Of course another place to find stuff to homeschool with is the internet. Oh, how far things have come in homeschooling! I remember as a young mom with Shayleen and how all we had was supermarket workbooks, library books, the Teaching Home magazine (how I LIVED by that magazine!) and eventually when she was I think 3rd or 4th grade a local Christian bookstore devoted it's basement to homeschooling material....

Anyway, NOW, there are so many resources. Ambleside Online is the place to start for me. What an incredible wealth of resources are connected in to that site. I assumed everyone in homeschooling knew about them but in the last week I talked to a couple people who didn't. So if you haven't done so already, check them out. If you like to you can whole heartily go with their curriculum or if you're like me and cannot seem to stick to a recipe but like to see what other people are doing you can peruse it every time you do lesson planning. They also have an email list through Yahoo. But if you subscribe, be ready for lots of mail. I personally delete more of them than I read, but through that list I have found lots of stuff and I also know that what ever question I have about anything school-ish I will be able to get an answer through those ladies. They take this stuff really seriously, I can tell you!

From there you will naturally progress to Libri Vox. Need a breather? Set the kiddos up with an audio book. Libri Vox has volunteers read aloud books that are in the public domain. We have really enjoyed the history books, "Our Island Story" (British history) and "This Country of Ours" (American History) I've heard that their reading of Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress are very good. I also plan to make use of some of their poetry since I'm having one of my girls read Tennyson this year.

Another must know site is the Baldwin Project. Ooo, who even needs to go to the library when there are such treasures? If I had more than one computer I might not bother. The Baldwin Project is focused on children's books, all online. Want to read about King Alfred? Read some Nathaniel Hawthorne? How about some fun Thornton Burgess animal books? They're all there.

And if you get through all those and you still haven't had enough free books, try Project Gutenberg. I haven't used them much because I have found so much at the other two sites. But they have an absolute ton of stuff.

So, you've got your books covered.

How about art lessons? DrawSpace.  Oh yeah. Enough there to keep you going for a while. And for art history you can look at many wonderful paintings at Olga's Gallery.

Also, never neglect YouTube. (There are some art lessons there, though not as thorough and well laid out as drawspace.) But you can also find grammar lessons, foreign language lessons, music by about any composer you like (my son often refers to YouTube when trying to figure out a violin piece.) just tons of stuff. It can take a bit to organize the information, but it is amazing the wealth of knowledge that can be gleaned there. Usually the videos are done by people who are passionate about a subject and want to share what they know!

Free worksheets and coloring pages abound. But my favorite for Bible pages is here.

Make your own math worksheets.

Another good source for worksheets is http://softschools.com/ I have used them for handwriting, but there is a ton of stuff there.

Do you need help with geography? Maybe keep the younger kids hypnotised err, I mean productively entertained for a bit while you help the older ones? http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/  I really like the geography games and I use them a lot but the boys also play some of the math and grammar games.

How about stuff for the older kids? http://www.khanacademy.org/ This is an absolute treasure trove of higher math and science help. Really a fantastic resource and obviously a labor of love for the guy that is putting it out there.

Would one of your kids like to learn web design? My older two taught themselves HTML http://w3schools.com/ They have a bunch of tutorials, not just HTML.

Here is a site I have used for Bible Study:http://padfield.com/ So far we've used it for the book of Matthew and I liked that-so far-I think he does a pretty good job at asking the study questions in a straight forward way and I haven't felt like he's interjected any particular doctrinal view point. But I always feel like I have to watch Bible studies closely and I read over assignments before giving them. I haven't found one yet I could endorse without reservation. But I really did like the study we did in Matthew there, and there are maps and time lines, etc. where applicable.

Well, are you over whelmed yet? Need help organizing? I have used the forms/calenders and so forth here and found them really helpful. http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/ She has a lot of stuff on that site, but I haven't fully explored it other than the organizing stuff.

OK, I guess this isn't really very schooly but I love this site of vintage paper dolls. Maybe it could fit in with an art project.  http://tpettit.best.vwh.net/

I haven't really even scratched the surface of all the stuff that's out there. There's NASA, National Geographic, etc. I'd love to get your favorites!

And swimming, well, it is fun just to go to a lake, take a lunch and let the kiddos learn... Do some nature study there... and you don't get all that chlorine in your eyes... :)