Where can teachers, parents, student teachers, and homeschools find great, free educational materials? This is a list of some wonderful, free resources I have found online. So many sites say “free” and are really priced, unfortunately.
1. READ WRITE THINK K-12 Read, Write, Think is hosted by the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and is a Verizon Thinkfinity site. This site has hundreds of free complete lessons with printables, online resources, and lesson plans. This site seems to be overlooked sometimes but it is wonderful. I have some free lessons on this site, too. There is a search tool so you can search for single grade levels, themes, specific books, specific authors, their own well-developed and researched online student interactives, or by printables. They have a wonderful calendar with activities and lessons based on events like author’s birthdays. For instance, today August 15, in 1870, the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad was completed. One of my favorite authors is Cynthia Rylant, and this page is about her birthday and book lessons on the ReadWriteThink site. Part of the site is dedicated to Parent and Afterschool resources, too. The best part is, it is all free!
Illuminations by the National Council of Teachers of Math is another wonderful educational resource. This site is divided by activities, lessons, standards, and web resources. Much of this site is free, but there is a membership portion as well. They have a DailyKenKen which is a logic puzzle that involves arithmetic. It is similar to SuDoku and exercises the brain. You can pick easy or hard, only addition, or all four operations. The solutions are posted the next day. One page is called “Dynamic Paper” and it is free to print out math papers for problem solving. Need a pentagonal pyramid that’s six inches tall? Or a number line that goes from ‑18 to 32 by 5′s? Use the Dynamic Paper page. They have Mobile Apps for PreK-2! They have summer learning component, also, in conjunction with Thinkfinity. Some of the activities are priced but dozens and dozens are free. Be sure to check out the free family guide to mathematics education, and the FIGURE THIS! Math Challenges for Families page.
EconEdLink is the leading source of online economic and personal finance lessons and resources for educators, students, and afterschool providers. You can check out the free educator resources, afterschool resources, and students resources.
Mrs. Waltke’s Literacy Page is based on the Pearson Reading Street program by Scott Foresman, but it can be used in many ways. It has dozens and dozens of free Power Points and printables. No special permission is needed to access these all free materials!
The Busy Teacher is really free but there is much advertising.
Free Printable Teacher Files is free but you may have to look around for what you want as it may not be of even quality.
Scholastic’s Teacher Share is really free and there are search tools to find what you need. Sometimes teachers put a sample page of a priced lesson on this site, so you have to read and be sure of what is being offered. It isn’t even necessary to join to print. Individual teachers put materials on this site, like me!
Teachers.net is another free site and has 4584 lessons! There is much advertising on the site so you have to maneuver around to find resources. I have some plays on this site.
The READING LADY has numerous free resources such as reader’s theater plays and reading comprehension strategies lessons, 6 traits of writing, poetry, author studies, and more resources.
