I’m not a huge fan of putting kids on screens, but I am a huge fan of using them as learning tools occasionally if they need help with something or as a reward for doing school with a good attitude.
If you’ve watched our videos before, welcome back! We appreciate you! If you’re new here welcome! I’m Tonya Johnson and I’m the founder of helping hearts ministries where we work with homeschool parents to put the fun back into homeschooling while focusing on keeping a biblical worldview.
Here are 12 digital resources that we use as a low screen family, and we think they're definitely worth it! These are not curriculum options. We do all of our schooling traditionally with textbooks and old school workbooks as well as a ton of hands on projects. We don’t outsource learning onto a screen, although in highschool that may happen for certain classes, but at this age it isn’t necessary. These would be considered supplemental apps. They’re all educational, but they’re also fun.
Mavis beacon typing
I know, I just said I don’t outsource the learning to a screen, but I absolutely do for typing. I learned how to type through this exact program back when it was on a floppy disc, so when I found it in a digital format I jumped to grab it. We’ll be starting this in January, so you can follow me @theholidayhomeschooler to see how we’re doing with it in real time. I have seen a ton of good reviews of kids and families loving it, so we have high hopes for it.
Tables fables
My daughter struggled with multiplication facts, so when company reached out to me and asked if I’d like to review their program, I obviously said yes. We fell in love with it! When we started it was just multiplication, and what they do is they take the numbers and turn them into animals and then create a story with each multiplication problem. It sounds weird, but it works! Now, they have addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions, so they literally cover everything. I have a review video on them here if you'd like to check it out. Click here for a FREE TRIAL. Use code "holiday".
EPIC
This is one that’s great for young readers or if you’re working on reading comprehension. There is an audio option, but they also have a "read to me" option where the child can see the words as they’re being read. A lot of the books also have comprehension quizzes at the end, so you can see how much of the information your child is retaining.
Outschool
I had to mention this one here. I just recently started looking into it this past summer, so I haven’t subscribed to it yet, but I will be. We school year round, so during the Summer we’re in the pool a lot. We don’t do a lot of extra school type things because of that. Then oct-dec we do all of the holiday things which leaves jan-may for us to be doing some extra fun school things. Outschool has all of the traditional options for classes, but then they have a ton of fun classes also. One that we’re looking at specifically is how to draw squish mallows.
Canva
I use Canva for work, so when my daughter started showing signs of being creative and artsy, we started letting her use it for things like science reports and designing flyers for campaigns and things. Your can use the free version, it’s just a good way to let your kids play around and see if they have a knack for graphic design. All of these digital products are shown in the corresponding video if you'd like to know what each app looks like.
World Watch
This one is new to us. I often say that some of the things I do in our homeschool is because they were things I loved in public school. I loved the holiday parties we had every month, so I implemented that into our homeschool. I also loved that at the end of each day we watched the world news, but in a kid friendly way. I felt like we were always kept in the loop of what was going on in the world. I was just telling a friend of mine that I wanted to find a way to do that for my daughter and then worldview came across my desk. I love it because it delivers the world news in about 10 min per day and does so with a biblical worldview. My daughter loves it because while yes, it has the news, it also has a bunch of videos on other topics like technology, science, economics, etc. We love to watch the day's episode while eating lunch. Click here to get a free trial of world watch.
The last 6 resources I want to share with you are through a screen, but not on a screen. Let me explain.
“Homeschool Made fun” academy
This is a homeschool resource that I actually created. Every month you’ll get a themed pack of educational activities that you can print out and use in your home. A few examples of what we’ve done in here for the holiday season is creating a thanksgiving day parade, planning Christmas dinner, and planning a vacation for Santa. Coming up we’ve got a dream board activity planned as well as a valentine shopping project. In addition to all of the fun things, we have chore charts, planner pages, journaling sheets, and so much more all included and themed for that month. You can grab a free month here.
Adventures in odyssey
This one is a mix of audio and screen, so I wasn’t sure exactly where to include it. Whichever way you flip it though, you’ll love the values your kids are picking up with this program. Your child can listen to adventures in odyssey just like they would an audio book, or they can watch episodes, play games, and even read devotionals.
Hoopla
Most people know about this, it’s a free app through your public library where you can listen to audiobooks for free.
Audible
Paid app to listen to audio books.
Libby
I’ve not used this one, but I have a lot of friends that use it and to my understanding it’s similar to hoopla.
Podcast
Free app to listen to podcast
I love all of the book apps and podcasts. Audios are something I let my daughter listen to pretty much whenever she wants. When we’re going on walks, when she’s doing her chores, when we’re driving somewhere together, listening to audio is a great way to get in some extra learning time or just a great way to wind down and entertain yourself without mindlessly sitting in front of a screen.
I’d also love to hear of your favorite digital resources. I’m always looking to see what everyone is using and how it’s helping other homeschool families. See y'all next week!
This a must have app for elementary and middle school. I've partnered with fables world to give you guys a FREE 7 day trial PLUS if you choose to continue after those free 7 days, they're giving you 30% off when you use the code "holiday". This deal is only good through the button below and only if you sign up this month. If you have any trouble signing up, please reach out to me on instagram @theholidayhomeschooler, and I can help you directly.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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