Some of my favorite internet freebies
The internet is a veritable treasure trove of great fee-free sites, but the fact that there are so many does make it a little difficult to dig through the clutter to find the really useful stuff.
So, I thought I'd share a few of the sites that my family and I use on a regular basis.
Printable Calendars
Calendarsthatwork.com offers a wide variety of free printable monthly, weekly, or yearly calendars. I love these things! I use them for homeschooling records, life planning, and blog planning (for blog planning, I choose the 5-day week format, since I mostly blog during the week, and my Saturday posts don't really need planning.)
This site does have an upgraded option that requires payment, but I stick with the free version and it suits me just fine.
Printable Menu Planner
The Homeschool Mom has a printable menu plan that I use each week. It's pretty bare-bones, which is just how I like it. Of course, it goes without saying that you don't have to be a homeschooler to use it. 😉
(if you're not a menu planner, I'd strongly encourage you to try becoming one, especially if you're having trouble sticking to a grocery budget and resisting the call of takeout.)
Free Typing Games
Free Typing Games has some, um, free typing games (duh!) that my kids have all enjoyed playing. I like that there are some that are easy enough for very, very beginning typists (Zoe). I started Sonia and Zoe on this site just a few weeks ago, and they're already doing really well. They enjoy these games so much, I often find them sitting down to play them just for fun.
Seeing Sonia and Zoe plays these games has inspired Joshua and Lisey to play some of their old favorites too, even though they're both already good typists.
Printable Educational Worksheets/Online Games
On Soft Schools' site, there's a wealth of free educational tools, from printable worksheets to online games. I haven't used the worksheets feature, but Sonia and Zoe really love playing the math games and the phonics games.
(excuse Zoe's intensity)
Geography Games
When we studied the 50 states last year, we loved the games at Sheppard Software. Some of them were simple enough for Sonia and Zoe, and some took practice for me to master (I'm so bad at remembering the capitals of some states!)
I thought these games were seriously fun (I liked the challenge), so don't think you have to have kids or be a homeschooler to visit this site.
Free Rice Vocabulary Game (for a good cause)
Free Rice is a great vocabulary-building tool, and to make things even better, the site uses its revenue to donate rice to the hungry through the World Food Programme. This site used to simply offer vocabulary quizzes, but now there are a number of subjects available.
I looooove vocabulary, so the original game really blows my hair back.
America's Test Kitchen Recipes
You all know that I adore Cook's Illustrated, but the fact of the matter is that access to this venerable website does require some cashola (totally worth it, in my humble opinion!*)
*that was one of my very first posts on this here blog, actually.
If you're short on cash, but still want some goodness from the CI people, check out America's Test Kitchen Feed, a free site populated with recipes, tips, videos and all sorts of kitchen-y goodness. Plus, if you follow American's Test Kitchen on Twitter, you'll get links to free recipes all the time.
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Now, if I know you guys, you probably use some fabulous and free sites that I've never heard of. So, share in the comments and enlighten us all!
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Today's 365 post: Joshua took this one. Upside down.
Joshua's 365 post: A Dragon Question
We use the free websites all the time...2 being starfall.com and pbs.org/kids.
Plus there are so many different games. One site (sorry can't remember the name...google 'mazes') has tons on mazes that you can print out. My son is very much into mazes, and reading etc. Those are the best ones I know.
Yes! Starfall.com for reading and pbskids.org (lots of subjects) - These are 2 of my favorites!
Just went to another...my son wanted Thanksgiving coloring pages, etc...found crayola.com for that, but it also has lots of word games, numbers, crafts, etc. Looks like a good site.
I've used that site before to color birthday cards for my family.
This is obviously super super super specific, but maybe it will help somebody out there other than me.
I'm learning Arabic in preparation for a work-related move to the Middle East. Al-Jazeera has a fantastic free feed in Arabic. I mention it specifically because it seems to work very well even on slow wi-fi connections, and frankly, I wish English language stations fed this well to the computer!
The only downside I've found so far is that it seems like you can't have it going in the background while you surf the Internet ( for example, to google some of the words you're hearing). You have to start it up again after you're done using what I affectionately call the "google dictionary".
Also great for language learners is Wikipedia simple English. Articles are written in basic English designed for learners (rather than with more advanced sentence structures). I wish they had it in other languages as well!
Last year, while trying to cyber school 2 kids and always missing the start of some live session or another, I searched around and found nakedalarmclock.com. The name might be a bit off-putting, but it's just an alarm clock - no ads, nothing else to distract, offend, or (my son's least favorite) creep you out. It comes in rather handy - just remember to *ahem* turn your speakers up before you walk away. One guess how I learned that one. "Mama!!! You're laaaate!!!" 😉
Thanks for this list! I will be checking them all out tonight.
wow thanx for mentioning these sites, i didnt know about most of them! 🙂
Thanks so much for posting this list! We just pulled our daughter out of public school this week to begin homeschooling so your timing couldn't have been more perfect!
I use Ravelry almost exclusively for its free fiber arts content. In fact, I don't think I've paid for a pattern on that site yet. And I think they're up to over 10,000 free patterns (I could be wrong).
Me, too. And I like that you can search for what others have made with the type of yarn you happen to have.
http://www.pronunciator.com/
Is a free language learning website that has gotten good reviews from some educational blogs I follow.
O my goodness; thank you so much for this!!!
Thanks for these. I used to be a teacher, so I've forwarded some of these to my teaching friends. Good practice quizzes for the kids. Thanks!
Here's a cool site where you can plug in up to 3 leftover items you have and it pops up with recipes to make with those ingredients!
http://www.bigoven.com/recipes/leftovers
We homeschool as well and we love http://www.starfall.com (the free portions). Our youngest son (3) is Autistic and just started trying to talk this past spring, but he has a lot of difficulty with speaking. When he saw his older brother (5) working on his reading on this site he sat down next to him and just started repeating what the site was saying...it's helped so much with his articulation. His speech therapist and early education specialist were floored by the quick increase in his abilities 🙂
We also love the site http://www.tipnut.com -- it has wonderful craft ideas as well as tons of other ideas for homemaking as well!
Ditto for Starfall and Autistic kids. My oldest, now almost 7 has been using this for 2 yrs and his reading, comprehension and spelling is at grade level with his peers. His younger brother, almost 6, also likes to watch him and follows allong with the songs.
I'll have to start looking at some of these.
Went right to the math/phonics page -- will be using this! Also, your kids are probably past this but Starfall is awesome for phonics and emergent readers -- lots of music, interactive stuff, and fun. Zoe might like it?? Also, I love free rice -- had forgotten about it! Thanks for this info.
I'd highly recommend you check out your library's website. My library in Sacramento offers (among many other things) limited downloadable music, databases for auto repair and genealogy, and language programs, all for the cost of your (free) library card! I love my library!
Thanks for posting, especially the menu planning resource and Free Rice! Here are a few sites I've been using recently.
-Supercook.com: Type in the ingredients you have in your fridge or pantry, and it will come up with recipe suggestions for you to make. You can ask it to exclude certain items if you have dietary restrictions.
-http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/
I use this to make free crossword puzzles for my students. As they read, they fill out "vocab bookmarks" with an unfamiliar word, their guess of what it might mean, and a dictionary definition. I collect them and we do different exercises (including a crossword!) This site may look complicated at first glance but it's very easy to use.
-http://www.ravelry.com
Someone mentioned Ravelry already, but it deserves another mention! It is such a fantastic site for free ideas, patterns and community.
Just spent an hour looking at web sites! Thanks, Kristin (said with fake sarcasm). Great idea. Hope to see more suggestions from your readers.
Great list! I need menu plan. I tried to do my own. FAIL! I can't get organized!
I was hoping you were going to telll us where you scored those custe little pumpkin candles for free 😉 But you had to go and put a disclaimer, lol!
I use the Money Saving Mom for my free menu plan download. It's remarkably similar to yours (seven days and a sidebar for groceries) except it has lines for each meal too.
And GO RAVELRY! It's a great resource for knitters that's completely free to join and can be completely free to use if you want. I think I've purchased one pattern through them and plan to again soon, but there are so many great free ones and it also has ways to organize your stash of yarn, what needles you have, what projects you're working on, and what projects you want to start next.
We also use www. abcya.com all the time. It has fun math and reading games for grades K-4(I think.) There are also games that are just for fun.
Lovely choices. You might also want to try bitstrips.com, great for kids to create comics.
Great post! I love websudoku.com for free Sudoku games (you can print up a bunch in preparation for a long flight, etc.), allrecipes.com for a searchable database of user-generated recipes that are mostly free, and livingonadime.com for great frugal recipes and tips about cleaning, crafting, etc., plus words of inspiration. Plus, I love frugal-living blogs such as yours!
Oh how I love good free websites! Here are a few of my faves:
Khan Academy - http://www.khanacademy.org/ - is one of our FAVORITE free sites. It gives step by step lessons for every level and every kind of lesson you can think of in math and science. They have also started to cover history, finance, humanities and a few other things. This site is AMAZING! My husband also uses it in his classroom and recommends it to his students to use for homework help. If your a parent that has a hard time helping your child with their math work, you can go to this site, pick the lesson and they are taught the lesson the same as if they were sitting in a classroom. LOVE it!
Another great one is Picnik - http://www.picnik.com - for photo editing. I actually use the premium paid version, but the free version is almost as good. It's a really great, easy to use photo editing program. I have a friend, who is a professional photographer, and she also uses it a lot. You get the same quality as photoshop, with a much simpler program.
I have a Kindle, so I love this site because it lists out all the free books that have been released that day for download. Amazon gives TONS of free books for Kindle download, so even if you don't have a Kindle, you could still download the Kindle reading software onto your computer and read for free. I have over 500 books on my Kindle, and I've probably paid for about twenty of them. I get emails everyday with lists of all the freebies for that day, and it's everything from romance to finance to self improvement to christian fiction to how to, etc, etc. I've been able to download free books on every subject you can imagine. Of course, I pass up some of them, but there are tons of really good books, that I might now have ever noticed otherwise. Lots of stuff for kids and teens gets released also! The website that sends out the daily emails is eReaderIQ - http://www.ereaderiq.com/.
An awesome craft site is Childmade -http://childmade.com/. Be careful with this one, because you could end up lost there for hours! If you want to find a craft of any kind, size, color, holiday, style, etc, this is the place to look! It's dangerous for me, because I start looking and my brain just goes crazy with all the stuff I want to make!
Well I've pretty much written a blog post now! Maybe I should go post this on my blog, that's been neglected for weeks now! 😉
I'm sure most people know about Pinterest.com and the "time-suck" it can be. 10 minutes can EASILY become 20... or 30 if you have no control like me. But, I just wanted to mention the ways I've used it in productive ways rather than mindlessly surfing. I've searched it and found great ideas for little boys birthday party games, homemade halloween costumes, homemade headbands, diy gifts, pumpkin recipes, homeschool projects GALORE and so much more. I'm a very visual person so seeing results as pictures really helps me find what I'm looking for, in most cases, very quickly. At first, it can seem like a really fun but slightly unproductive site, but used with some intention it's been a great resource for me!
My kids really like
http://www.quizlet.com
You do have to register and log in, but it's free. We use it for anything that you'd use a flash card for. Vocabulary words, state capitals, etc. You can use the virtual flash cards, or play "scatter" or "space race" games. It also helps with keyboarding. My 2nd grader uses it for vocabulary, my 6th grader uses it for social studies.
wow thanks for all the sites - my friend has a 3 yr old - almost 4- and they use different sites (he likes the leapfrog site and I *think* it's free but not 100% sure.
I've been looking for a lot of sites and some I've found and am still in the process of checking out:
youtube - Danie Spies - someone linked to one of her videos here for kale chips and I noticed she has LOTS of demos/recipes including just about every vegetable - how to prepare as well as some recipes. she also has a website http://cleananddelicious.com/ with nutritious recipes(haven't gone through all of these but bookmarked the site)
another healthy/lower cal recipe site that an online friend has used a lot but I've yet to try any recipes (yet!) is http://www.skinnytaste.com/ there's alos her blog here http://www.skinny-bits.com/ I went there to enter to win a free cookbook so I bookmarked to check into more later
http://yankeebellecafe.blogspot.com/ I got the link to this recipe blog from another blog the 2 ladies are on - seekerville(a christian author's blog). this rcipe blog varies from super healthy/low carb to OMGosh! lately it's been the 'OMG"!
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ this slowcooker blog has always intrigued me whch is unusual since I've tried maybe one of the recipes and that was from her first cookbook(which I got from the library)! I love seeing the pics and reading the comments she makes. It's also gluten-free though she says to doublecheck the packaged ingredients since the manufacturers do change their ingredients from time to time and new items become gluten free. I just enjoy reading over the recipes (I think me, my mom, and her mother are the only people I know who buy buy buy cookbooks mainly to read read read them instead of use use use them! 🙂 but hey it's fun!)
allrecipes.com - I found this site a long time ago and like searching through the recipes as well as typing in ingredients I want and don't want and it finding recipes for me. I'm sure there are a ton of other sites like this and some may be better but for some reason I found this one and it's the one I usually go to first and I read through the reviews for suggestions - some change a lot of the recipe but the good ones say why they did this.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ this site has free downloads of public domain books. I have an ereader and now that ereader (Sony) has these available free on their site but before that I was able to download these and transfer to my ereader. They can also be read on the computer.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project this is the same organization (I think!) that I actually found first since I got an mp3 player a year or so before an ereader. Again these are only books in the public domain(and so bummed little house on the prairie and agatha christie aren't public domain!) but there are a lot to choose from. I think volunteers did the work for these 2 sites though not 100% sure.
oops that's Dani Spies - would help if I spelled it right!
Great that you recommend creating mealplans. I decided to start doing this. I already was doing an excel spreadsheet for groceries so I wanted to do this. Found a great website for uploading from Unclutter here:
http://unclutterer.com/2008/02/20/creating-a-weekly-meal-plan/
I know it's kinda OCD, but I really like doing this stuff on the computer. It reminds me to keep stuff I need every week on the list. Thanks for the tip and I can already tell it will save money 🙂
The Hubs turned me on to fitday.com. It's a food diary where you can add all the food you eat, and it will add in the calories, fat, carbs, protein, etc. It's great if you want to shed some weight or gain some weight or just gain insight into how you eat. I LOVE IT! The Type A person in me adores being able to customize all my foods and look at all the stats and graphs.
Thank you so much for the list of free sites! I can't wait to have DS check them out...especially states and capitols!
Love that pic of Zoe. It cracks me up. 🙂
I operate best with a paper calendar as well. I tried to go digital once...it didn't take long for that experiment to fall to pieces. haha. And as far as menu planning goes, well, let's just say we end up eating way too much pizza if I don't have a written plan. 😉
Yes! Maybe if I had a smartphone I could do it, but having my planners on my office computer just doesn't work out well for me. I need them to be more accessible.