Learning Resources

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Homeschool Resources

Adapted from a list by Barbara Hettle, Homeschool Success. Commercial sites included on this list are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement by the Hampton Public Library.

Getting Started

Virginia Department of Education: Private Schools & Home Schooling

Curriculum Options

  • All-in-One Homeschool Curriculum — A complete, free online Christian homeschool curriculum.
  • Power School Acellus — Video-based secular curriculum for all grade levels. $10-$25 a month depending on course package.
  • Time4Learning — Complete secular online curriculum aligned with Common Core. $20-$30 a month, depending on grade level.

Real Books Style Curriculum

Based on literature rather than textbooks, these resources list the types of materials homeschoolers want to check out of the library. Consider these for year by year topic suggestions.

  • Build Your Library — Secular literature-based curriculum including downloadable PDF and real books, worksheets and narration.
  • Moving Beyond the Page — Secular resource using quality literature and nonfiction. Provides day by day lesson plans focusing on creativity and critical thinking.
  • Sonlight — Complete Christian literature-based curriculum.

Other Popular Curriculum Options

  • Abeka — Christian homeschooling curriculum also used by private schools.
  • Blossom & Root — Nature-focused, secular curriculum with printable PDFs.
  • Well-Trained Mind — Classical education. Explanation of founders’ religious philosophy here.

Online Homeschool Parent Support

Many local and state groups connect through Facebook. Here is a sample:

State level:

Local level (Hampton Roads):

The Well-Trained Mind and Secular Eclectic Academic also have online forums or Facebook pages:

Additional Resources

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Learn to Code

Scratch — Program your own interactive stories, games, and animations. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.

SNAP! (Formerly BYOB) — This is very similar to Scratch in many ways.  Developed at Berkeley in the USA it has a few tricks up its sleeve.  Snap allows you to be a bit more complicated and creative.  It allows for more use of variables, as well as creating your own blocks.  This is handy as often Scratch requires the same pairs of blocks all the time.

KODU — Kodu is Microsoft’s game design platform.  Originally created as a game creation app for the Xbox, it is also available on PC for free.  It produces simple games with stunning 3d graphics.  The big win here is that you can plug in an Xbox controller to play your games.  The interface is very intuitive and fun.

Code.org — Supported by the American Government, Facebook and numerous app developers.  It is all free to use and there is a wealth of tutorials in all kinds of languages.

Erase all Kittens — An incredibly fun way to learn HTML. Although HTML is not strictly a programming language, it requires children to code.  This is an irreverent mix of coding and cat gifs.

Code Kingdoms — This is a paid site, but an excellent resource for children to learn to code in JavaScript. Children explore the kingdom and have to use pieces of code to solve problems and overcome obstacles.

Barclays’ code playground — High street bank Barclays have a whole site devoted to helping parents and children work together to learn how to code. You can change the variables on the site (using JavaScript) to see how it changes the behaviors of the characters.

Blockly | Blockly Games — represents coding concepts as interlocking blocks. It outputs syntactically correct code in the programming language of your choice. Custom blocks may be created to connect to your own application.