CHECKLIST OF FREE THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH CONNECT THE THOUGHTS
TO PREPARE YOUR STUDENT FOR EXCELLENCE

At Connect The Thoughts, we very much want to see you succeed as a homeschool teacher!   We want your student (or students) to have a stellar experience homeschooling, one which will truly prepare them for life.   With this in mind, here is a list of things one can do using just our free services, and a suggested sequence to get the most out of them.

For students ages 5-6, or for pre-literate students, a level we call STARTER, there is no reading test, as we assume that a student is not literate enough to require one.

  1. Use our FREE reading tests.


    These help determine the literacy level of the student that is considering Connect The Thoughts . They consist of actual lesson plans from the selected level. A video is provided on site that explains exactly how to use these FREE literacy tests which will tell you a lot about your student, and help successfully place the student in Connect The Thoughts.

    For ages 7-8, and for students who are developing literacy at a relatively early stage, the level we call ELEMENTARY:
               Elementary Reading Test

    For ages 9-10, LOWER SCHOOL:
               Lower School Reading Test

    For UPPER SCHOOL, ages 11-adult:
               Upper School Reading Test

    Just follow the instructions on the page and in the video.

  2. Once placed, have the student do our FREE 'How To Do CTT Courses Course'.


    We strongly recommend having any student doing Lower or Upper School work, and even Elementary, do this free course first. This course, which is designed to work exactly like all our Lower School and Upper School courses, uses the methods and the system used in our courses to teach the student what Connect The Thoughts is and how to best use it. Our techniques are very much NOT like "standard education", and this course acts as a good transitional activity. It is short, simple, hands-on, and can be fun.

    Here's a link where you can download this free course:
               How To Do CTT Courses Course

  3. While your student does a reading test, and the 'How To Do CTT Courses Course', you, the homeschool teacher, can do our FREE teacher training course, 'How To Teach' .


    This will help you fully understand Connect The Thoughts and how it works, and how you might best assist your student's studies.

    Here's a link to your free download of this course:
               How To Teach Connect The Thoughts

  4. We currently provide four FREE webinar podcasts you can listen to, to get a good idea of how to better succeed at homeschooling. You may listen to these as a teacher, and even share them with your students.


    The author of Connect The Thoughts, Steven David Horwich , discusses in each podcast an important aspect of homeschooling. A good time to listen might be after the student completes 'How To Do CTT Courses', and you have made progress (or completed) 'How To Teach Connect The Thoughts'. Each webinar segment runs under one hour.

    You might wish to start with 'Why You Should Be Confident Homeschooling'. ; This webinar explains why you ARE qualified and are indeed the best choice to teach your children.

    You might wish to follow this one up with 'Homeschooling and Creativity', a talk all about how to encourage both the student and the teacher's creativity as a part of the homeschooling process.

    Also you may wish to listen to 'Homeschooling in the 21 st Century' , a lecture intended to provide ideas and resources unique to our time, which will benefit your homeschooling experience.

    Finally, listen to 'A Holiday Celebration of Homeschooling' , a three-hour discussion of Homeschooling.  The first hour is entitled: 'How To Send Your Homeschool Student To College'.   Steven's guest this first hour is Greg Lampard, a friend of Connect The Thoughts, who serves as Dean at a private college—College America. Located in Colorado, they're very interested in homeschoolers attending their college, and have set up free resources to assist in that effort! Listen to this great hour of discussion and get TONS of info on sending a homeschooler to college!

    The link to all four webinars:
               Homeschooling Webinar Podcasts

  5. We provide well over 100 FREE articles about all sorts of aspects of homeschooling. Some of them are here on our site, others are found on our two blogs. Starting on our site, we'd recommend strongly that the homeschool teacher read the following, as needed:


    (If you have students ages 5-8, or plan on considering either Starter or Elementary 'All About 1 st Step' , an article extensively covering the ideas and methods used to teach these methods, by Connect The Thoughts . Indispensable for this level, for the teacher.)
               All About 1 st Step

    For more information on the need for Starter and Elementary courses, and their use and value, read 'Why Is 1 st Step Needed'.
               Why Is 1 st Step Needed

    For a clearer overview of the levels of curriculum we offer, and a better idea of how to get going and select the right level, read 'How To Place Your Student'.
               How To Place Your Student

    Also, for clarity in understanding the levels, read 'How and Where To Place A Student in CTT'.
               How and Where To Place A Student in CTT

    Not sure yet about whether or not Connect The Thoughts is a good answer to the problem of homeschooling? Please read 'Allow Me To Make A Sale's Pitch To You'.
               Allow Me To Make A Sale's Pitch To You

    We offer dozens of articles on how to homeschool at our FREE blog, 'Homeschool Hows & Whys'. Almost every important subject to a homeschool family is dealt with there, including such things as how to schedule the school day, how to make homeschooling work for parents with jobs, how to handle the question of homework, you name it!
               Homeschool Hows & Whys

    Our second blog, 'Homeschool Under Siege', contains dozens of articles describing abuses in education around the world, and might help motivate your homeschooling effort. The articles are sometimes darkly amusing, but are also no-nonsense attacks on the failed "business as usual" methods of education found in nearly all schools.
               Homeschool Under Siege

  6. Every course we offer at every level has FREE sample which you and your student can try out. These contain sample lesson plans from that course.


    You would need to do is go to the page on our site describing a particular course, and move your cursor over the cover art you see for the course, then click. The sample will appear on your screen, often as much as ten pages of the course! This takes the guess work entirely out of deciding which courses to use for your student. Look over the samples, and if you want to, have your student try out some of them.

    You may want to start this process with the first courses on each level. For instance, for Lower and Upper School (ages 9-adult, literate students), the first course recommended is a short, simple course called 'Information, Right Or Wrong'. Here is a link to that course:
               Information, Right Or Wrong
    The second lesson in this course is provided as a free sample. Just use the link and go to this page, place your cursor over the cover art (the painting of a child reading), and click. A new window will open with the sample.

    By the way, here's a brief article explaining why this course is important:
               How will a student decide what is the truth if the materials are neutral or objective?

    We recommend spending some time going through the courses on the site. (There are hundreds!) Pick ones you're most interested in, and read the thorough descriptions of each of those courses. You'll find a list of included subject matter, and a table toward the bottom of each page describing how many lesson plans, tests, and how many hours it will take the student to do the course, as well as the requirements fulfilled by that course. Then, look at the free sample of courses that interest you.

  7. There are well over 150 FREE parent, teacher and student success stories regarding Connect The Thoughts on the site.


    Many of the pages which describe courses also have success stories relevant to that course, at the bottom of the page. Sometimes reading about other people's experiences can be an education unto itself!

    If you want to dive in, you may want to consider purchasing a semester bundle ofcourses, the least expensive and easiest way to get going.

  8. By the way, we also offer a FREE showcase for student's creative writing! Submitted stories and poems are posted on our site for the world to read.


    Posting a story is simple. Just use this link:
               Student Stories
    This will take you to our Student Story page. Select the creative writing course, or holiday course, that your student wrote the story for. Then select t6he "Add New" green button, and several blank fields show up. Fill them in as required (name, age, course), and copy and paste your story into the correct field. That's it! The student's story will be published shortly thereafter, surrounded by artwork.

We hope you will find this "checklist" of free resources of some use in improving your homeschool experience, and that you’ll consider Connect The Thoughts as a part of your homeschool adventure!