'Poetry, like music, is to be heard.' ~ Basil Bunting
That's the Poetry Archives motto! We all have a child, who's bored to tears, when it's time to learn and read poetry! This site will change all that! The Poetry Archive is the world's premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work. You can enjoy listening here, free of charge, to the voices of contemporary English-language poets and of poets! And just wait until you check out the children's section - Amazing!
Looking for some great worksheets, activities and lessons? Check these out...
Do you ever wonder if you are effectively teaching your children to write? I don't just mean their alphabet and name! Can they write to convey their thoughts and feelings about a particular subject? Are they able to pull all of their ideas into a paragraph? An essay? If your child wants to attend Cegep, they must be able to write effectively, among other things that I'll get into another time. I've supplied many links for Language Arts, but I've often found myself wondering if my kids have the skills necessary to attend post-secondary education. Today's links just might answer my questions!
Merit Software created a new online edition of Paragraph Punch , Book Punch and Essay Punch—these are tools designed to improve students' writing skills. The Punch programs guide students through the process of writing an effective paragraph or essay. Unlike most educational supplements that are either assessments or drill and practice, the Punch programs are tutorials that respond to student inputs with personalized help and tips.
These tutorials are free to try, and in my opinion, cheap to buy! But don't just take my word on it, check it out today!
I discovered a few new websites that I'm just itching to share with you ! If you have younger children, you'll really enjoy the fantastic selection of language resources, available Kiz Club! The resource sections include ABCs, Phonics, Crafts, Story Patterns, Nursery Rhymes, and more. These resources are suitable for primary grades and for children with learning difficulties!
Another FREE resource for English Language Arts, before I go off and start my day! It's called Story It! It's one of the best language arts resources that I've ever seen online for children and their teachers! You'll find printable picture prompt story tellers, poems, write-on shapes, links to children's classics, activities and so much more! And make sure you click on the links, at the top of the page, that will take you to 'A Kid's Photo', 'A Kid's Heart' and 'A Kid's Math'!
I found a tool that many of you are going to find extremely useful, if not fantastic! If you have any experience with the public schools, then you've probably seen mindmaps for English assignments, and more! My experience with mindmaps, are that they work, and finally I've found an online 'mindmap'!
It's called Mindomo! Mindomo is a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, delivering the capabilities of desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser - with no complex software to install or maintain. You can create and edit mind maps!
Explore eight reading strategies for K-4 students and teachers in this interactive and in-depth reading comprehension site:
Make meaningful connections to climb to the summit of the Mountain of Understanding
Summarize the thrilling life of a talkative pirate
Evaluate books to successfully explore a distant solar system
Infer the real news in letters from pen pals
And much more!
Students can watch online videos, play learning games and interactives, and share their creations with friends and family. Teachers can delve into rich information and teaching resources, lesson plans, video and audio clips, downloads, and more.
Eduweb collaborated with the State of Wisconsin's Educational Communications Board on the design and development of the entire site, and particularly on the playful learning games and interactives that give students valuable practice with each reading strategy!
Are you a fan of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia? My son is! If you are looking for books that are well grounded by Christian values but offer a great fantasy journey, this is the series for you. So I went online to find out what lessons, quizzes and activites were available to encourage his love of this fantastic series! The best site, I could find, was 'The Lion's Call'! There are games, contests, teacher's resources and so much more!
"Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring
again..." ~ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis
Why stop there? I found a few more sites that are sure to delight! 'The Narnian' is exceptional! It's written with much insight and the worksheets are fabulous! There are also a couple of webquests available, one can be found here, and the other! What we love about these books are the promising movies being created around the series! I found lessons from 'Library Sparks' called 'The Chronicles of Narnia' that can be used when viewing the movie!
A related link, but so much more, is Mrs. Jones' Free Worksheets and Printables Online! She has listed every FREE language arts printable available! Like games, flashcards, worksheets (of course) and word lists! It's for K and Up! Fabulous Job, Mrs. Jones!
With winter break just around the corner, you might be wondering if you've covered all the bases this past semester, I know it's been on the back of my mind! In our house, my major preoccupations would be language arts, math and science! Scary, huh? This winter is starting to have adverse effects -- Please, Mister Weatherman, send us spring-like weather for longer than a day or two!!! And no more snow! Please!
I found a quick unit to kick start your child's creative writing efforts! It's Adventures in Writing! The site says, 'The purpose of this unit is to teach students some simple writing strategies that will assist them in making their writing more sophisticated and more creative.' And that, 'It can be adapted for any grade and you would have an entirely different outcome with much older children, but the unit was written with grade 3 to 6 students in mind.'
I think that your younger children will enjoy this unit as it's based around the 'Frog and Toad' books! These well written books are easily available online or at the library and were absolute favorites of my boys!! And if this starts thoughts about doing a unit study, well, who would blame you and who knows it might usher in Spring!
If that unit is appealing, but not the one, I also found a 'Friendship Unit'! The purpose of this unit is to introduce students to a variety of friendship issues using high-quality children's literature. It contains activities for reading, writing, speaking, listening, the arts, math and social studies. Activities have been organized around the following friendship issues: making friends and friendly behaviour, difficulties in friendships, mixed-gender friendships, intergenerational friendships, interracial and cross cultural friendships, imaginary friends, and loss of a friend. Very nicely put together!
Are you looking for a grammar course for your secondary students? Or a refresher course for yourself? If so, today's site will be welcome, it's HyperGrammar! HyperGrammar is an electronic grammar course created by the University of Ottawa's Writing Centre. (Canadian Standards! Woohoo!) This course covers approximately the same ground as their English department's ENG 1320 Grammar course. This course is worth 6 to 12 credits!!
HyperGrammar allows users to create and follow their own lines of thought. On its first appearance on any page, every grammatical term is linked to its definition. A user reading about nouns might jump to the simple subject, and from there to subordinate clauses -- users are not required or even encouraged to use this material in order.
Although, currently under construction, you are welcome to use HyperGrammar over the Internet, but be warned it is incomplete and almost certainly contains some errors. Ohh...did I mention it's FREE?!
Literacy skills are so important, and the onus to teach our children proper reading and writing skills is far greater as home educators. If we fail in the public system it's because the child has a learning disability or is unteachable, but as homeschoolers... we are expected to succeed or put our children in school! Today!
I've found a bunch of interactive sites to reinforce reading and grammar skills. The first site is called Sebastian Swan's Infant Explorer for early learners. This Web site aims to help young children become confident and competent users of the Internet. It contains interactive books, encourages the use of E-mail and provides opportunities for the children's work to be published on the site, making it available for a worldwide audience! It's a fantastic site!
The internet is such a fabulous tool! If you are looking for more interactive books, you will be so very pleased to find this next site, called Amazing Adventure Series - Stories of Imagination! It's made for our little boys, and our adventurous girls! Have you seen the Magical Kingdom? No, not Disneyland, it's the Magical Kingdom's Stories and Movies page. All the stories and movies here are in fully multimedia format, i.e. they have sound, music and animation!
Looking for help teaching proper order in a sentence? You'll want to visit First Grade Sentences! Or zip over to Mr. Nussbaum.com's for some Hawkabulary, where you must eat as many woodland creatures as possible by choosing the word that best completes the given sentence!
What exactly is a literacy-rich home? This describes a home environment that encourages children to become lifelong readers. Families can support language learning by creating a home atmosphere in which reading, writing, and talking are a natural part of daily life.
Sounds like a homeschooler's home doesn't it? But every family seems to have that one child who doesn't react the same way to instruction, in our family, it was our oldest, Zach. He was 'diagnosed' as ADD/LD, by a psychologist, when he was 5 years old. We medicated him from grade 1 until grade 5 except for weekends and holidays! It was awful to watch our sunny boy turn all surily when Monday morning arrived. We no longer medicate him! He's back! But the public school teachers hated our decision...
When he left public school to be homeschooled, the system was failing him badly and I was totally discouraged. Today, he reads for pleasure! The change in him is remarkable. But it wasn't without much determination and hard work. We're very proud of him! The sites I'm about to share with you were very helpful, I hope they'll be of benefit to those of you creating literacy in your home!
'To become literate a child first needs to hear words and phrases spoken, then have reason to speak them, before beginning to think about writing them down on paper. As children love to play, role play has the potential to provide the ultimate reason for children to learn to speak, read and write new words and phrases. With each new role-play scenario comes a wealth of vocabulary and terminology not otherwise heard in early years settings.' (source: Literacy Today)
What a great idea! Role playing! We all did it growing up, at least those of us not raised in the video game and computer era! When my kids were young we'd play post office, or store, something to that effect, not knowing we were developing literacy. There'd be letters, bills or junk mail for mom, dd or ds! What a fabulous lesson during play, exactly how does the mail get from one place to another? Your children will enjoy this role play activity, drawing upon their experiences and developing many different areas of learning like moral dilemmas.
This role playing booklet is full of fabulous ideas for you and the kids. It explains the various learning outcomes, what type of lesson will be learned, sign recognition, and more. Examples of role playing included are a doctor's office, a supermarket, a fix-it or inventor's workshop, a post office, a pet store, a zoo, a veterinary clinic, a museum, and a restaurant.
If your children are young, don't hesitate to use materials created for ESL students as they are wonderfully imaginative, well created and absolutely perfect lessons using role playing! Not your kid's scene? How about pretending to be a firefly searching for a mate?
BC Hydro has provided online modules for role play about energy education, students take the roles of people in different sectors of society, with different interests in energy-related issues.
The only online role playing game that I would even think to encourage you to check out is Real Lives 2004. It offers kids the opportunity to live other people's lives through a software simulation, it helps kids to understand and feel empathy for people in other parts of the world!
Now, just to find those old halloween costumes and to creat some props! And of course, a role playing corner!
"Walk a mile in my shoes" is good advice. Our children will learn to respect others if they are used to imagining themselves in another's place.
- Neil Kurshan (Raising Your Child to Be a Mensch, ch. 4, 1987)
Studentawards.com – Visit Canada’s largest free scholarship search site – we match Canadian students directly with thousands of scholarships, awards and bursaries.
Boursetudes.com.com – Visitez boursetudes.com, le principal service de recherche de bourses gratuit au Canada – nous trouvons des milliers de bourses d’études, subventions et prix s’adressant aux étudiants canadiens.
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Welcome to Homeschool Nations - Quebec, Canada! Your page for information and links to help you navigate the world of homeschooling! Serving both the French and English Homeschooling Communities in the Region of Quebec!
Bienvenue aux Nations de Homeschool - Québec, Canada! Votre page pour information et les liens pour vous aider à diriger le monde de l'ecole a la maison! En service pour Familles Francophones de Homeschooling et Anglophones dans la région de Québec!
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