Discounts available for larger groups--see the website for details.
Abcteach.com isn't a site strictly by or for homeschoolers, and if you've ever Googled a free math worksheet, you've probably been there and know that. (If you're not familiar with the wonderful world of public-school-ese, it's an education in itself to browse through "word walls," and see "reading comprehensions" used as a plural noun. I also avoid anything involving "prediction skills.") It's partly free, and you probably know that as well--there's lots to explore there even without paying for a membership. But over the past month I've had the chance to check out the members-only part of the website (thousands of extra pages), and I'm pretty impressed, particularly with the make-your-own tools for things like math, handwriting, and word puzzles. (Even CM homeschoolers and other non-worksheet types can appreciate custom page generators.)
Some files on the site are so basic that you'd wonder why people bothered writing them out, such as instructions for making a dollhouse out of a cardboard box and carpet scraps. Classroom-oriented busywork may be most helpful as a reminder of one reason we're homeschooling--so that our kids don't have to spend time on it. But I found things that did come in handy for our family. Middle-schooler Ponytails and I spent several English lessons working through "How to Write Without Flab." I found diagrams to go with our health unit on the digestive system; a page of puns and double meanings from Alice in Wonderland; something called Literature Circle Ideas (creative narration suggestions); a grammar lesson we haven't used yet called "Case Closed...or Confusing? A Quick Guide to the Three Cases"; and a bunch of pages to help third-grader Crayons review time-telling. Some of these items (like the literature circle ideas) are available on the free section of the website; others require a membership to read or print.
One thing you might not know is that abcteach offers pages in French, Spanish and German (as well as ESL materials)--and some of them are useful for second-language lessons. Here's a free page using the fable La cigale et la fourmi.
If you search for a particular topic or school subject or concept (like puns, or Alice in Wonderland), you can see what's available to members as well as for free (or you can limit your search to free documents); you just can't click on the member pages unless you're signed in. The search function on the site is not bad, but sometimes it doesn't find what you know should be there; however, there's a Google search-this-site button, and that usually uncovers more items.
The website provides an article called 10 Reasons ABCTeach is Great for Homeschool, and these include the "abctools" I've already mentioned (which include tutorials to show you how to use them), and the general range of printables (including unit studies, book report pages, craft activities, tangram pages, word puzzles, language worksheets, and file-folder games). To quote the article: "Homeschoolers often have limited access to or funds for those little things that make teaching easier. Here are just a few of the little extras you will find at abcteach: forms, lesson planners, maps, field trip report forms, border paper, certificates, flashcards, word walls, word strips, posters, incentive charts, graphic organizers, holiday materials, and much more." (Whew.) They've set up a homeschool-start-here page with links to the materials they think will most interest homeschoolers, such as these birdwatching journal pages.
Creative homeschoolers can also take an item labelled A and use it for an B, C or D. Clip art can become colouring pages. Small "posters" and "mini-office" pages (the basics of things like spelling rules and long division) can be printed out and put in a binder, or posted individually on the wall as reminders. The "word walls" (really just word lists printed out in a large font, like flash cards) might be used in a way similar to what Harmony Art Mom does with literary terms--as a reminder of the terms and names that we want to make sure we cover in a particular study.
And the last thing I'm going to say as a plug for this website is that a lot of the printable pages offer a choice of colour or black and white, which I really appreciate.
Check out the free pages, and if you like those, or want to try the worksheet-making tools, you might want to consider a membership.
For more reviews of abcteach.com, see the Review Crew website.
Dewey's Disclaimer: This membership was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
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