Brainstorming on Pinterest
14 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in Crafts and Activities, Homeschooling for Free Tags: ideas
I just joined Pinterest. It seems to be the new rage, but I can totally see why now that I’ve started. So many awesome ideas and a great way to organize them all.
The concept is that you gather ideas from others and “pin” them to category boards. Some of the boards I started were “Kid’s Snacks”, “Kid’s Spaces”, “Homeschool”, and “Around the World.” On my “Around the World” board, I pinned pictures from different countries. I’m thinking it will be a great collection for our geography study this next year.
Some ideas I’ve found and pinned are:
Pinterest
Pinterest
Pinterest
Want to join me? Contact me with your email and I’ll send you an invite!
Dover Coloring Pages
30 May 2011 Leave a Comment
I love free. And I love coloring pages that teach. And I love that Dover sample coloring pages offer both. Just give them your email and once a week, on Fridays, you’ll receive a link to your free pages. It’s also a great way to preview some of their products you think you might be using.
Check it out and pick up a few sample pages for those rainy days, trips in the car, or supplemental activities.
Make-your-own Handwriting Pages
03 May 2011 Leave a Comment
I originally had purchased the A Beka K4 cursive material from my son, only to have him really struggle through the first several lessons and begin writing manuscript letters on his own. Rather than continuing to fight through cursive and frustrate both of us, I began teaching manuscript to him.
When I discovered a tool to make my own handwriting pages, I was relieved! I use Letter of the Week wipesheets to introduce the new letters, transition to a wipe board about midweek, and finish with my own handwriting pages by the end of the week (blends on Thursday, one-vowel words on Friday).
An extra bonus: I’ve made handwriting sheets of the Bible verses my son is working on, printing it off on decorative paper; I’ve even printed off notes to people, let the children trace the letters, cut out the handwritten lines, and pasted them to home-made cards.
We traced this in marker, to make it "pretty."
We’ve had more fun coming up with our own curriculum, and truly finding a meaningful purpose for handwriting.
If you are looking for an entire set of lessons, check out Donna Young’s website.
Organizing Web Resources for your Homeschool
02 May 2011 Leave a Comment
in Homeschooling for Free, Lesson Planning and Organization
Have you ever found an idea for your homeschool but you’re not quite ready to use it yet? Maybe next month. Maybe next year. There’s not always a good way to store those ideas, especially the ones you find on the internet.
That is just one of the reasons why I love Evernote. Ideas for recipes, crafts, and curriculum are “clipped” from a website in just a click of a button and filed away into the folder that I designate. Take pictures of items with your phone and file them away in the same way. The program can even search those photos and websites you’ve filed, detecting text in the photo itself. You know what that means? No more scrap pieces of paper floating around.
I have used it to refine my plans for geography next year. I’ve even used my library websites to create lists of books that I want for a particular unit, “clipped” the list with Evernote, and filed it away. Now, when I’m ready for that unit, I know what books I want and which library they are at.
Next year’s spelling program, science for the dialectic stage (5th-8th grade in classical education), apologetics for the rhetoric stage (high school)–whatever I happen across as I’m surfing the internet can be neatly filed away and easily retrieved. It’s even great for filing away blog ideas. The possibilities are really endless. Check it out and see what it can do for you! Or, check out it’s close cousin SpringPad, which might work better for PC users.
And did I mention that both services are free! Can’t get any better than that.
Free Math Curriculum: Grades K-5
26 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
If you are looking for a curriculum and workbook pages for your child, either as the entire year’s curriculum or as a supplement, check out the Bridges website. You can either search the curriculum by state (and their requirements) or by grade. Look for “blacklines” which is the pdf workbook. It is to the right of the state pages or under the supplements tab corresponding to each grade level.
Scope and sequence, supply lists, and more are available at this site. A great math resource!
Laminate the pages and get even more use out of them. I printed the Kindergarten book on double-sided pages. It’s a lot of laminating, but I will be able to reuse it for each child as well as review material they may have trouble with. Also, any subject is more fun when you break out the dry-erase markers.
