Welcome to 5 Days of Homeschooling for Free. For 5 days, I am sharing a subject by subject list of free resources you can use in your homeschool! On Monday, we looked at a fun way to study U.S. geography. Yesterday, I shared more than 80 free living history books you can get free for your Kindle. Today, we’ll be looking at some great resources for everyone’s favorite subject (well . . . maybe not everyone’s).
Math.
Just the word can send the best of homeschool moms running for the hills.
When you have a child who doesn’t like it or struggles with math every step of the way, you can find yourself spending a lot of money on math. Crazy amounts of money. Because you want to find that perfect math curriculum that will work for your child and make him fall in love with fractions and multiplication tables (or at least not burst out in tears when you place the worksheet in front of him).
Ask me how I know.
Anyway, because I have figured out that spending more money on yet another curriculum isn’t always the answer, I want to share with you some math helps I have found out there that are free, but completely worth your time. Meaning, free doesn’t always mean cheap or not worth trying.
10 Free Math Resources Worth Your Time
GeoGebra — GeoGebra (www.geogebra.org) is free dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. Interactive learning, teaching and evaluation resources created with GeoGebra can be shared and used by everyone at www.geogebratube.org
Khan Academy — Online and for iPad. Khan isn’t just about math. Their motto is “learn almost anything. Comletely free, forever.” Even though you can use Khan for other subjects, it began as math tutorials on YouTube, and it is quite impressive today. From early math through calculus . . . there’s a video for that. We don’t use Khan Academy as our sole source of math instruction, but I cannot tell you how many times a Khan video has saved the day when Ben wasn’t getting something the way I explained it. The guy — his name is Sol — that does the teaching, just has a way of explaining things that makes sense.
Math Expert — iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch (addition and subtraction are free, all others are $0.99 each and in-app purchases) From the publisher of Math Essentials – This is a very simple but effective app for memorizing math facts. Math Essentials is a math program we use, and if you are familiar with it and the “speed drills” that go along with that, Math Expert is the app version of speed drills. This is one math app Ben doesn’t complain about using. In case you’re wondering, no Math Essentials, the curriculum, is not free. But it’s pretty cheap and DVD/workbook based. Ben likes Mr. Fisher. It’s what we use alongside Life of Fred as our regular curriculum.
Math Mammoth — Maria Miller, publisher of the popular math curriculum, Math Mammoth, offers lots of video tutorials on YouTube. She uses a white board with clear step-by-step instructions that have been helpful for Ben, especially for learning fractions and decimals, though she does address lower maths as well. You can also get 300+ sample pages from the Math Mammoth curriculum by subscribing to Maria’s newsletter.
A+ Interactive Math — You can download free worksheets for grades 3 through Algebra from popular math curriculum company A+ Interactive math. This is a computer-based math program that is very comprehensive. You can try the entire Family Package (up to 10 students, all grade levels at your disposal) free for one month, and do a math assessment to see where your students place, also free.
Sheppard Software — The math section of Sheppard Software is filled with fun math games and drills. This is one of those sites that will make your students think they are playing instead of learning. We’ve used it for years for math (and geography) games.
Math U See — Popular math publisher, Math U See, has an online drills app that is great for practicing math facts whether or not you use their curriculum.
WorsheetWorks.com — Here, you can generate math worksheets and flash cards in PDF. There are a lot of possibilities all the way up to pre-algebra and geomety.
NumberNut.com — This site is brand new to me, but I happened upon it a few weeks ago and bookmarked it to go to for our new school year. It looks totally worth my time, so I’m going to go ahead and say I think it will be work your time as well. It provides written explanations for many math concepts up to pre-algebra, as well as free PDF workbooks.
MangaHigh — This is a very engaging games-based math teaching resource. You can join as a homeschool to access the entire site for free for 60 days. After that, you can decide if it’s worth paying the premium membership price.
Illuminations — This resource for teaching math is an educational learning site with lessons all the way through high school. There is a lot to choose from here, including math lessons, interactive exercies, and Ben’s favorite — brain teasers.
And here’s a bonus from the blogger at Five J’s. She creates some pretty great math printables. I’m linking to one set, but there are links to more within this post.
Five J’s — Free Math Worksheet Printables: Clocks, Graph Paper, Coordinate Planes, Number Lines, and More!
Do you enjoy teaching math? What are some of your favorite resources?