Hey everyone! The Learning A-Z website is doing their FREE 7 day trial membership to their sites again. Here are the details below. It is a great time to check out the sites and see if you want to subscribe or even just to get a few downloads while they are FREE! Enjoy! - Deedee

Today’s best teachers meet the unique needs of every student. That’s where LearningA-Z.com comes in. Through six integrated websites, LearningA-Z.com provides a wealth of downloadable, printable, projectable, and online resources for every K-6 classroom. But don’t take our word for it — sign up for a free 7-day trial by November 13, 2009 and experience the sites for yourself! Filled with thousands of readers at 27 levels of difficulty, ReadingA-Z.com provides resources for differentiated instruction and improving comprehension. Also contains assessments, worksheets, lesson plan templates, and many other teacher resources! Raz-Kids.com is an interactive reading site where kids can read or listen to 27 levels of animated books online — anytime, anywhere! ScienceA-Z.com delivers science curriculum resources, organized by unit themes and grouped into grade spans, for elementary teachers to teach a concept at each student’s appropriate reading level. WritingA–Z.com provides teachers with all the resources necessary to teach the common process writing genres, including expository, narrative, persuasive, procedural, and transactional. Contains thousands of words placed in content-area, functional, and resource-correlated categories. Teachers can also build their own vocabulary lists and lessons!

   This site is chock full of problems! And no, that isn't a bad thing.  They are maths problems, word problems, puzzle problems and fun educational 'problem' sheets on all sorts of subjects. This is a great site for adding a little fun to your lessons. Enjoy - Deedee

The Problem Site

   I don't know about you guys, but I have two boys and my nine year old is devouring books faster than they can publish and print them! LOL! And this was the child who couldn't read at all at 7 1/2! What was I worrying about?

   Well, I know that one of the hardest things is to find decent books for boys to read that aren't full of 'Naughty' and 'Horrid' children, ghosts, goblins, scorcerers, and downright ocultic material. It is REALLY hard to find these days!

   We have contacted our library about this and discovered that there is a room in the back that contains all the 'classic' children's literature! Now we have a list of those books and can ask for them anytime. That certainly was helpful!

   The other thing is something that came to my inbox this morning. Ed Dunlop, who is the author of the FAB allagorical series called 'The Terrestria Chronicles' is now offering several of his other books for boys as FREE ebooks!!!! Whoo Hoo!!

   I know that ebooks can be a pain especially for kids but at the cost of buying good Christian books for kids (especially boys!) I have worked out that it will be cheaper for me to print these off or get them printed at Staples or some other stationary shop than the cost of buying the same books from the states and getting them shipped over! They are formatted in two page spreads so you can fold the pages and read them like a book.

   Click over to this link http://www.talesofcastles.com/free-book-downloads.htm to find the links. There are the entire 'Jed Cartwright' series of 6 books about a 12 year old boy. These have a strong lesson in a Biblical principle in each one, such as 'obedience', 'restoration', 'materialism' and 'God's protection'.

   There are also three other books by Ed on that page for download, and they all look great! So hurry on over and get some brilliant books for your boys! (Of course some girls would probably enjoy these stories too! I remember running out of 'girl' books to read and turning my attention to my brother's book shelf during the summers. I think I often enjoyed the adventure stories in them even more than the girly stories I usually read!) - Deedee

* I found this post back in the archives and decided to recycle it to the top as there are some great links in it! Have fun checking them out. - Deedee *

Hi everybody! Ok here goes. I'm going to attempt to bounce back and forth between here and my favourites list to compile a list of sites for you to check out for free lesson plans and worksheets. I'll try and comment on wether they are better for one age group of another.

• www.atozteacherstuff.com  - Great site for themes! Lesson plans and worksheets on a variety of subjects. Some downloads are chargeable but most are free!
• www.akidsheart.com - Terrific resources for preschoolers and for holiday activities.Cute site too!!
• http://coloringcottage.com - Great site for coloring pages on all sorts of subjects.
• http://coloringbookfun.com - Fantastic coloring page site!! Top marks! Lots of 'character' coloring sheets (great for birthday parties) and coloring sheets listed by subject. Great add-ons for unit studies etc.
• www.dltk-kids.com - This site is great! They have a section on Bible stories, lesson plans, printable activity sheets, and crafts. There is also a section where you can use their templates and create whatever sheets you need, star charts etc. They even have Veggie Tales!
• www.dupagechildrensmuseum.org/aunty -This is the home of Aunty Math, a great math site for kids.
• www.teachcoal.org/lessonplans/elementary.html - OK! So I realize it is about American coal but coal is coal - right! Some of the activities and lesson plans are really creative! And it is really interesting,esp. if like me you live in a village and have coal heating!!
• www.explorerbiblestudy.org/index.htm - This is the site for this particular course of bible curriculum. But if you go on the site and follow though the process till you are asked for the quantity to buy you will see a button saying view sample. Click that button and you will get a weeks worth of that book in pdf form to print off. Great for a one off, or to 'try before you buy'. 
• www.thehomeschoolmom.com - What you can't find here might be shorter list! Check it out. Lots of link on to other sites, and encouragement for homeschool Moms (or Mums)!
• www.funbrain.com - This one has lots of online educational games for elementary school age children. I especially like the math baseball!
• www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk - This one is for those of you with teenagers. They do GCSE's and A level's.
• www.freedom-in-education.co.uk - A good site to find answers to questions about Home education in England.Especially good for those just starting out!
• www.home-education-resources.co.uk - Lots of link on here. Information about national curriculum, printable worksheets, and UK home education organizations.
• www.earlychildhoodlinks.com - A site to link off of to many others for preschool materials.
• www.schoolexpress.com - A great site with LOTS of printables.There is a sampler of 100 worksheets which you can print for free, several unit studies, and a free e-newsletter. Also for $25 a year (about £15) you can buy a membership and access 1000's of worksheets and ebooks!

OK, well there's a start! And I'm only halfway down my 'Favourites' School list! I'll try and post the rest next week, I think these might keep you busy till then!! And be sure to look at the sites that were posted by Dawesacadamy in the comment of my last posting. The ichtus one is FANTASTIC! A real find!

   Have a great week! - DeeDee

Click on the link below for a free booklet of Spring activities to do with children.

http://www.naturedetectives. org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/09D9B882- 2C1F-4BB2- 98E5-46D35D018CE 7/0/spring_ booklet.pdf

Enjoy!

Sarah

Books for Keeps advertises itself as 'THE children's book magazine'.  Whether or not this is true, I don't know,(!) but here you can read it's latest reviews and keep tabs on new literature being published. 

One thing of interest on the site is a list of the 50 books that Booktrust found in a recent survey to be the best children's books of all time.  Interestingly 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S. Lewis came out as the Best Children’s Book of all Time.  It beat modern day classics such as Harry Potter and The Gruffalo to the top spot.

You can also request a free copy of the magazine.  They say, 'Try a copy of the magazine and read for yourself why Books for Keeps is the best independent resource about children's literature.'

I requested a copy and received two!  They do cover quite a range of articles and issues.  It costs £26.50pa.  It is very interesting, but I think I'm going to make enquiries at my local library to see if I can access copies there. 

Why don't you check it out yourself?

Sarah

Some time ago I came across a great site which allowed you to go through a simulation of a heart operation.  I was surprised how much I learnt from it and thought others might like to let their budding surgeons have a look.  It is here, a British Heart Foundation site. 

There is plenty of other information available there about the heart including this for 'teachers' (us, then!) 

They say: "Education is at the root of combating heart disease. Encouraging young people to live a heart healthy lifestyle, minimises their risk of developing heart disease in the future. This is the place for teachers, parents and pupils to find out more about the science behind the heart and how to avoid heart problems."

Then a friend told me about another site where you could 'perfom' hip surgery.  You can find that here.  There are also real photos of an operation there. Again, it is very intersting and informative.

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Sarah

The nature department of the Disney franchise are releasing a new movie called 'earth' on Earth Day, April 22, 2009

The film is about the life of the polar bear, the African elephant and the humpback whale.  This website  has both a student activity book and a teacher's guide for free in pdf format to link with the film.   The activities are primarily aimed at Yr 4-6 (ages 8-11), but are adaptalbe to others.

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Sarah

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Sarah

A few days ago I was listening to Radio 4 when a truly enthusiastic man was being interviewed.  The interviewer could not quite believe his enthusiasm or believe what he was being told. 

This website was being advertised.  It is called Galaxy Zoo, because it is like a zoo of different galaxies.  They say, "Welcome to Galaxy Zoo, where you can help astronomers explore the Universe." 

At this site we, the public, can get involved in solving the mysteries of the universe.  Absolutely true!  Some time ago they launched the first version of the site and asked the public to look at some of the information that was coming from various telescopes pointing into space.  What they found was that the public were actually better at finding anomalies than the professionals.  Directly due to 'the public' several strides forward have been made in mapping and understanding the universe.  Cool, eh?

So, here is Galaxy Zoo 2 and they are asking for more help.  What a great thing to get involved in when we study the universe!

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Sarah

NASA have a great website bursting with educational ideas for children (and adults) of all ages.  You can find it here. 

If, like me, you find the American grade system a little confusing, the British system is 1 more than the grade eg. US Grade 1 is British Year 2, age 6-7;  grade 4 is year 5, age 9-10 and so on.

They have topic 'packs' on all kinds of things such as Saturn, space food and nutrition, how space suits are made, how toys would behave in space and how airplanes fly, not forgetting Buzz Lightyear!  For older students there are sections on real world algebra, how your body changes in space, optics and the importance of water.

There are also some fun games to play which I found here.

Hope you find something good!

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Sarah

Here is another amazing site for maps. 

It is called Worldmapper and titles itself 'The World as you've never seen it before'.  

It is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.  There are nearly 600 maps in in many categories, including movement, transport, food, resources, education, disease, population, and cause of death. 

Some of the maps are quite moving, because you have visual evidence of inequalities in the world.

A fascinating and valuable resource!

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Sarah

I've heard today that Truth in Science has just confirmed that their offer of a free DVD to schools is extended to home educators. The DVD is called Unlocking the Mystery of Life and it covers several of the aspects of the theory of evolution and puts forward the case for Intelligent Design by peer reviewed scientists, who are experts in their fields.

Interest in this controversy has increased in recent times with advances in molecular biology and genetics. The DVD makes a scientfically based contribution to a very worthwhile subject for study, leading to discussions on ethics ( the use of eugenics), the philosophy of science, definitions of science, as well as the history of science. It may lead to comparing different
worldviews/religions and their outworking in everyday life.

The DVD is available from http://www.truthinscience.org. uk/site

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Sarah

   Hiya folks! Deedee here. I'm actually back in the land of the 'internet connected'!!! We have now moved, have working broadband (after only four months of waiting!), and are back from our trip to America.

   Sarah has done a FABULOUS job of keeping the UK blog going. We are now going to team blog it, so you will find both of us on here. So, I hope you enjoy the variety.

   I found this information about a new online newsletter that you can sign up for that sends you online school activities to do each week. It might make a nice addition to other curriculum and give some variety.Hope you enjoy it. Here are the details.

ClickSchooling (http://www.clickschooling.com/) - Get free,
daily, web-based curriculum ideas that save you time and money
and boost your kids' knowledge of the world. The free reviews
are sent in a daily email, Monday through Saturday, that are
focused on a specific subject as follows:

* Monday = Math
* Tuesday = Science
* Wednesday = Language Arts
* Thursday = Social Sciences
* Friday = Virtual Field Trip
* Saturday = Electives: Music, Art, & Languages

The sites include excellent information delivered in a
student-friendly, multi-media format, and often contain free
interactive games as well as printable lessons and materials
that can be tweaked to your needs and interests whether you
are homeschooling, unschooling, or after-schooling. Many
teachers use these recommended resources in the classroom as
well. Most of the sites are suitable for a wide age range.

Subscribe to ClickSchooling (by visiting
http://www.clickschooling.com/) ) and start
getting the latest
reviews for free.

You can also search the content-rich ClickSchooling archives
here: (http://www.homefires.com/clickschool/archive.asp) >

This is a fantastic website with loads of information about natural England - the flora and fauna, walks and parks and so on.  They say, 'Natural England is here to conserve and enhance the natural environment for its intrinsic value, the wellbeing and enjoyment of people and the economic prosperity that it brings.'

They have pages on education, including packs to help you teach all kinds of topics like rocks, traffic and habitats.  For those who are interested there is detailed information on how each topic links to the National Curriculum.  You can find out more here. 

They also have a campaign to improve the health of those in England by walking.  There are groups walking all over the country.  You can check out more information here. 

I hope you'll find some great ideas for after Christmas!

Sarah