Ten great educational websites to add to your bookmarks

There is a ton of information out there on the Internet, but unfortunately much of it is buried under a lot of not so great resources. To help you wade through the mass of information, here are some of my favorite sites to help build and enhance homeschooling curriculum. It is possible to give your children a low cost education at home with the help of some wonderful, high quality free online resources. It doesn't matter if you are in New York, California, or the middle of the United States in Omaha, NE, your family is sure to find quality, educational value from these online resources.

1. Kahn Academy. The tag line for this website is "Learn almost anything for free" and that is the truth. Kahn Academy has videos teaching concepts in Science and Math, as well as Humanities, test prep and computer sciences. While you won't find as much under the subjects of English and Art, it is still a great resource for when you start teaching your kids about some of the more difficult subjects in math and science.
2. TED Ed. TED has a mission to spread ideas worth sharing, and TED Ed, and extension of TED, has the mission of spreading lessons worth learning. The videos on TED Ed are short animations that can enhance a lesson that you might already be doing, or inspire a new lesson or elicit questions you may not have thought about asking.
3. Steve Spangler Science. This site, as the name implies, is all about science and science experiments. To view the experiments you do need to sign up for a newsletter and register for the site, but it is totally worth it because you get a new experiment emailed to you every now and then and your information isn't sold to third parties. There is a variety of experiments on the site, and if you are missing a supplie you can order it directly from their site.
4. Nature Detectives. This site has a collection of great nature information and ideas. The free packs is a great place to go for inspiration, projects and ideas to do in nature. It is divided by season, plant, animals and other categories to help give you some great activities to do outside with the kids. This is a great way to give the kids some hands on experience with some of your nature and science based lessons.
5. Mr. Donn's Social Studies Site. Do you need to know something about ancient civilizations World religions? What about some lesson plans or power point presentations to help you out with some of your social studies lessons? You'll find all of this and more at Mr. Donn's site. Check it out!
6. Grammar Girl. If you have trouble teaching grammar, or just aren't quite sure what the rule is for some of those sticky situations in writing, Grammar Girl can help out. This site has easy to follow advice on proper grammer, and makes it a great resource for someone teaching grammar, as well as a great go to for older kids writing reports. It's a good idea to teach them where to go for grammar advice because not all of it is easy to remember, and they won't be able to go to you always to check their work once out of school.
7. ArtyFactory. Homeschool art lessons can go beyond basic drawing and craft projects. ArtyFactory provides lessons in design, technique and art history to provide more depth in teaching older kids about art.
8. The Smithsonian. Even if you can't visit the Smithsonian up close and personal, you can still benefit from the amazing quality of information provided on their website. You can go to the explore tab and choose an area of study to investigate, or even look at what's going on in their blog to spark ideas and interest. If you are looking for something fun and interesting to teach the kids, this might just be the place to garner some inspiration.
9. Annenberg Media. This site has lectures and information on a wide range of subjects including the arts and sciences. You can sort the information based on grade going from kindergarten teacher resources up through adult level education.
10. MIT OpenCourseWare. Opencourseware is a project put on by MIT to publish as much of their course content as possible to the public. This is a fantastic resource to help give kids, and adults alike, a better understanding in many areas of technology.