Let’s be honest: homeschooling comes with significant costs. You pay once for educational materials, again through lost income while teaching, and yet again through property taxes that fund schools your children don’t attend. For many families, these financial realities feel like insurmountable barriers to providing quality home education.

But here’s what we discovered after reviewing learning plans from more than 100,000 families who have gone through the OpenEd program in the past decade: the most successful homeschoolers often spend almost nothing on curriculum. While public schools spend an average of roughly $16,000 per student annually, resourceful parents are building exceptional learning environments using free resources.

Once parents master the art of combining high-quality free resources, the correlation between educational spending and learning outcomes disappears. This guide will show you how to do exactly that.

The Evolution of Homeschool Resources

The landscape of educational resources has transformed dramatically over the past decade. Remember when finding curriculum meant thumbing through thick catalogs or traveling to crowded conventions? Pilgrimages that often ended with parents investing hundreds to thousands of dollars in an all-in-one boxed curricula, hoping they’d made the right choice.

Then came 2020. As millions of families got their first taste of learning at home, something unexpected happened: an explosion of educational innovation. Entrepreneurs, teachers, and parents started creating and sharing resources at an unprecedented scale. The traditional barriers – printing costs, distribution challenges, marketing budgets – melted away in the digital era.

Two powerful movements accelerated this transformation. First, the open source revolution brought us platforms like Khan Academy, making world-class instruction freely available. Now, we’re seeing the next evolution – the broader Open Education movement, where parents are breaking down walls between traditional and alternative approaches to learning.

Finding What Works for Your Family

Here’s what nobody tells you about curriculum: the best resources aren’t necessarily the most expensive or the most polished. They’re the ones that make your child’s eyes light up with curiosity. The ones that turn “I have to learn this” into “I get to learn this.”

Most parents start their homeschool journey feeling like they need to replicate traditional school at home. Buy the textbooks, follow the scope and sequence, check all the boxes. But after working with thousands of families, we’ve seen that the most successful approaches are often more creative.

Take math, for instance. One family we work with combines Khan Academy’s video lessons with hands-on projects from OpenStax. Their third grader learns fractions by cooking (free recipes online) and geometry by building (free project plans from maker sites). Total cost? Zero dollars. Results? A child who loves math.

Core Subjects: Where to Start

Let’s break down some of the highest-impact free resources by subject. We’ll focus on materials that have proven track records with our families:

Free Math Curricula

Khan Academy stands as the gold standard for online mathematics instruction, offering comprehensive coverage from early math through calculus. Their systematic approach and adaptive practice has served over 60 million students worldwide.

CK-12’s interactive “FlexBooks” provide another robust option, combining digital textbooks with simulations and practice problems. What sets them apart is their ability to customize content to match your child’s learning pace.

For elementary students, FreeMath Program offers a carefully structured curriculum that distills essential skills from top textbooks into clear, printable lessons. Parents particularly value their straightforward approach to building foundational math skills.

Free Language Arts Curricula

Project Gutenberg opens the door to over 60,000 free eBooks, making it simple to build a literature-based curriculum. This includes classic works typically found in traditional school curricula.

K12 Reader provides an extensive collection of reading comprehension worksheets, grammar exercises, and writing prompts – all organized by grade level. Their systematic approach to language skills development makes it easy to track progress.

Starfall has revolutionized early reading instruction with their interactive phonics activities and simple stories. While primarily known for early literacy, their resources extend through third grade.

The Scott Foresman Grammar and Writing Handbooks, now available as free PDFs, offer a complete grammar curriculum for grades 1-6. These are the same materials once sold to schools nationwide.

Free Science Curricula

Discovery K12 provides a full science curriculum with daily lessons, videos, and assignments aligned with standard grade-level expectations. Their platform particularly excels at making complex concepts accessible through multimedia resources.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab gives students access to millions of digital resources from across the institution’s collections. Their science materials include everything from dinosaur fossils to space exploration.

CK-12’s science offerings rival traditional textbooks, with comprehensive coverage of biology, chemistry, and physics. Their platform includes virtual labs and simulations that bring scientific concepts to life.

Free History & Social Studies Resources

The Big History Project, backed by leading historians, offers a unique approach that connects historical events to scientific developments. Their curriculum spans from the Big Bang to modern times, making it especially engaging for middle and high school students.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab shines in history education, providing primary sources and curated collections that bring historical periods to life. Teachers and parents can access complete lesson plans or build their own using museum artifacts, documents, and expert commentary.

PBS Learning Media provides thousands of free history documentaries, video clips, and lesson plans. Their material covers everything from ancient civilizations to contemporary issues, with content thoughtfully organized by grade level.

Free All-in-One Homeschool Platforms

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool stands out by offering a complete, day-by-day curriculum for all grades and subjects. While Christian-oriented, their systematic approach has helped thousands of families get started with homeschooling at zero cost.

Discovery K12 provides a comprehensive online curriculum covering all core subjects. Their platform includes built-in scheduling tools and progress tracking, making it particularly valuable for parents new to homeschooling.

Freedom Homeschooling serves as a central directory for free curriculum options. Rather than creating their own content, they’ve carefully curated links to quality free resources across all subjects and grades.

Building Your Complete Curriculum

The key to success with free resources isn’t just finding them – it’s knowing how to combine them effectively. Many of our most successful families follow a simple formula:

1. Choose one primary resource per subject
2. Add supplementary materials for extra practice or different learning styles
3. Incorporate hands-on projects and real-world applications
4. Use community resources to enrich learning

Notice that we haven’t mentioned expensive printer ink, cluttered computer labs, or endless screen time. Free curriculum doesn’t mean digital-only learning. The most successful families we work with blend online and offline approaches creatively, and often with remarkable simplicity.

Take the Martinez family, who turned their dining room into a learning space. Each morning starts with Khan Academy math on a shared laptop. The children work in 30-minute rotations – while one child does math practice, another reads from library books, and a third works on science.

When we dig into the daily rhythms of successful homeschoolers, we see patterns emerge. Morning hours typically focus on core subjects where children are freshest. Many families reserve afternoons for hands-on projects and exploration. This might mean conducting a science experiment from Discovery K12’s curriculum using basic kitchen supplies, or taking a virtual Smithsonian tour that connects to their history reading.

Structure, it turns out, matters far more than the price tag of your curriculum. The most successful families create clear boundaries between online and offline learning. They might dedicate Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to digital resources, while Tuesdays and Thursdays focus on projects, reading physical books, and hands-on math games. This approach not only manages screen time naturally but also creates a varied learning environment that keeps children engaged.

Finding Additional Support

Many families start their homeschool journey assuming they need to invest thousands in curriculum. But as we’ve seen, quality education can be built around free resources. That said, there are times when you might want to invest in supplementary materials or experiences – think museum passes, subscription kits, physical books (used or new), or specialized learning tools. The good news? You don’t have to fund it all yourself.

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)

The landscape of educational funding has shifted dramatically in recent years. Education Savings Accounts are now available in numerous states. These programs typically provide families with several thousand dollars annually for educational expenses. Traditionally, these were earmarked for private school tuition, but the newer programs are also open to parents who homeschool or utilize part-time co-ops and microschools in additional to supplemental resources.

Common ESA-eligible expenses include:

• Basic educational supplies and materials

• Technology needs (computers, educational software)
• Enrichment activities and field trips
• Specialized curriculum or learning tools
• Educational services and tutoring
• Standardized testing fees

Take Arizona’s ESA program, for example. Families receive about 90% of what the state would have spent on their child in public school. This means while you’re using Khan Academy for math and Easy Peasy for language arts, you could allocate ESA funds toward hands-on learning materials or educational experiences.

Additional Funding Sources

Beyond ESAs, several support systems exist for homeschooling families:

Grant Programs:

• HSLDA Curriculum Grants
• State-specific homeschool grants
• Special needs learning grants
• Subject-specific educational grants
• Military family support programs

Community Resources:

• Library services (free printing, educational platforms access)
• Museum homeschool programs
• Community center educational spaces
• Local homeschool co-op sharing programs
• University outreach programs

Some families also find support through local homeschool co-ops, where resources and costs are shared among multiple families. A parent skilled in science might lead experiments for the group, while another shares their expertise in music or art. These collaborative approaches extend the power of free resources by adding the invaluable element of community learning.

Taking the First Step

The journey to quality home education doesn’t begin with an expensive curriculum package—it starts with a curious mind and thoughtful planning. Our decade of research shows that successful homeschoolers aren’t defined by their budget, but by how intentionally they combine resources to match their children’s needs. The digital revolution has democratized education, giving families unprecedented access to materials that rival traditional options, all without cost. Whether you’re just starting or looking to reduce expenses, remember that thousands of families already provide exceptional education without financial strain. The most valuable investment isn’t money—it’s your time and attention in creating the right learning environment. Take that first step today by exploring just one resource we’ve shared, and watch your homeschool journey transform from a financial burden into an accessible adventure.