BlogHer recently offered me an opportunity to review Education.com‘s Premium Workbooks, a site that provides worksheets and a whole lot of other educational resources. (Most of their resources are free but their Premium Workbooks are a new product available for purchase).
Given that all four of my children are educated at home, I was really pleased to try this out. Not only that, but we’re getting to the end of the school year, and a few of my children have almost finished a few of their workbooks.
Since it’s only March, I’ve been thinking about looking for some printable worksheets to provide some review on topics that need a little more work. So, the timing of this was pretty darn perfect!
Education.com offers thousands of free printable worksheets which cover all the basic subjects, like English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and so on. Sonia hasn’t finished up any of her books yet, but she wanted to try out these fun new worksheets, so I selected one about photosynthesis for her.
This worked out perfectly because we’ve been growing celery and we planted some basil seeds too, so we’ve been talking about light and how plants use light to make food.
Now, Zoe? She is the workbook queen. Out of all four of my children, she’s definitely the most interested in filling out workbook pages, so I knew she would be a big fan of Education.com.
It was pretty much tailor-made for Zoe. 😉
I got her started on a body-part labeling sheet, which was just perfect…not too much writing for this six-year old.
She’s having fun with the Life Science sheets as well.
Searching through the thousands of free worksheets available on Education.com can be a bit tedious…not gonna lie. Fortunately, Education.com has pulled together the new Premium Workbooks for each grade level. These are comprised of the sheets that you can find in the free section, but they’re put together in one handy printable PDF file.
The upside to this is that you don’t have to search through the worksheets, find the ones you want, and print them each individually, so you can save a lot of time. I printed out a math book for Zoe, punched the papers, and put them in a three-ring binder.
When I showed it to her, she looked at it, gasped audibly and said, “Are these all for me, Mommy?”
Yeah.
She loves worksheets that much.
I also was pleased to find a grammar book for Lisey…she finished her grammar book this week and now she’s got enough to keep her busy reviewing through the end of the year.
Even though the books are in a single PDF file, you can easily leave out pages you don’t want by specifying a page range when you print the book.
The workbooks are available when you become a premium member, and the price for that is very fair in my opinion.
If you subscribe for a year, the price is $48, or $4/month. If you subscribe for two years, though, the price is $60, which brings the price down to an uber-reasonable $2.50/month.
Of course, you will need to spend a bit of money on paper and ink to print the worksheets, but you don’t have to use expensive paper, and you can do like me and print the worksheets in black and white draft mode.
My girls like to color and decorate their schoolbook pages anyway, so they don’t mind starting with a plain canvas.
(you have to love the random method kindergarteners use for choosing uppercase and lowercase letters!)
It’s worth mentioning too that Education.com isn’t just for homeschoolers. If you know your child needs a little extra help in a particular subject or you want some worksheets to keep your children busy in the summertime, you should be able to easily locate some resources.
robbiekay
Thursday 12th of April 2012
I would have loved this, too, if there had been such a thing as the internet when I was little. :) For me the best part about going to the "big city" when I was a kid was that there was an educational store where I could get all sorts of workbooks that we couldn't find anywhere else.
Lisa
Friday 6th of April 2012
I don't homeschool, but my daughter loves workbooks as much as Zoe, and I'm always looking for workbooks and worksheets for her. She just turned 7, and loves science, but I've had trouble finding science workbooks for her, because not too many are published below 4th grade level or so, and while she can get most of the *words* in those books, the sentence structure and sheer quantity of text is a bit much for her. The education.com website looks like a dream come true for keeping her occupied!
Another way to make your own workbooks, by the way, is to get a heavy-duty stapler and a box of file folders. The file folders make wonderful covers, just put as many pages in between as your stapler can handle and staple away! Pages are less likely to tear out than with a binder, and it's more portable, although you can't fit nearly as many pages in, so it'a a bit of a trade-off. For my daughter who likes to drag her workbooks everywhere and do them in the car, in waiting rooms, at restaurants, etc., it works really well.
Author Melinda Tripp
Friday 6th of April 2012
Great post! I'm a retired teacher that loves homeschooling. If you interested in children's safety, you may be interested in what I do. Happy Easter!
Rebecca B. A. R.
Wednesday 28th of March 2012
Oh, how Zoe would love Mad Lib's and their silly outcomes!
Nicole
Wednesday 28th of March 2012
Do your kids mainly do workbooks as schoolwork or do you provide hands-on learning opportunities to make meaningful connections?
Kristen
Wednesday 28th of March 2012
We do a combination...for example, we're growing plants from seed and talking about the way plants make food from sunlight, but then we're also doing a worksheet about it. Lisey's learning about fractions in math, but she's also baking with me each week and getting a chance to apply that fraction knowledge.
So, we do some of each.