice and worksheets
Spell Quizzer
Spelling for kids of all ages. Input your own list of words, or download free lists. Record your own voice dictating the words.
The Ultimate Spelling Resource Guide
A guide that includes spelling strategies, commonly misspelled words, and other spelling tips and resouces.
Literature
Project Gutenberg
How would you like to have access to thousands of books including many of the classics without spending a dime or leaving your home? Project Gutenberg has ebooks to download for free.
Bright Kids / Children's Literature & Living Books List
Looking for a comprehensive list of twaddle-free books suggested by grade level? Don't know what twaddle is? You need to explore this site.
A Book in Time
Looking for a list of books at an appropriate grade level for your children to read that deals with a particular time period in history? Look no further.
Math
Math Dictionary
An awesome, interactive Math resource. Broken down alphabetically kids can click on a wide range of Math terms from abacus to zero! Not only will they get a definition, but they also get a little demonstration of how the concept works! From Acre, binary system, co-efficient to dodecahedron this has information to keep your child learning for hours!
Rainforest Math
Interactive mathematics activities K-6
Math-U-See
One of our all-time favorite math curriculum resources. Math·U·See's goal is to help produce confident problem solvers who enjoy the study of math.
Daily Mental Math Activities
This site offers 8 mental math problems per day for an entire school year for grades 1 - 8. There's a great assortment of questions, which get progressively more difficult throughout the year. Only five minutes per day to boost computation and problem-solving skills!
Social Studies/History/Geography
A.W. Perry Homestead Museum
A recognized state historic landmark. History programs. Free guided tours to elementary students of the 1909 farmhouse, barn, root cellar, water well, and smokehouse.
Living History Farm
The site has over 400 stories about the history of agricultural innovation and the history of the 20th century. One of the site's strengths is that it relies on a series of oral history interviews. These streaming media segments can bring an historic period or event alive for students today.
Best of History
An award-winning portal that contains annotated links to over 1000 history web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, teacher guides, activities, games, quizzes, and more.
Student News Daily
A current events site for older kids. Features include: Daily news articles with questions; political cartoons; examples of biased reporting; weekly quizzes. SIte offers the option of having answers emailed to you.
A Book in Time
A Book in Time originally began as a chronological history booklist, but listings of crafts, timelines, maps, and other resources have been added over the years. Their purpose is to help history teachers find all kinds of extracurricular resources to enrich their classes!
Animated Atlas
Animated Atlas portrays large chapters of American history quickly by animating maps and geographic features.
For school, home and genealogy use.
A Child's Geography
Award-winning resources and beautifully written how-to articles that will both encourage and teach.
Amy Pak's Home School in the Woods
Timeline figures, lap books, unit studies, etc...
Science
Astronomy
Do you have a budding astronomer or astronaut? Check out this site
Zoo School for homeschoolers
A multi-week series of Zoology enrichment classes for K-4th graders.
Home Educator's Science Partnership
Home Educator's Science Partnership: information on participating in a science fair for elementary and high schoolers
Science With Me
The Fun, Easy, Visual way for children to learn science!
KidsHealth.org
Click on a body part to watch movies, take quizzes & solve word finds. Looking for simple animation of the human heart pumping or of muscles contracting and expanding? This has dozens of video clips and diagrams that are designed with the elementary student in mind.
Dallas Zoo Education
Educator Workshops at the Dallas Zoo.
Nature Study - Charlotte Mason Style
Looking for excellent ideas on how to introduce your children to nature studies without workbook pages? Great articles and resource lists, as well.
Animals
Africa Wildcam
Studying Africa or animals? This link will take you to a live camera feed at Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana, Africa. We've seen elephants, gazelles, crocodiles, and exotic birds. Remember, it is a live feed and they are 7 hours ahead of us, so there isn't always something exciting happening. But beware!! Wen you learn the times to tune in, this can be addicting!
National Zoo
Animal webcams at the national zoo will enhance your study of animals without leaving your living room.
Lap Booking Resources
Miller Pads and Paper
The absolute best place to get your paper and card stock for lap booking!!
Dinah Zike's Foldables, VKV's, & Equivalency Flips, Unique Graphic Organizers, & Manipulatives
Home School Share
Offers many free lap books
Knowledge Box Central
Lap book ideas for older students
Amy Pak's Home School in the Woods
Historical unit studies incorporating lap books
Bible
Bible puzzles
Printable Bible word puzzles your children will enjoy while you reinforce their knowledge of scripture
BibleStudio.com
This site includes the Bible in a dozen different translations. It also has a Bible Atlas and Bible Dictionary. My favorite part of this site is the ability to search photos, illustrations, paintings and maps by topic, Bible reference, word, or phrase!
EdgezoneGames.com
Looking for Bible activities for your younger family members? This site offers free printable Bible story activities with 325 free PDF downloads that cover the entire Bible! Downloads include coloring sheets, memory verses, worksheets, word searches, and crossword puzzles.
Art
Prepackaged Crafts for preschoolers
Prepackaged Crafts is a way for a mom to spend 5 to 15 minutes with their preschoolers doing fun crafts without having to spend ANY time prepping.
Teach Art at Home
Free art projects. Has a number of great art projects for young and old.
Miller Pads & Paper
One of our favorite art suppliers! They also have a free quarterly newsletter available full of wonderful ideas to get your students creating.
Physical Fitness
President Challenge Fitness
Help in setting fitness goals for your children with specific exercises and evaluations. You may also order "awards" through the website when goals are reached.
Southwest Aquatics of Texas Swim Team
This local swim team has many members from our community.
College-related
Information for college-bound students
To register your high school student for the PSAT or SAT exam, you will need to go here. In addition, this offers extensive information for parents including scholarship advice, practice exams, and study tips for students.
Music
Music Lessons
DBU teacher of piano, voice, guitar, music theory, and composition.
Media
Kids learn out loud
Kids.LearnOutLoud.com is your audio and video learning resource for Kids & Teens.
Browse thousands of Educational Audio Books, MP3 Downloads, and Podcasts for Kids!
Movie guide
Everyone wants to make wise media choices; however, in this world it's not easy. Here is a link that will help you.
Publications
God's World
This is a great science magazine. Seven or more subscriptions qualifies for a great discount.
Practical Homeschooling Magazine
The magazine begun by homeschooling pioneer, Mary Pride
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
This resource has it all - wonderful weekly e-Newsletters on various topics, an online magazine, a paper edition and an online store that sells all the "latest and greatest" homeschooling curriculum and supplies.
Other
Academic tournaments
Academic tournaments for kids in 1-8 grade
Online Computer Classes
I'm a recently retired public school teacher in the Ft. Worth area, and I'm offering an online basic computer skills class for home schoolers and others, including adults, who might want to learn more about making a computer a tool, and not just a toy.
Homeschool Book Fair
Annual homeschool book fair in Arlington in May at the Arlington Convention Center
Piedmont Education Services
This company provides nationally-standardized achievement tests and other products and services to almost 7,000 homeschooling families nationwide and overseas.
File Folder Games
Looking for fun learning activities for preschool through 2nd grade? Lots of games here on numerous subjects.
The Fly Lady
Are you looking for ideas to keep your house (and the clutter) from overwhelming and hindering your homeschool? The Fly Lady is full of practical organizational ideas that will help anyone willing to implement them.