Thursday, October 18, 2012

Shopping Online For School

Shopping Online For School



If you haven't hopped on the bandwagon yet, this might be a good time to join. The market for online teaching materials is catching on like wildfire. For years, teachers have been working hard to create lessons to fill in the gaps or spice up an otherwise boring curriculum. Major publishers have tried to keep up with the demand for creative and fun lessons but often their prices are simply too rich for the budget of a teacher or homeschooler. But what really sets these resources apart is that they are created by passionate educators!

Whether you create a resource or want to purchase something, you have several options right at your fingertips. You can find just about anything you are looking for, for a fraction of what you'd pay at the teacher store. Maybe you've downloaded a few freebies from blogs or pinned a few pictures of units. If you haven't taken the time to browse through these sites, you may just need to grab a cup of coffee and do some shopping!

Here are some sites that are popular with homeschoolers:

Teachers Notebook
Over 1,000 stores selling everything you need from Pre-K to 12th grade
Over 4,200 FREE items
Teachers Notebook charges a one time fee of $19.95 to open a store. Sellers earn 100% of their earnings which can mean lower prices are passed on to you.

CurrClick
20,000 shoppers
Thousands of freebies
CurrClick was started by two homeschool moms. Thus, it is mostly geared towards homeschoolers. It is a great site for live classes and clubs too. Sellers, called Publishers, pay nothing to join and can earn up to 70% of their earnings.

The Old Schoolhouse Store
This site is set up by the makers of the homeschool magazine, The Old Schoolhouse. There are hundreds of great resources for homeschoolers.

A to Z Teacher Stuff
This is a teacher created site that also has hundreds of resources as well as a worksheet maker.

Kidscademy
Kidscademy was started by an Australian mom looking for meaningful education content for her children. The site has not launched yet so if you are looking to get in on the ground floor, check it out.

Khan AcademyOver 3,400 videos.
This site is an extensive video library helping students learn math, history, science and test prep.
This site cost nothing to use.

TeacherLingo
This site isn't as well known even though it's been around since 2006. There are some great resources here that costs less than on the major sites.

There are hundreds of other sites that provide downloadable teaching materials. I could be here all day listing them. I just wanted to get you started with these. I am always amazed when I meet a teacher or homeschool mom that hasn't heard about these resources. Isn't that the way it is? Sometimes things become so commonplace to us that we thing everyone knows about them too!

I hope you find some wonderful resources to add to your classroom.  I have found that these resources help to me to think outside the curriculum box. Happy shopping!





2 comments:

  1. Great post Heather! I learned about some new shops. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting and important information. It is really beneficial for us. Thanks

    ReplyDelete