Schoolhouse Teachers.com

I was delighted to be asked to review  Schoolhouse Teachers.com which is part of the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. The Schoolhouse Teachers site is so much more than "just" the magazine. It is an Aladdin's cave for home educators with children of all ages.



The site has sections for PreK/Elementary, Middle School and High School as well as Dailies, Library and Teachers. There are also sections for use with children with special needs. Schoolhouse Teachers claims that it can be used as a curriculum or for add-ons. We haven't used it instead of the rest of our curriculum but I have no doubt that it could be used in this way.

About 25 subjects are covered using a variety of methods including videos, lesson plans, writing prompts and suggested activities. Various teachers have contributed lessons. These cover subjects including high school maths (with videos), French, guitar, geography, history and literature. There is a fascinating 18 part series about helping struggling readers grade 3 and above. I haven't tried this but found some of the principles for teaching longer words useful.

The Daily section has so much to offer. We have used the spellings which are far superior to the lists that we were using. The spellings are divided into grade level from preK/K to High School. The Elementary lower list even has subdivisions of difficulty within it. However, all the lists seem to have a common theme-this week plurals which is useful  for discussion around the table with children of different ages. Some of the high school words are seriously challenging.

I suspect that the daily writing prompts is somewhere that I will frequent, probably not to use on a daily basis, but rather when a different type of title is needed.

Another feature of the Daily section is the Everyday Easels which also are linked from the sidebar as Noon Recess. This uses the Charlotte Mason idea of a picture a week with questions and activities from the picture. We have enjoyed using this. The early photograph of The American Barque "Jane Tudor" Conway Bay was a particular hit with children who love Wales where this photograph was taken and are fascinated by the Tudors.

I've been gradually exploring the downloadable planners. There five different planners: three for different grade levels, one for special needs and one for mothers. As well as a diary/planner function they contain lists of award winning books, lists of parables, a Bible reading planner and much much more.



Other features include reading lists, e-books which seem to arrive in batches every month. I'm almost relieved that they don't arrive in one go-there are so many books that reading them in one go would be overwhelming.

I was really impressed with the contents of the site. There were a couple of technical things that would make it easier to use: it would be useful if the link to the picture for the Everyday Easels opened in a new tab making it easier to go between the picture and the day's activities. The preK/K section included "College Choice guidance" which probably isn't necessary for most children of this age.


Schoolhouse Teachers.com is like a resource library for home educators. I plan to return to it most days.
Costwise an annual subscription is currently discounted at $49 which is just over £30 at today's exchange rate. There is a special offer on the first month of a monthly subscription at only $1 which is great for trying out the site.

Disclaimer: I received a free annual subscription to Schoolhouse Teachers.com in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are either my own or those of my family.