Resources
Books, tools and supplies from our own shelf, not a list copied off somebody else's blog. Every entry says why it earned a place, because a list with no reasoning on it is just a list. Worksheets and lessons are not here; those live under each grade.
Older books that teach better than most of what is sold new, and where to get them free.
Free
A lending library of scanned books, including school textbooks from the 1980s and 1990s and, crucially, their teacher's editions.
Modern workbooks give you the practice and leave out the teaching. That is not laziness, it is structure: a workbook is half of a two-part system, and the half that explains the concept is a separate textbook and teacher's edition you were never sold. Those older teacher's editions are sitting here, and they carry on every page what to say, why the rule works, and what students get wrong — the exact thing missing from the workbook on your table.
Free account, then borrow like a library: one-hour loans that renew while you are reading, or fourteen days. A scanned book sometimes has pages missing; the item page says so before you borrow. You have to make the account yourself — without signing in you see a few pages and then the back cover.
Free to borrow
A grade 7 English course from the era when a textbook still taught: student book, workbook, resource book, and both teacher's editions.
This is the single most useful thing on this page if you are teaching from a modern workbook and cannot work out what you are supposed to say. The teacher's edition carries, on every page, the explanation of the rule, the common student errors, and the wording to use. That is precisely the layer that was removed when workbooks were unbundled from the courses they belonged to.
⚠️ The five-volume scan is missing pages 3, 4, 15, 16, 19 and 20 — damage in the physical book, not the loan. The Rueda edition below is the fallback. Borrowing is free but needs an account.
Free to borrow
Middle school life science courses, several of them with the annotated teacher's edition included.
Science is the subject where a workbook alone fails hardest, because the questions assume a chapter you were never given. These carry the chapter: cells, ecosystems, heredity, and the scientific method, in the order a course actually teaches them. Borrow one and you have a sequence to follow instead of a pile of unrelated activities.
Pick one and stay with it rather than mixing four. The order a course puts its chapters in is most of what you are borrowing.
Free · public domain
A graded reading series from 1836, still one of the best sequences ever written for teaching a child to read.
McGuffey teaches phonics and reading in the same book instead of splitting them into two subjects, and it builds strictly: nothing appears that the reader has not been taught to decode. That is why the spelling list on this site is phonics-only with no sight words. The sight-word approach is the newer idea, not the older one — Dolch is 1936, Fry is 1957.
Public domain, so it is yours to download and keep, with no loan window. Start at the Primer or First Reader and move up when the reading is comfortable, not when the age says so.
Free · public domain
A complete handwriting system from 1915, not a book of tracing sheets.
It teaches handwriting as a MOVEMENT rather than a shape to copy. The drills train the arm and shoulder instead of the fingers, which is why Palmer handwriting stays legible at speed and finger-drawn handwriting falls apart the moment a student has to write quickly. If handwriting is the thing you are trying to fix, this is a method, and it costs nothing.
Written for business clerks, so the tone is dated and the loops are more ornate than anyone needs now. Take the movement drills and ignore the flourishes.
What is actually in use here, including what we pay for.
Free for one student · paid plans for more
The gradebook and lesson planner we keep the actual school records in.
It is the system of record here, not a spreadsheet: lesson plans by day with steps a student ticks off, grades, attendance, GPA, quizzes and transcripts in one place. The part that matters most is the transcript. A homeschool year that was taught well but recorded badly becomes a problem years later, at exactly the point when it is too late to reconstruct.
The free plan covers one student with five subjects a year, which is a genuine free tier rather than a trial. Paid plans start around $20 a year for five students. We pay for it and we are not affiliated with them.
Free ways to find out where a student actually is, before you buy a year of the wrong thing.
Free
Free adaptive maths and reading practice that shows you where a student actually is.
The easiest place to start, because there is nothing to print and nothing to mark. It adapts as it goes, so a student who is two years behind in one strand and on level in another shows up as exactly that instead of as a single misleading grade. Use the course recommendation rather than assuming the year on the birth certificate.
Works on a phone. Create the student account before you sit down together, not during.
Free
Free written placement tests for grades 6 to 12, covering grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing.
The best free option for a formal ELA result, and it tests the two things that decide whether a student can re-enter school on level: comprehension and writing. Test those honestly. A flattering result now is paid for later, at the point where it is too late to fix quietly.
Written and marked against a key, so it takes a sitting rather than ten minutes.
Free
Math placement, from arithmetic up through the high school sequence.
Math is the subject where placing wrong hurts most, because every topic sits on the one before it. A student put a year too high spends that year quietly failing to follow, and the gap that caused it never gets filled. This is the cheapest way to find the real floor.
Math only. Pair it with one of the ELA tests above.
Free
Reading and maths placement tests from Alpha Omega Publications.
A useful second opinion. Placement tests disagree with each other more than anyone admits, and two results that broadly agree are worth far more than one taken as gospel. Run this after Khan and see whether the answers line up.
Tied to their own curriculum sequence, so read the level as a range rather than a verdict.
Free
Placement across several subjects, with a strong reading component.
Worth it for the reading placement in particular, which is built around real books rather than isolated passages. That matters if the goal is a student who reads whole books, not one who is good at answering questions about paragraphs.
Also tied to a curriculum. Treat the recommendation as a starting point.
Good games that are not ours, on other sites. Each one says what is free and what is not.
Free, with a paid Gold membership
Chess.com's site for children: games against other kids and against bots, plus lessons and puzzles.
Chess is planning, patience and losing gracefully, taught by a game a child actually wants to play. ChessKid is built for children from the ground up rather than an adult site with a filter on it: there is no chat, usernames are generated for them, and a parent gets reports of what their child did.
The free account plays games and bots and opens some lessons and puzzles. Unlimited lessons, puzzles and videos are Gold, which is paid. There are apps for iPhone and Android.
Free
A typing course in the browser, one short lesson at a time, with stars and badges for accuracy and speed.
Typing is the skill every other subject quietly depends on once the writing moves to a screen. TypingClub teaches it properly, home row first, with hand position shown on screen, and the stars make fifteen minutes a day something a child will do without being chased. We use it every school day.
No account needed to start, but make the free profile or the progress is not saved. There is a Jungle Junior track for younger children. Accuracy first, speed after.
Free
An arcade typing game: words fly down the screen as enemy ships, and typing each word shoots it.
The best reward for typing practice is more typing, and this is the one children ask to play. It turns the speed TypingClub builds into something with a score on it, and every mistake costs you, so accuracy matters as much as speed.
Plays in the browser with nothing to sign up for. It needs a real keyboard, so it is a computer game, not a phone one.
Nothing is listed here because somebody paid for the slot. Anything that ever is an affiliate link will say so on the card.