Tips and tools for planning a homeschool classroom

Not all families like to use a homeschool "classroom," but some do.

There are tools, tips, and idea here: https://www.furniture.com/tips-and-trends/how-to-set-up-a-homeschool-classroom

Insect Science

Orkin provides some good lesson plans and activities on their website for kids wanting to know more about bugs.

https://www.orkin.com/scienceeducation/kids-and-teachers-games/

Drawing classes

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCapr-OhipSNVYPIqhy47RaA/videos?flow=grid&sort=da&view=0

Good music classes for kids

There are long classes as well as single-song videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDC0w41wYC5qWTcIylU6n2A

Homeschooling Resources

There are lots of resources collected at this link: https://www.studypool.com/guide/home-schooling-services

Note that not all of them are free, but some are. And it gives a good overview of homeschooling options.

Free online Saxon Math 5

I'm not sure this is going to last, but here is Math 5.
https://mrsames.wordpress.com/math/

Notation Software

This is a free downloadable notation software that is fully functioned. Professional musicians use this.

https://musescore.org/

Free Online Homeschool

The landing page for this doesn't really give me enough information to recommend it or not. It doesn't appear to be customizable. But it says accounts are free and it claims to be a full PreK-12 school online.

http://discoveryk12.com/dk12/curriculum/

If anyone has used this, please put a review in the comments.

Squid dissection

Here is a virtual squid dissection. This is a photo dissection, not an interactive, but the photos are quite good.

http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/squid_virtual.html

New blog about bees

This is a great blog about bees. Worth reading if you love science: http://www.beesinyourbackyard.blogspot.com/

Online Notation Software: Flat

This is easy to use and works like google docs meets Finale.  You can write music, and you can collaborate on pieces through the web. It's all browser-based, but you have complete control over who sees (and can edit) your work.

https://flat.io/en

The Elements of Music: a full-year course in music for elementary and middle school students

Have a look!

https://sites.google.com/site/learninglynxclassroom/classes-and-extras/music-classes/music-5-the-elements-of-music

Copy editing worksheets for elementary school

http://www.alyciazimmerman.com/daily-editing-paragraphs.html

Dissect an owl pellet online

http://kidwings.com/nests-of-knowledge/virtual-pellet/

About fancy male birds

This is a great science-based look at fancy male birds.

http://biology.allaboutbirds.org/features/fancymales/fancy-males

Complete online free music school

These are the best, most clear music lessons I've ever found online.

http://www.daveconservatoire.org

Free "how to draw" book for kids

https://ia601404.us.archive.org/8/items/whattodrawhowtod00lutz/whattodrawhowtod00lutz_bw.pdf

Fun vintage "how to draw" book.

NASA Science Podcasts

For your science lover:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sciencecasts/

Free Courses

This site is splashier than Learning Lynx, but the courses are similarly based on finding links to other people's resources and stringing them together. I don't know how they got away with charging fees for that (legally), but they no longer do, so you can access lots of courses here:

http://simpleschoolingclassroom.com/

Great new tech ed resource, free for homeschoolers

Webucator is beginning to make their self-directed tech courses free to homeschoolers. Apparently the CEO is beginning his own homeschooling journey and couldn't find a lot of great free online software and web development courses.

This is what they sent me: "As Webucator specializes in this kind of training in the corporate world, we know how valuable these skills are. So, we've decided to make all of our self-paced courses available for free to homeschoolers. This includes courses on web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.), Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc), Photoshop, Dreamweaver and many others. Here's a link to our blog announcement.

To register for a course, all [you] need to do is:

Go to our Self-paced Courses page.
Browse through the courses.
Click the Order Now button next to the course.
Enter HOMESCHOOL for the Coupon Code and click Validate Coupon.
Complete the registration.
For any registration questions, simply email:homeschool@webucator.com.

That's all there is to it. As I said, the courses are self paced, so students will need to have some discipline to get through them, but one of the great things about homeschooling is that it helps kids develop this kind of discipline. So, we're hopeful that our courses will help kids develop much needed skills in the workplace. Plus, a lot of this stuff is just fun to learn!"

Obviously there is so SO much value to knowing web development, Microsoft Office, and even photoshop in this world, and this is a great resource for kids to learn!