Homeschooling Resources

Below are a few of the resources I collected over the years I was homeschooling. I will be adding to Resources on a regular basis so keep checking back.

Products For Sale

• Rainbowresource.com.  Online store for homeschooling books and materials. They sell wrap-ups for math and Spanish, as well as Caluladders and Spelling Workout workbooks. Also a good source for info on homeschooling itself.

• Teaching Textbooks.com. For online math courses grade 3 and up. I don’t have any experience with lower level math offerings but judging by their upper level offerings I would expect them to be equally excellent.

• demmelearning.com/learning-blog/homeschooling-coronavirus. Demme sells Math-U-See, a program for teaching math. They also have resources for parents suddenly faced with homeschooling due to the corona virus. They offer recommendations ranging from books to read aloud to information on the different homeschooling styles. They also are a source for skip counting songs for all numbers, not just the easy 5 and 10.

Homeschooling Moms Sharing Info

Homeschooling moms are incredibly generous when it comes to sharing ideas, book recommendations, etc.

• thehappyhousewife.com/homeschool

Books on Homeschooling

There are many styles of homeschooling. Here are a few introductory books on the various approaches.

• A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola. This book is one of those I used to guide me in developing my own curriculum for my children. Short lessons, nature notebooks, art and music study are just a few of the contributions to my own homeschool. I particularly appreciated the emphasis on teaching character and the value of habit.
• The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. Although the program outlined in The Well-Trained Mind seemed overly-ambitious for this homeschooling mom – I took four years of Latin in high school but teaching it to my elementary-aged children was a little too Tiger Mom for me – I nevertheless took away many valuable lessons for what and how to teach my two boys.
• Homeschooling for Excellence  by David Colfax and Micki Colfax. Published in 1988, the resources in this book are out of date, but the story of these parents devising an education for their children – all three of whom were accepted at Harvard – is compelling and inspiring.
• The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom by Mary Griffith. For those interested in an approach in which the child follows her/his own interests rather than a parent-led curriculum.
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn.  An “unschooling” guide for teens. Although I was not an “unschooling” homeschooler when the boys were smaller, I did find this a useful guide to encourage my children to take charge of their own education when they were teens. My younger son spent his afternoons teaching himself about cameras, lighting, filming and editing techniques, and equipment. As a result, he not only got a job in the editing lab at UT, but was an equipment guru his two summers at Maine Media Workshops. Education, in the end, is about learning how to learn.

Local Resources

The Homeschool Store, 12315 Ann Lane, Houston 77064. 281-890.4295. They sell new and used books and curriculum. Experienced homeschooling parents themselves, the owners are good resource for information. Their older children can often be found working in the store.