Free home education resources that actually help
How to use free worksheets and living books well — without drowning in printables.
3 August 2026 · 5 min read
The internet is full of free printables, and it is easy to end up with a folder of two hundred worksheets you never open. The trick is not finding resources — it is knowing what each kind is for, and doing a little, often. Here is how we use the two we make.
Worksheets: short, daily, targeted
A worksheet is not a curriculum. It is a way to practise one thing until it sticks — times tables, apostrophes, rounding — or to check a gap before moving on. Ten focused minutes usually beats a whole booklet done resentfully.
Ours are original, follow the UK curriculum, and come with a separate answer booklet so marking is quick. They run from Early Years right through to GCSE, and they print cleanly in black and white.
Living books: the richer, slower stuff
Where a worksheet drills a skill, a living book feeds the imagination. The Charlotte Mason approach leans on whole, well-written books rather than dry textbooks: you read a little, the child tells it back in their own words — narration — and you follow the threads into history, art, geography and nature.
Our free living book studies take much-loved classics — The Secret Garden, Treasure Island, A Christmas Carol and more — and give you a parent study guide, a pupil booklet and slides for each. They are built for families teaching different ages together, with a lighter touch for younger children and a GCSE-style extension for older ones.
Browse the free living book studies →
How to use them without the overwhelm
- 1Pick one living book at a time, and read a short section most days.
- 2Add a page or two of worksheets for the skills that need practice — not everything, every day.
- 3Let the child narrate: telling it back in their own words is where the learning lands.
- 4Follow one thread that interests them — a place, a person, a picture — rather than all of them at once.
- 5Keep sessions short. Stopping while they still want more is a feature, not a failure.
A gentle weekly rhythm
A week might look like this: a chapter of the living book most mornings, narration or a booklet page after, and two or three short worksheets across the week for maths and spelling. That is enough. You do not need a boxed curriculum to do this well.
Free resources are a starting point, not a competition. A calm hour your child remembers beats a full folder they dread.