Disclaimer: I received a free membership for this product in exchange for my honest review. All opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.
Homeschool freedom has not only allowed my kids to have unique learning opportunities, but it has allowed me as a homeschool parent and educator to explore novel, creative ways to teach my kids and other homeschoolers. Homeschooling has helped me appreciate project-based learning and the power of fun activities to help kids retain what they learn. Unfortunately, when I first began homeschooling, I thought I had to develop every fun or creative activity from scratch. I spent hours brainstorming, lesson planning, and gathering materials. Fast-forward to eight years later, and I’ve discovered I don’t have to be the idea fairy. I’ve quickly come around to the mantra of “work smarter, not harder,” which has led me to the insanely helpful resource Clark Creative Education at www.clarkcreativeeducation.com.
Clark Creative Education is an educational company that provides creative, engaging educational resources that homeschool educators can use to enhance their homeschool, co-op, and distance learning instruction. Clark Creative Education provides a plethora of learning resources in math, language arts, science, history, and social studies. Curriculum resources for each subject area include:
- Warm-ups
- Slides
- Notes
- Digital Interactive Notebooks,
- Tests,
- Escape Room Activities
- Whodunnit Activities
- Crime Scene Learning Activities
- Reading Activities
These are just some of the quality curriculum resources available, though this is not an exhaustive list.
There are so many aspects of Clark Creative Education that I keep coming back to whenever I need engaging, interactive lessons for both my kids and my online students.
Excellent Organization of Curricula
It is effortless to find lesson resources on the Clark Creative Education Website. The Curriculum Browser is organized by area, including math, science, world, language, and elementary. Under each subject area, the curriculum is further delineated by specific branches and the branches broken down by topic. I heavily use a number of the science resources for my virtual science teaching, namely chemistry resources. I’m impressed with how the chemistry resources are organized by topic and provide a quick visual summary of the resource. Below is a sample summary of a scientific method resource. Notice it gives you an estimate of how long the material will take to complete, the number of students it’s designed for as well as a preview of the material.
Visually Stimulating Layouts
The resources, from lesson slides to worksheets and reading material, feature colorful pictures and images and easy-to-follow layouts that draw students into the lessons.
Engaging Material that Promotes Critical-Thinking and Real-World Connections
I’ve enjoyed Clark Creative Education Resources not only for my virtual students but my kids at home as well. One of the primary features that stands out about Clark Creative Education Resources is how the resources take classroom topics and tie them to the real world in a meaningful way. This communicates to students that there is purpose and value to what they learn that can be applied to life to improve their community and the world around them.
In Algebra, my daughter was studying ratios, proportions, and unit rates. While she understood the basic concepts, she struggled with the word problems associated with this topic. I wanted her to have more practice and a real-world application of the subject. I found a wonderfully creative, meaningful mini-project that discussed how microloans are used to combat poverty where she had to apply the concepts of ratio, proportion, and percent. This was a fantastic resource that was well thought out, well laid out, and produced an excellent learning experience for my daughter to think through critically. She learned valuable lessons on global poverty and the power of microlending.
Affordable
Clark Creative Education makes purchasing their resources very affordable as they have prices for every income. They have an entire section on their website allotted for freebies from each academic area so that homeschool parents and teachers can examine the quality and ease of use of their materials. Parents and teachers can also purchase annual memberships for a given subject area (i.e., math, science, language arts, etc.) or purchase an annual membership for a given branch within a subject area (i.e., biology, pre-algebra, etc.). Additionally, parents and teachers can purchase an annual, unlimited membership that provides access to all core subject areas for a very affordable price. If none of these options are viable, Clark Creative Education even allows you to purchase specific lesson material a la carte.