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!

Civil War Curriculum, K-`12

http://www.civilwar.org/education/teachers/curriculum/

Cornstarch playdoughs

Cornstarch is the best playdough base we've found if you're looking for a quick, easy play substance.

If you mix cornstarch with a little water, you get a non-newtonian fluid, often called "goop" that's super fun to play with. You can roll it into a ball, but when you stop moving it, it melts in your hand.

If you mix cornstarch with white glue, you get the best air-dry clay I've ever used. It's smooth, takes detail well, and is pure white, so you can paint or color it after it's dry--even with crayons! It takes food coloring well when wet and is totally non-toxic. It also washes out of everything as long as you catch it while it's still wet.

If you mix cornstarch with conditioner, you get a soft playdough that breaks like a non-newtonian fluid but holds its shape better. It's very soft and fun to play with, but isn't edible (unless you use non-toxic conditioner!). This wouldn't be a good choice for babies because it smells good and is pretty. http://pagingfunmums.com/2013/11/01/soft-as-a-cloud-playdoughusing-only-2-ingredients/

The standard ratio for all of these recipes is 2 parts cornstarch to one part liquid (water, glue, or conditioner).  I imagine other liquids would make equally interesting concoctions to play with. We haven't tried, for example, using oil instead of water. Or adding Kool-Aid powder to the cornstarch-and-glue clay (would that give you scratch-and-sniff beads?). Could be a fun science experiment.

Best free reading program I've found so far

Teach Your Monster to Read is not only easy for preschoolers/Kindies to use, it's fun and it's research-based, so it actually does teach your child to read.

http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/

Virtual tour of Oxford

This is a fantastic virtual tour of Oxford. Really fun for anglophiles.

http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/oxfordtour/

Awesome free literature game for kids

http://read.gov/readers/readers.html

Save familiar characters to unlock books and animated films. Looks like FUN!

Free Chemistry Courses

http://askthenerd.com/chemistryonline/COL-2.html

This site includes 3 courses: Intro, General, and Organic chemistry. The lectures require a login. The lecture slides, though, make a nice course and are free, as is the textbook, worksheets with answers, and other materials.  Definitely college level, but not complicated.

Black Holes

This is an awesome lesson on Black Holes, complete with a journey to a couple of different black holes.  Animated, accurate, and interesting.

http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/home.html

mechanical engineering: How a car engine works

This is a cool animated infographic.

http://jacoboneal.com/car-engine/

Family Band video lessons

Learn to play banjo, mandolin, harmonica, spoons, ukulele, etc.

Fun, straightforward lessons.

http://danzanes.com/family-band-workshop

or

http://www.youtube.com/user/danzanesandfriends/videos

(Same videos, different presentation format)

Advanced math practice problems and challenge problems

Art of Problem Solving is not a free site, but their challenge problems section is free with a free registration.

http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/liz/Alcumus/index.php

Unit on musical instruments

http://www.musicfun.net.au/pdf_files/instruments.pdf

and quiz:
http://www.thirteen.org/publicarts/orchestra/orchestra03.swf

Kids cooking curriculum

http://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/Documents/Pubs/345-NonDOH-LetsCookClassCurriculum.pdf