This pictures hasn't a blessed thing to do with the topic at hand, but I needed something to break up the boring text!
The internet is a veritable treasure trove of great fee-free sites, but the fact that there are so many does make it a little difficult to dig through the clutter to find the really useful stuff.
So, I thought I’d share a few of the sites that my family and I use on a regular basis.
Printable Calendars
Calendarsthatwork.com offers a wide variety of free printable monthly, weekly, or yearly calendars. I love these things! I use them for homeschooling records, life planning, and blog planning (for blog planning, I choose the 5-day week format, since I mostly blog during the week, and my Saturday posts don’t really need planning.)
This site does have an upgraded option that requires payment, but I stick with the free version and it suits me just fine.
Printable Menu Planner
The Homeschool Mom has a printable menu plan that I use each week. It’s pretty bare-bones, which is just how I like it. Of course, it goes without saying that you don’t have to be a homeschooler to use it. 😉
(if you’re not a menu planner, I’d strongly encourage you to try becoming one, especially if you’re having trouble sticking to a grocery budget and resisting the call of takeout.)
Free Typing Games
Free Typing Games has some, um, free typing games (duh!) that my kids have all enjoyed playing. I like that there are some that are easy enough for very, very beginning typists (Zoe). I started Sonia and Zoe on this site just a few weeks ago, and they’re already doing really well. They enjoy these games so much, I often find them sitting down to play them just for fun.
Seeing Sonia and Zoe plays these games has inspired Joshua and Lisey to play some of their old favorites too, even though they’re both already good typists.
Printable Educational Worksheets/Online Games
On Soft Schools’ site, there’s a wealth of free educational tools, from printable worksheets to online games. I haven’t used the worksheets feature, but Sonia and Zoe really love playing the math games and the phonics games.
(excuse Zoe’s intensity)
Geography Games
When we studied the 50 states last year, we loved the games at Sheppard Software. Some of them were simple enough for Sonia and Zoe, and some took practice for me to master (I’m so bad at remembering the capitals of some states!)
I thought these games were seriously fun (I liked the challenge), so don’t think you have to have kids or be a homeschooler to visit this site.
Free Rice Vocabulary Game (for a good cause)
Free Rice is a great vocabulary-building tool, and to make things even better, the site uses its revenue to donate rice to the hungry through the World Food Programme. This site used to simply offer vocabulary quizzes, but now there are a number of subjects available.
I looooove vocabulary, so the original game really blows my hair back.
America’s Test Kitchen Recipes
You all know that I adore Cook’s Illustrated, but the fact of the matter is that access to this venerable website does require some cashola (totally worth it, in my humble opinion!*)
*that was one of my very first posts on this here blog, actually.
If you’re short on cash, but still want some goodness from the CI people, check out America’s Test Kitchen Feed, a free site populated with recipes, tips, videos and all sorts of kitchen-y goodness. Plus, if you follow American’s Test Kitchen on Twitter, you’ll get links to free recipes all the time.
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Now, if I know you guys, you probably use some fabulous and free sites that I’ve never heard of. So, share in the comments and enlighten us all!
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Today’s 365 post: Joshua took this one. Upside down.
Joshua’s 365 post: A Dragon Question
Heidi @Adventures of a Thrifty Mom
Friday 4th of May 2012
I operate best with a paper calendar as well. I tried to go digital once...it didn't take long for that experiment to fall to pieces. haha. And as far as menu planning goes, well, let's just say we end up eating way too much pizza if I don't have a written plan. ;)
Kristen
Friday 4th of May 2012
Yes! Maybe if I had a smartphone I could do it, but having my planners on my office computer just doesn't work out well for me. I need them to be more accessible.
Hannah
Monday 21st of November 2011
Love that pic of Zoe. It cracks me up. :)
Shell
Sunday 13th of November 2011
Thank you so much for the list of free sites! I can't wait to have DS check them out...especially states and capitols!
Megyn @ Minimalist Mommi
Thursday 10th of November 2011
The Hubs turned me on to fitday.com. It's a food diary where you can add all the food you eat, and it will add in the calories, fat, carbs, protein, etc. It's great if you want to shed some weight or gain some weight or just gain insight into how you eat. I LOVE IT! The Type A person in me adores being able to customize all my foods and look at all the stats and graphs.
Sherri
Thursday 10th of November 2011
Great that you recommend creating mealplans. I decided to start doing this. I already was doing an excel spreadsheet for groceries so I wanted to do this. Found a great website for uploading from Unclutter here: http://unclutterer.com/2008/02/20/creating-a-weekly-meal-plan/ I know it's kinda OCD, but I really like doing this stuff on the computer. It reminds me to keep stuff I need every week on the list. Thanks for the tip and I can already tell it will save money :)