My Favorite Free Catholic Resources – Perfect for Homeschooling Families

Teaching your children our Catholic faith doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, outside of creating a library of Catholic books for our homeschooling family, the majority of our personal resources are FREE.

As parents, we are the primary educators of our children in the ways of our Church. These are perfect for any Catholic family – whether you’re homeschooling or sending your kids to public or parochial schools.

Come and take a look at some of our very favorite free Catholic resources. Let’s learn more, and pass this on to our children.

This post is sponsored by the ARDA. All opinions are my own.

The ARDA (American Religious Database Archives)

If you have middle school students or older, the ARDA is a fantastic free resource. Over on the Teaching Tools page, you’ll find a catalog of ideas for students and teachers/parents. My favorites are the Timeline and Dictionary of religious terms for students. (I found Eucharist and Transubstantiation, but not Monstrance or Ambo.) For parents and teachers, you’ll find lesson plans, syllabus ideas and
even quizzes. There’s even more to explore over on the ARDA’s Facebook page and Twitter feed.

These resources at the ARDA are completely free, thanks to the Lilly Endowment and the John Templeton foundation.

Catholic Home Study Service

I discovered the Catholic Home Study Service years ago, when I was a convert/revert to the Church.

There are nine available self paced studies. You pick your book from the service, and it arrives at your door a few weeks later. The book comes with a workbook with study questions to review.

You can take as long as you want to finish a study …. a few weeks or, like me, a few years.

If you’d like to explore the series and skip the study, the books are also available at Amazon.

Apostleship of Prayer

Did you know that the Holy Father has monthly prayer intentions? There are two intentions for the month – a Universal Intention and an Evangelization Intention. You can find the current month’s intention, as well as look back at previous months at the Apostleship of Prayer.

I absolutely LOVE the reflections for children. Each intention has a lesson that you can easily discuss with your family and an action plan (prayer activity) to make the big idea of the intention palpable for kids.

(I’ll admit that I like the children’s reflections better than the adults — I’m able to wrap my mind around them a little easier!)

Sadlier Religion

Maker of the popular We Believe religious education materials for parents, I found this website recently and quickly bookmarked the ideas I found there.

You can explore activities based on age, arranged by the liturgical year and more. I love the Saints resources — like this St Patrick’s Breastplate printable card.

Printable and Interactive Monthly Catholic Family Calendars

I’ll be honest. There are times when feast days and Holy Days sneak up on me.

I created these monthly Catholic family calendars to help our family live the liturgical year, then realized I needed to share them with others.

You can print these calendars out and stick them on your desk as a visual reminder of what’s coming in the weeks ahead. You’ll also want to save them to your computer, tablet or smart phone to check out all the links they contain.

Heart of Mary Women’s Fellowship Studies

I would LOVE to be able to participate in a women’s bible study, but it’s not going to happen in this season of life. Between my work schedule, homeschooling and juggling many small ones at home, making it to a study is impossible.

I’m going to sign up for the next study at the Heart of Mary’s Women’s Fellowship — starting April 6th, they’re diving into Mercy. I counted 12 studies there for free!

Catholic Podcasts

Trying to learn more about my Catholic faith can be difficult with lots of little children underfoot. I love listening to podcasts. This way, I can learn while I’m driving to work, cooking dinner or folding the laundry.

For more amazing ideas about free resources you can utilize in your home, don’t miss out on the lists created by my friends at the iHomeschool Network. You’ll find resources for teaching preschool, Latin resources, ideas for free field trips and more!

Did I leave out one of your favorite FREE Catholic resources? Please let me know in the comments, and I’ll be sure to add it into my list!