About Homeschooling
One of the "What You
Need to Know About ...." sites (previously known as The
Mining Company) where experts select and develop resources
on each topical page. Includes articles, forums, chats, and
linked resources. The Homeschooling "guide" is Beverly
Hernandez, a veteran homeschooler with 17 years experience
from preschool through high school levels. She was the
administrator of a large independent study program while
simultaneously owning and operating a home school bookstore.
Cobblestone Publishing
The Cobblestone products are almost
universally mentioned as favorite teaching tools by
homeschooling families. Presenting non-fiction in a way that
is truly engaging, these resources include several
magazines, Teaching with Primary Sources Series,
Theme Packs and other types of kits, CD-ROMs,
mapping, and timeline products. The site has a very
impressive subject listing of
Resources
and a
For Kids
. Each
magazine
has its own web site with resources on its topic. For
example, see the dig
State-by-State Guide to
Archaeology and Paleontology for New York.
Harvest of History
Developed by the
Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown, NY this site makes the story
of our agricultural heritage come alive. You can explore the
Village to find out where your food comes from, how and
where it grows, and compare life in 1845 with our modern
world. Then produce your own movie with the Village Video
maker. Use the interdisciplinary fourth-grade curriculum to
learn how agriculture has been, and still is, an integral
part of our lives in New York State.
Help Getting Started
Many librarians find themselves at a
loss as to know how to help families who are considering
whether or not homeschooling is for them. This page has
terrific essays written by veteran homeschoolers on what it
was like to get started, the tools needed, legal and
extended family considerations, and more. This is one page
in a large Web site maintained by Ann Zeise, mother whose
homeschooled children have gone off to college but who
continues to maintain this site which is very obviously, a
labor of love:
A to Z's Home's Cool Homeschooling Web
Site.
Home Education Magazine
These Homeschooling Information
and Resource Pages contain free online newsletters,
discussion boards, a networking list, and selections from
the magazine, including articles, interviews, columns,
resources, reviews and a section called
Questions and Answers
that link by topic to the archives of previously published
articles. Home Education Magazine is also the sponsor of the
unschooling.com
site, with many similar resources for those choosing this
sytle of homeschooling, and the American Homeschool
Association, a
service organization created in 1995 to network
homeschoolers on a national level. Current AHA services
include an online news and discussion list which provides
news, information, and resources for homeschoolers, media
contacts, and education officials.
Home School Legal Defense
Association
A tremendous resource! Choose your
state and find out the most current legal information
regarding homeschooling. A point and click map uses a
4-color code to signal the legislative status: action,
watch, update or none. Also has links to local support
groups, current headlines involving homeschoolers and home
school issues, and surveys and studies. Familiarity with
this site is a must for anyone interested in homeschooling.
Homeschool.com
This is a commercial site with many
resources for purchase, including a number of online
curriculums. In addition, the information available here at
no charge is quite good, mostly presented in the "FAQ"
style. On the Ask Your Advisors!
page there are links to explanations of a variety of
homeschooling methods -- very useful to those with little
previous exposure to the homeschooling concept.
HomeSchool Talk and Swap
A large collection of
message boards on the usual topics as well as Single
Parent Homeschoolers, Encouragement,
Homeschool Humor, and Controversial Issues. It
is unclear whether all forum members are Vegetarians, as the
host site is Vegsource.com. The site also includes a Swap
section: Wanted to Buy and Items to Sell.
Homeschool World
The site of Practical
Homeschooling Magazine, and like any magazine, this one has
lots of advertising for the kinds of products that the
target audience would find useful. There is also a very
handy nationwide listing of upcoming events of interest to
the homeschooling community. The magazine articles that are
included are arranged alphabetically by author, with a
one-sentence description. The list is not long, so scrolling
through is quick, but not so helpful for those unfamiliar
with the literature, this is a bit awkward. This is not a
site for someone just considering homeschooling; this is for
the experienced homeschooling family.
Jon's Homeshool Resource
Page
This is the "granddaddy" of
homeschooling sites on the Web, first posted in 1994. If you
do not know where to start, come here! A great feature is
the state-by-state guide to Support Groups and Mailing
Lists. The URL for the New York page is:
http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/NewYork.html.
This is also an example of Web site design at its very best:
easy to navigate and read, with excellent use of imbedded
links and a strong internal searching engine so you can
locate specialized topics within the site. Every page has a
creation date and update notation and an e-mail link to the
site's author, Jon Shemitz.
Learn in Freedom
Karl M. Bunday has written over 40
thought-provoking pages with thousands of links to help
those interested in "taking responsibility for your own
learning. . . . [on] how to use your own initiative in
learning, so you can use schools and teachers just when they
are helpful to you, and voluntarily chosen by you." This Web
site is famous for its list of colleges that accept
homeschoolers, and there is a page on this site to show you
how to
get started
"Learning in Freedom." It includes bibliographies as well as
Web links, and has a good site map.
Lesson Plans Page
Over 2,500 lesson
plans available at no cost for pre K - Grade 12 in all
commonly taught subjects. Includes seasonal ideas, weekly
science experiments, math worksheets and a link to most the
recently added lessons, so that one need not search the
entire site on repeat visits.
Loving Education at Home
Loving Education At Home, Inc. is an
organization of Christian home educators, which began in
1983 with five families seeking support and fellowship. It
has grown into a statewide not-for-profit ministry
providing support through a network of local chapters and an
annual conference.
The Math Forum at Drexel
University
If you want to add,
subtract, multiply, study probability and statistics,
algebra or differential equations. There is just
about everything you ever could want mathematical on this
site, with its resources for pre K - 12, college and
advanced learners, an Internet Mathematics Library,
discussion forums, and Ask Dr. Math! This site can
be very helpful for the parent who finds math intimidating.
Montessori Homeschooling
Montessori education was founded in
1907 by Dr. Maria Montessori, Italy's first woman physician.
She based her educational methods on scientific observation
of children's learning processes. Guided by her discovery
that children teach themselves, Dr. Montessori designed a
"prepared environment" filled with cultural, artistic, and
scientific activities. The child freely chooses from a
number of developmentally appropriate activities and is
never forced to attend a lesson or do a piece of work. The
instructor observes and gives careful, individual lessons
while refraining from interrupting when the child is
concentrating on an activity. On this site, and others
linked from it, the advice given those deciding to use
Montessori principles for homeschooling suggests parents
"focus more on the theory and practical suggestions" and
less on purchasing the traditional Montessori materials.
New York Home Education
Network
A membership organization of home
schoolers with the following Mission:
"To support the freedom of families to educate their
children at home; To improve and strengthen connections and
communication among home educating families; To advocate for
freedom from restrictions and for increased opportunities
for home educating families; To increase public awareness,
acceptance and support of home education; To provide an
association that takes no position on religion, partisan
politics, and non-homeschooling issues; and To protect from
accidental or deliberate infringement by government parents'
rights to teach their own children." There is alot of
legislative information on the site and a number of
e-mail lists
that are hosted on Yahoo! as well as links to
Centeral New York
and
North Country
support groups.
OPEN-NY
Otherwise Providing Education iN New
York is an ongoing effort by Paul Matte to research and
promote the right of parents to direct education of their
children without government interference. See also the
Liberty Links
section of the site if this is an approach that is of
interest to you.
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Growing out of the Chicago Academy of
Sciences, and opened in 1999, the Nature Museum features a
number of exciting online activities including
Live Tuesday Webcasts
with real-time chat. There are also archived Webcasts for
viewing at other times. You can explore the
Judy Istock Butterfly Haven,
or work on a research project about the declining peregrine
population at
Bird Alert!
This site with its wonderful learning tools is just one of
many fine no-cost, Web-based interactive learning modules
being created by
museums
around the world. However, Bird Alert! does
something very special. It provides a wide range of
resources and choices on how to proceed so that once the
unit is worked through, an entire scientific research
inquiry is completed and in the process, the research skills
to do so are developed as a natural consequence of the
process. On top of that, it is presented in a way that is
fun!
Project Gutenberg
The Project Gutenberg philosophy is to
make information, books and other materials available to the
general public in forms a vast majority of the computers,
programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search.
All 18,000 of the so far included works are Public Domain
E-text editions in "Plain Vanilla ASCII." There are three
main types of materials in the Project Gutenberg Library: 1)
Light Literature such as: Alice in Wonderland , Through the
Looking-Glass, Peter Pan, Aesop's Fables, etc. 2) Heavy
Literature such as: the Bible or other religious documents,
Shakespeare, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, etc. and 3)
References such as: Roget's Thesaurus, almanacs, and a set
of encyclopedia, dictionaries, etc. Do not overlook the
Top 100 Books
which is updated daily.
Raid on Deerfield: The Many
Stories of 1704
Another interactive
site developed by a museum, this time it is the Pocumtuck
Valley Memorial Association / Memorial Hall Museum in
Deerfield, MA. Though not a New York site per se, this
contains very rich material that overlaps with our own
state's history. In the era preceeding the Revolutionary War
at least 5 cultures came into contact (and conflict) in the
northeastern part of what would become the United States:
French, English, Kanienkehaka (Mohawk), Wendat (Huron) and
Wôbanaki (Abenaki, Pennacook, Sokoki, Pocumtuck and others).
Find out more about all of them here while focusing on one
specific historic event. Sites like this make learning
history both managable and fun.
Travlang's Translating
Dictionaries
Translation engines
for 18 languages: German, Dutch, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Latin, Finnish,
Norwegian, Frisian, Afrikaans, Hungarian, Czech, Polish,
Esperanto and Turkish.
Utah Education Network
Although specifically
intended for the schools, homes, colleges and universities
of Utah, this site has such rich resources that there is
likely to be something of interest to any learner. Students
can find distance learning classes and telecourses for high
school and college credit. Educators can find lesson plans
and online tools to help them enhance their skills. The site
map is very well organized.
Waldorf Inspired Students at
Home
Founded in Europe in
1919 by Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf education now includes
schools on every continent and a rapidly growing
homeschooling movement. It has grown to become the world's
largest independent, non-denominational educational system
covering all grades. Waldorf's pedagogy is designed to
address the whole child: "head, heart and hands" by
conveying knowledge experientially as well as academically.
The Waldorf Method of Education strives to awaken
capabilities, rather than to merely impose intellectual
content on the child. There is a strong reliance on art and
handicraft in Waldorf Education, and that is reflected in
the many resources made available on this site. Also
featured are links to many "WebRings" and discussion groups,
including several on-going book discussion groups.
WCNY:
Central New York's Own: Educational Services and Outreach
The companion site to
public broadcasting's TV and radio stations with resources
specifically designed for learners and educators.