I just read a great blog called web home schooling which had an article with some homeschooling website recommendations. And I quote:

My strong recommendation for those homeschooling and using the web is to check out the following.

 Time4Learning’s web-based online curriculum.  They have great interactive lessons for middle school, elementary school, and even preschool.  It’s highly interactive and full of animation and multimedia. Whereas some curriculum are just lots of text with an occassional video or animation, Time4Learning is an interactive experience.  All those tough math concepts seem simple when they’re explained in such alight-hearted manner.  Who says fractions has to be hard? Their great multimedia lays it out so simply.  Give it a try.  Time4Learning is a great homeschool partner. They let you sign up month to month and start and quit at any time. Start by looking at their lesson demos.
 

 Number 2 choice - Time4Writing.  If you are like me, you find some subjects hard to teach.  One of the hardest is writing skills, especially when the kids get into middle and high school.  Expectations are so high. And my kids just don’t react well to my correcting their writing. Want help?  This isn’t a “how to”, it’s an online tutoring course where they work directly with your student teaching writing skills every week and giving one-on-one feedback.  You get the same tutor for the whole eight week course which the kids really like. It’s definitely worth taking Time4Writing’s writing classes. They have sentence writing, paragraph writing, essay writing (these are for writing tests and college essays), and research paper writing.
 
 
Number 3 choice - Fun Building Vocabulary. This is not really a curriculum choice but a fun collection of vocabulary games. Vocabulary is Fun is a leading vocabulary website worldwide with the best flash online word games.  The vocabulary games include an online word search, an online crossword puzzle, and hangman online (their version is called HangMouse).  Users choose the vocabulary list that the online word game will use in the word game. So have some Fun Building Vocabulary.  
 
 
Number 4 Choice - Spelling City. This spelling program should be used by everyone. I would have put it first but I’m not a huge believer in the importance of spelling skills.  Despite that, now that I’m using this site, I’ve returned to having spelling as part of our weekly routine.  You know what’s really cool, check out how the vocabulary site’s science songs have put their vocabulary/spellinglist on SpellingCity.
 
 
Number 5 choice - This learning games website is really what it sounds like.  But they have the best collections.  For instance, they have keyboarding games, memory games,  science songs (also integrated with vocabulary lists), and math learning games.

I'll tell you who is not the best blogger out there....ME.

I use my blog as a rough draft for my thoughts. Instead of putting a yellow sticky on my desk, an email to myself, or a note on a pad, I scribble it onto my blog.

Last year, I took a great blog writing course where I learned how to construct a blog worth reading and to collect an audience to read it.  Great course. I highly recommend it.   Check it out at:

Starting a blog by Time4Writing.com.  It evolved from Black Belt Blogger.  My personal blog was about earning a black belt at age 50.

I've always been amazed by spellcheckers and grammar checkers, especially the latter. I've heard about software that actually grades your papers called automated writing evaluators. I think that could be really cool.

Of course, they won't be perfect. Like homeschooling, we're not perfect. Neither is the alternative. 

Kelly - a homeschool mother of five on the West Coast, wrote this:

I would recommend Time4Writing as a good supplement for any homeschool curriculum (including SOS, which we used briefly years ago).

Even if the curriculum you are using includes writing practice, it will lack the personal teacher feedback of Time4Writing. I can't tell you how valuable that feedback was to my children! Often, the teacher would mention something I had "nagged" my child about for years . . . but it was a little more credible, because someone ELSE thought the same thing.

For me, this clarified in my mind who much  impact Time4Writing can have on a student's writing skills.

There are many types of homeschooling websites.  My favorites of course are Time4Learning, the writing course at Time4Writing.com, and I lov e the vocabulary games at Vocabulary.co.il.

Here is more info on their vocabulary games (and I quote)....

There's been a lot of excitement about homeschooling in California this year.  I gather the ruckus (I love that word) over legality has pretty much disappeared.  Good.

California has a great California Virtual Academy.   You might have to accept that not all online virtual academies are great.

 There are different types of online distance learning programs.

There are learning services like Time4Learning and Switched on Schoolhouse.
There are private schools paid for by students like Keystone, BJU, and the (one in Baltimore).
There are the virtual schools that are public schools such as Florida Virtual school which provides education for kids of a variety of sorts, but including Florida home school students who are homeschooling in Florida.

The Build Vocabulary website has an amazing vocabulary blog.  It's one of my favorite subscriptions.

It can if it is tuned to PBS this fall!  In an exciting development, The Public Broadcasting Service is bringing Susan Meddaugh’s "Martha" book series to life in order to build young children’s vocabulary skills.  In the popular books, Martha the dog swallows some Alphabet Soup and begins to speak, and hilarious hijinks ensue.

In this fall’s new animated adaptation of the books, Meddaugh’s Martha character will talk her way through two stories in every show episode.  According to the Martha Speaks website on pbskids.org, the goal of the show is to "increase oral vocabulary, the words we use when we talk."  The hope is that by teaching kids to recognize new words when they hear them, they will also more easily recognize them when they read those same words.  When a new reader’s oral vocabulary is limited, it is more difficult to make sense of words when attempting to sound them out.

Each episode of "Martha Speaks" will have a theme.  PBS.org suggests that parents watch with their child and help them locate every word that fits with the theme of the show.  Making connections between words in categories is one of the key ways of building vocabulary.  They also suggest using some of the words from the show in your future conversations with your child, so that they continue to hear the words in context.

Here are some other favorite blogs:

Parent technology
Homeschooling curricula

You don't appreciate it until it's gone...I had a go around with a difficult member recently. Now please understand, we have over ten thousand members and days and weeks and months go by without any problems.  But, for the first time in over a year, I found that one customer was making my staff really upset. 

This lady had spoken in the space of two days with three different staff people and had made one of them cry.  This never happens.  My staffer said that no matter what she said, the lady on the phone twisted it around to mean something else different. And ridiculous. And that she had yelled at her.

So, being the boss, I picked up the phone and called her. I explained, extremely nicely, that she had upset a few of my support ladies who try really hard to be nice to everyone, if she had some unhappiness with our service, she should talk directly to me.  In the space of a few minute conversation, she pointed out some weaknesses in our science and social studies program (which we all agree with. We have a great language arts and math program and we provide science and social studies as a "free bonus", as in, it's very good but way short of being a complete program).  And, she yelled at me and twisted my words. 

At one point, after she said that I had called her a liar, I clarified that "no, I expressed a difference of opinion but you have just demonstrated to me what my staff person said when she said that you twisted her terms.".  I told her that I would refund all of her money for her previous months and it would be better if going forward she used some other service.  She said that would be fine.  And hung up.

Shortly thereafter, we received a short polite email asking if her daughter could continue with the program. Apparently, even with our flaws, we're very popular and useful.  So she's still using our online homeschool curriculum.

Read all about homeschool curricula here.

We've created a doozy of a new site: SpellingCity.com .  Tonight, we got a call that one teacher feels another teacher "stole" her published list.  Yikes.  Do spelling lists have owners?  Is their ownership a copyright-type ownership or just a moral-type ownership.  I read great interest one view: (And I quote from http://www.ailla.utexas.org/site/ipr.html )

What is a copyright? Copyrights are property: they can be sold, given away, or inherited. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 limits copyright to "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression."

What is an original work? This is intentionally vague, and can ultimately only be decided in court. It is easiest to give examples of things that are not original: facts, like the population of Mexico City; ideas, like the idea of the internal combustion engine; systems; titles or short phrases. Things like morphological paradigms and word lists are not likely to be considered original. Things that are likely to be considered original works are poetry, prose (fiction or non-fiction), computer programs, artwork, songs, musical notation, a web page, architectural drawings, photographs, recordings of music and songs.

I've contacted the writer of that to see how he feels about me quoting it, whether he thinks he is an adequate authority (or had truly researched it), but still, that doesn't resolve all the IP issues around a site like spellingcity.com.

I did improve the copyright page removing some totally irrelevant bunk that the marketers and operatiosn people slipped in there such as: Time4Learning is used by children who also use A Beka , instead of Kumon, or who might have, in another era, used Hooked on Phonics. 

There are many well marketed ways to learn languages. We all know about rosetta stone and powerglide. Both sound effective but are expensive and follow a certian debatable methodology.

Immersion and travel are preferred methods to learn languages.

I was just reading this site: http://saberingles.freeforums.org/where-are-you-from-t7-15.html#219 where there are links to several pages such as:

Utöka Ditt Engelska Ordförråd - Leer je Engelse Woordenschat -
英語のボキャブラリーを増やそう - เรียนรู้คำศ - 学习英语词汇 - 學習英語詞彙
(for those of you who need help: Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Taiwanese)

and in nice simple spanish:   aprendre vocabulario ingles

I read on a google group ( this is a school-oriented group):

Does anyone know of any books that would help me engage my 8th graders
in a meaningful way?  I'm trying to teach them about the writing
process on our way to writing a 5-paragraph essay.  They are very far
behind where they should be, but whenever I start to talk they zone
out.  They work well together, but I can't put them in groups until I
teach the basic skills.  I need to find a way to hold their interest
long enough to teach them what they need to know.  Are there any fun
songs or raps that would teach them what they need to know?  Thanks!

I answered with:

If getting the kids engaged is the problem, you should try more
interesting & relevant reading prompts.

But, while that's good textbook advice, it's often really hard to find
something to engage them. That's the $64 question.

Here's my advice: Listen to their chatter.  What are they talking
about?

Is it YouTube videos? Fine, engage them with a prompt about describing
what, for them constitutes,  a great original YouTube Video.

Is it video games?  Ditto.  Get them to write on whether a storyline
enhances or enriches gameplay in a video game (persuasive essay).
(BTW - there's no answer:  PacMan & Tetris & Breakout & Fancy Pants
are some of the great games but have no story line.  I won't even
begin to describe the great games with story lines.

Is it sports? Dancing?  Music? Family? Boys & girls?  American Idol?
You want them to write like they care, then the first step is to find
something that they care about.  It's a lot harder to get them to care
about what you think they should.

John - Assistant Curriculum Designer
Time4Writing.com

I know several women who are living the dream....

They work from home on creative interesting projects, mostly writing on subjects that they know and care about.  They're homeschooling their children and it's going great. Who are these women who are living the dream.  While, there's topysy techie who has one of the best blogs out there. She learned her blogging from a blog writing course (previously known as black belt blogging). Her recent post included comments, while she tried to wean her sons from the computer....

So, at this family meeting, we discussed the types of activities that we could do during our screen breaks.  My first suggestion was yard work.  I knew the boys had probably spent a little too much quality time with their PC’s when they both looked at me wide-eyed.  We had a yard???!!!

Another great site that came out of that course is by a Florida Black Belt fromLavallees who just turned 50. Read about how this father struggles with his body and enjoys working out with his two children.  Living the dream.....

I found a great new and free site called SpellingCity.com. It's an online free spelling program (and I quote)  that makes practicing for spelling tests fun.  What makes SpellingCity.com so special?- It contains over 30,000 words, including plurals, contractions, past and future tenses
- It uses a REAL person's voice to say the word and use the word in a sentence
- Teachers and parents can enter and save spelling lists for their students or children
- Students can play games with their words or any word list

SpellingCity.com can give you the spelling help you need to make spelling fun for your kids.

Can you imagine watching your child tackle his or her weekly spelling list with as much enthusiasm as a video game? Do you find yourself at a loss for how to make weekly spelling practice exciting? Are you looking for some free spelling help  for your child?

SpellingCity.com is on a mission to make spelling more fun, and give you the spelling help you are looking for. Our spelling program is a breakthrough.  All parents and students, whether you are involved with a public, private, or homeschool, can use SpellingCity.com to make spelling lists, practice for spelling tests, and make instant spelling and word games to play online or print out.

Writing - I've also found a spectacular homeschool writing program. There are great writing tutors. The prompts are fun and the teachers are flexible so students can choose their own prompts. In my case, we wanted to take it this summer but work around a two week vacation and they accomodated us. Time4Writing provides online 8 week writing courses that help elementary, middle and high school students build writing skills. Students learn through one-on-one interaction with a certified teacher.

Time4Writing helps 3rd - 12th graders with:

Everyone should spell well. We should understand a vast vocabulary and be able to correctly use an adequate one.  The key to strong vocabulary and writing sand spelling skills is to read alot. And pay attention to words.  And use great tools.

Students, do you look forward to studying for your weekly spelling test? We suspect that you don't.

With SpellingCity.com, you now have a fun spelling program.  We know that studying spelling words is usually not what you would consider fun. But we think SpellingCity.com will change that.  Imagine yourself playing spelling games online the day before your spelling test, and ending up with an A!

With game choices such as HangMouse, WordSearch, UnScramble, and Word Matching, we think spelling practice might now move from being your least favorite activity, to something you might even do for fun.

Vocabulary.co.il is the fun way to build vocabulary.It's good to Increase Your Vocabulary .  Also, Vocabulary- the words students must know to communicate effectively.

If you want a spelling program integrated as part of a language arts program, try Time4Learning.

I've seen and heard alot of frustration about to teach homeschool kids to write.  I have a few suggestions of what works.

I just found this great site to build vocabulary. It's called Learn Vocabulary Fun.  There are six games with real educational value (no shooters here): HangMouse (formerly Hangman), Crossword Puzzle, Word Search, Vocabulary Quiz, Picture Match Game, and Word Scramble.

Plus, there are some great articles on building vocabulary for specific purposes.

Expand Vocabulary - Good vocabulary comes in handy. It makes you a powerful speaker and writer and builds your confidence. Find out how you can quickly expand your vocabulary.

GRE Vocabulary - This article looks at how you can boost your GRE vocabulary using software. It covers the benefits of using this software such as maximizing your learning time.

Improve Vocabulary - Explains five sure ways you can improve your vocabulary.

Increase Vocabulary - How does the vocabulary you use reflect your personality?

Power of Words - Powerful words are words that create a dominant image or impression in our minds. Find out how using power words can help you.

Vocabulary Builder - This article examines the intricacies of a language through the study of etymology. Find out how this can build your vocabulary.

Vocabulary Software - Which vocabulary building software is right for you? This article helps you choose carefully and tells you what to look for.

Ultimate Vocabulary Review - A review of the popular Ultimate Vocabulary Software

Word Smart Review - A review of Word Smart

Building a Million Dollar Vocabulary - This article show you how vocabulary is closely related to financial success and how you can start building your vocabulary for success immediately.

Vocabulary CD Programs - Looking for a vocabulary CD program? Read this first to find out what you should look for.

Building Your Business Vocabulary - This article discusses the importance of vocabulary in business success and shows you how to start building your vocabulary for business success.

Why Improve My Vocabulary? - This article discusses the advantages of improving your vocabulary. Are you wondering if you should bother with your vocabulary? If you are then this article is for you.

Improve Your Vocabulary Fast - Is time a factor for you? This article explains how you can speed the process of building your vocabulary.