Top 20 Free Homeschool Curriculums

Homeschooling offers the freedom to tailor your child’s education to their unique needs, but can also come with significant financial costs. With many families feeling the pinch of rising expenses on everything from groceries to housing, finding quality free homeschool curriculums can be a game-changer. In this post, I’ve compiled a list of the top 20 free homeschool curriculums covering all core subjects and a few electives.

This list is based on my family’s experiences, my readers’ favorites, and popular choices within homeschool groups. Each curriculum has been selected for its quality, comprehensiveness, and ease of use. By incorporating these free resources into your homeschool, you can provide an excellent education for your children while keeping costs manageable. Let’s dive into the top 20 free homeschool curriculums, listed in no particular order, and discover how you can homeschool without breaking the bank.

Treasure Hunt Reading

Treasure Hunt Reading follows an Orton-Gillingham, multi-sensory, systematic approach to reading instruction. This program includes videos for every lesson and a downloadable workbook. Check out the “For Helpful Adults” section of the website for teaching instructions and to download the workbook. Treasure Hunt Reading is the most thorough free phonics program I’ve found and is comparable to many high-priced programs.

School Yourself

School Yourself teaches high school math through interactive video lessons with personalized learning paths and review problems. The program monitors the student’s progress and can tell when they need more help with a concept or when they should breeze through a lesson to more advanced material. This makes School Yourself an efficient way to learn math. If students have trouble with a problem, they can request a hint. School Yourself currently offers Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy has resources from pre-K to college level. They are best known for their complete math curriculum that includes every grade level. However, they also have courses covering language arts, science, history, art, economics, computer science, life skills, and test prep. Most of these courses are taught with videos that conclude with questions or practice problems. Some courses also include articles to read.

The Good and the Beautiful

The Good and the Beautiful is a Christian homeschool company that offers free curriculum in a downloadable PDF format. They also offer printed versions of the courses for purchase.

The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts course downloads for kindergarten through 8th grade include the course book, readers, and other materials, depending on the level. What’s unique about these language arts courses is that they include reading, literature, grammar, writing, spelling, art, and geography in a single course. My family used their language arts courses for a few years and enjoyed having geography and art lessons that were related to stories the kids were reading.

The Simply Good and Beautiful Math course book is available in a downloadable format for kindergarten through 7th grade. The 4th through 7th grade levels also include video lessons. The early elementary levels of the curriculum require a math box. However, the website provides instructions parents can use to create the box of math manipulatives using household items and free printables to avoid buying the box.

Additionally, The Good and the Beautiful offers a downloadable Marine Biology Science Unit for 3rd through 8th grades, a detailed book list for beginner readers through 12th grade, and a YouTube channel with read alouds, songs, and more.

Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum

Freedom Homeschooling’s Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum is designed for children (around 4 years old) to complete the school year before they start kindergarten. The curriculum includes a free 185-page printable workbook as well as daily read-alouds, videos, songs, and activities for 35 weeks. Parents won’t need to purchase any books because all of the read alouds are either videos or free ebooks that the parent will read to the child.

Read Theory

The ReadTheory website helps kindergarten through 12th grade students practice and improve their reading comprehension skills. The student begins with a placement test and is given passages to read at their reading level. Based on how they answer the questions about the passages, their level will move slightly up or down. The program tracks your child’s progress so you can gauge how much their reading level improves over time. While homeschoolers often aren’t concerned with standardized testing, it’s still worth noting that 80% of surveyed classroom teachers said that ReadTheory contributed to an increase in test scores.

MasterMath

MasterMath offers courses for 6th through 8th grade math and Algebra I. Each lesson includes a video lecture, a printable worksheet, and an online quiz. The website also provides quarterly exams. These courses are more concise than typical math courses, so you will likely need to add additional practice. The author recommends purchasing an IXL subscription to provide more practice, but you could use a free resource like Math is Fun instead. Be sure to read MasterMath’s homeschool instructions for more information.

Mr. Q’s Classic Science

Mr. Q’s Classic Science offers a free 36-week Life Science course for children ages six to nine. The PDF downloads include an engaging textbook and a parent’s guide. Each chapter includes worksheets, hands-on activities, and a chapter test. You likely already have most of the items required for the activities, and the others are inexpensive and easy to obtain. My family used Mr. Q’s Life Science when our kids were in 1st and 3rd grade. They enjoyed it, and having them do science together was fun and simplified our homeschool day.

Under the Home

Under the Home (UTH) is an all-in-one Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum for kindergarten through 5th grade. The curriculum is based mainly on public domain textbooks and literature. It includes reading, phonics, poetry, prose, writing, math, science, history, geography, art history, studio art, and music courses. UTH provides lesson guides, activities, and review questions. Many courses also include printable workbooks, and some include videos. UTH began when a mother, educator, and scientist created the curriculum for her own children.

At Home Middle School

At Home Middle School is a complete, all-in-one 6th through 8th grade curriculum. The website pulls together resources from websites like TedEd, CK-12, Khan Academy, and Crash Course and organizes them into 180 daily lessons. They offer math, language arts, social studies, science, Spanish, coding, and chess courses. While not affiliated with each other, At Home Middle School is a great next step after the Under the Home elementary curriculum listed above.

Mystery Science

While Mystery Science is technically a paid program, they offer a limited number of year-long free trials each week. Every time I visit Mystery Science’s website, plenty of free memberships are available. However, if there aren’t any when you visit, try again next week, and there should be more. Mystery Science’s lessons teach elementary science using a discovery approach. Each lesson features engaging videos that frequently stop for an activity or discussion. All the experiments and activities use items that you should be able to find around your home or at a local store. Many of the lessons include printable handouts or templates for use in the activities. My kids had a lot of fun with Mystery Science activities when they were younger.

Code.org

Code.org offers numerous computer science courses for kindergarten through 12th grade. The length of the courses ranges from a single hour-long lesson to ones that last the entire school year. Code.org is best known for its interactive lessons that teach visual block-based programming. You’ll also find lessons covering app development, cyber security, web design, and many other topics. They even offer AP Computer Science for high school students. Explore their Curriculum Catalog for more information about all their offerings.

God’s Hand in Our Lives

God’s Hand in Our Lives offers fifty-nine downloadable Old Testament Lessons and fifty-eight downloadable New Testament Lessons. The lessons are each available at five levels so kids in preschool through 8th grade can learn the same topics at an age-appropriate level. The lessons include a teacher’s guide, opening and closing prayer, Bible story, worksheets, discussion questions, memory verses, and a hymn. A Lutheran organization created this curriculum for Sunday schools. However, the materials also work well for homeschooling, and most of the content should be suitable for members of other Protestant denominations.

Art for Kids Hub

Art for Kids Hub offers video tutorials for various art projects. While drawing projects are what they have the most of, they also have sculpting, origami, and cutout crafts. Many projects also include downloadable templates. Their video tutorials are fun for beginners of all ages but may be of more interest to elementary and middle school kids.

Typing.com

Typing.com teaches touch typing through interactive lessons, videos, and games. Students may begin at the beginner, intermediate, or advanced level. The platform tracks progress and provides additional lessons for frequently missed keys. This program works well with kids of all ages and adults who want to learn to type or improve their typing speed. Both of my kids have used this website to learn to type.

U Read Thru History

U Read Thru History provides semester-long lesson plans on each of the following topics: Early American History, Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, Civil War Era, Post Civil War Era, Ancient Mesopotamia/Egypt, Ancient Greece & Ancient Rome, Dark & Middle Ages, Renaissance & Reformation, and Enlightenment. Each year, students spend one semester studying World History and one semester studying American History using books you’ll need to borrow from the library or purchase. The lesson plans provide different book lists, questions, and activities for three grade ranges: kindergarten to 3rd, 4th to 6th, and 7th to 8th. U Read Thru History is a Christian curriculum and includes Bible reading. This curriculum is an excellent option for those who prefer to study history family style using living books.

Rise to Reading

Rise to Reading provides comprehension questions and answers by chapter for a large selection of books. Some books also include vocabulary words or writing prompts. Most of the books they cover are elementary or middle school level, but they do offer comprehension questions for a handful of high school level books. Their comprehension guides are a simple way to check your kid’s comprehension or discuss the books your kids are reading without purchasing more in-depth novel studies.

Family Consumer Sciences

Family and Consumer Sciences offers one of the largest collections of life skills I’ve found. They have lesson plans covering child development, sewing, cooking, nutrition, interior design, personal finance, and many other life skills. The lesson plans include instructions, activities or labs, and printables. While they were created for classroom use, most can be adapted for homeschool use. Most of the lesson plans were designed for high school or middle school students, but some could work with younger kids, too.

Bible Fluency

Bible Fluency is a multi-media Bible survey course that includes video instruction, teacher’s guides, workbooks, flashcards, teaching aids, and memory songs. The components are found under different tabs on the website, so be sure to look through all of them to see everything the site offers. The course is divided into Old and New Testament sections, each of which can be completed in 12 weeks. It was designed for group classes but also works well for homeschooling, even with a single student working independently. My family used and enjoyed the course a couple of years ago. I’d recommend this course for 7th grade and up.

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

Of course, no list of homeschool curriculum would be complete without mentioning Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool! Easy Peasy, a Christian curriculum, is the most thorough free all-in-one curriculum available. Its creator wrote the curriculum for her own children and then generously made it available to everyone.

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool is their kindergarten through 8th grade curriculum. It uses a mix of traditional and Charlotte Mason inspired methods, utilizing various online resources. Some courses also include downloadable workbooks. It includes math, language arts, science, history, Bible, art, music, health, physical education, Spanish, and more. Each course is divided into daily lessons for a 180-day school year.

Easy Peasy All-in-One High School has a very similar format. The high school level includes math, English, science, history, Bible, art, music, health, physical education, and more. Most of these subjects have several courses to choose from. For example, under math, you’ll find Consumer Math, Math Applications, Business Math, Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Trigonometry/Precalculus, and Calculus. Most of the year-long courses are divided into 180 daily lessons.

While my family has never used the complete Easy Peasy curriculum, we have used a handful of their courses individually and have always been happy with the quality.

More Free Curriculum

Didn’t find what you’re looking for? While I chose only twenty free curriculums to feature in this post, our website links to 100s more! To explore more free options, simply visit Freedom Homeschooling’s homepage and choose a subject from the menu. There are numerous free options for every core subject and many electives.

 

 

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Note: This post was originally published on July 10, 2024 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.