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• 1.26.2008 - Kids4Truth
Today's resource is Kids4Truth. This site if full of eye-candy that's good for the soul.
Kids 4 Truth International is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that exists to inspire and equip God's people to reach boys and girls worldwide with the memorable, creative, leading-edge teaching of God-focused truth. Since the first time I saw their creation dynamation, I was hooked. Since that time, they have created many more. Scripturally sound, these eye-popping dynamations bring to life the simple truths of the Bible. I don't think there are enough adjectives to describe their beauty. Some literally bring me to happy tears. All of them minister to me in various ways. In order to view their website, you will need to have the free Flash player installed. If you don't have it on your system, there will be a link that shows up for you to install it.
As if the multimedia dynamations weren't enough, there are a myriad of other Christ centered resources on this site. Here are just a few:
- Great Christian Stuff
- Art Works ~ Coloring Pages based on the dynamations on their site
- The Blade's Edge ~ Tools for defending your faith
- God's Questions ~ Biblically Sound Q & A about God
- Interactive ~ Post prayer requests, pray for others, post ideas for kids and their parents to grow in Christ
- Just Neat Stuff ~ Servant Spotlight, History of Hymns and their Writers, and Bible Stories
- Me and My Parents ~ Read or post ideas for kids and their parents
- Missions ~ spotlight on a missionary and their work
- Real Audio ~ Children's Audio-Adventure Stories
- Daily Devotions
- Audio and text version
- Description of God
- Question and Answer
- Big Christian Word and definitition
- Free Screensavers of all the Dynamations
- Send free e-cards
As you can see, there are some great resources for growing your children in Christ.
Let me know what you think!
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• 1.20.2008 - Open Source Queen, I Am, I Am . . .
As you have probably noticed, I have listed a few open source programs as resources. I have to say that I absolutely love perusing the absolutely gigantic open source program listing on SourceForge. It would take forever and ever to look at each program. You can't really do that easily since it is such a massive database of open source projects. I go on there every now and then to look for this or that, and I can usually find some gems. Today is no different. I hope you enjoy these two as much as I have. Anytime that I take the description from the website in question, I italicize the text.
Stellarium
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. Just set your coordinates and go. It is absolutely beautiful and easy to navigate. If you are having problems, they have a forum and some great user's guide. It's a pretty hefty size if you are downloading with a dial-up connection. This will be great when we start working on Astronomy. I cannot say enough about it. You can overlay the drawings of the constellations, the names of the constellation, the art of the constellations, names and locations of nebula. You can search for a particular system. It goes on and on.
FreeMind
FreeMind is mind-mapping software. These are great for you and your students to organize thoughts for essays, papers, homework, working out problems, planning projects, etc. This little program is just as good as any mind-mapping software out there, and best of all, it's free. One thing I really liked about the program is the ability to change the appearance of the interface. I know, that's a bit trivial, but that's how I am. I played with it a little bit, and it seems very intuitive to use. I think it is a definite must-have for any homeschool.
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• 1.14.2008 - Graphics Programs
Today's resource topic is on graphics programs. I use a variety of graphics programs, some of them that have been purchased, and some that are freeware. Since the high-end graphics programs are probably out of reach for a good many homeschoolers, I am going to focus on some open source programs that are easily as good as some of the professional programs.
The Gimp ~ It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. It also allows you to add plug-ins. I think it is every bit as good as Photoshop, without the high pricetag.
Inkscape ~ An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. I haven't used this much, but I've looked it over, and it has a very nice interface, and some great tools for vector drawing. If you are just getting into vector drawing, this would be a great program to learn with.
Art of Illusion ~ a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. This is just a neat toy for me, but I'm sure there are people out there that could do amazing things with this program.
Blender 3D ~ This is another 3D modelling program used to make animations and games. It is an extremely cool program that I haven't really mastered. The website offers all kinds of help to learn how to use the program effectively. Definitely worth a peak.
Well, I think that's enough for now! That should keep our budding animators and graphic artists busy for a few days at least. |
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• 12.29.2007 - PDFCreator
Today's free homeschool resource is PDF Creator. PDFCreator is tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application. Use it in any program you can print from. It is particularly useful for creating electronic homeschool reports to be emailed or stored on CD.
Have you designed something in Word and want to send it someone and keep the formatting you used? For instance, you recently downloaded a cool font and created something with it. Odds are that others don't have that font. Print it to PDF! |
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• 11.23.2007 - Homeschooling Resources!!!
I've decided to start a list of homeschooling resources. I will feature one or two every couple of days, along with a small review, in the hopes that it will help someone out there in the blogosphere.
Today I will start with my favorite resource:
Homeschool Tracker is a wonderful software for keeping your homeschooling records. The creators were homeschoolers themselves. They have a Basic version that is free, with no strings attached. They plan to offer it for as long as the Lord allows them to. The Basic version is a good program in its own right. I used it for a year before they came out with the Plus version and it met my needs.
The Plus version (HST+) has a lot more bells and whistles than the Basic version. It has a very low price for what you get. Once you pay for the version, all upgrades are FREE! The customer and technical support are superb. They host a forum where you can talk about how you use the program. If you are having trouble wrapping your mind around a concept, or how best to enter your curriculum, the forum users, as well as the creators, provide some great help. If you have a technical issue, you can email the support email, and unless they are on vacation, they will answer you within the day. Usually within minutes. There are videos on the website for helping to learn the program, and the creators hold online classes to help those who want some extra help.
One of the best perks of the software are the upgrades. Each major upgrade adds some tremendous features which a user may use, or not use, depending on their needs. The creators consider each request for new or changed features, and try to incorporate them into the next big updates (which is ALWAYS free). They recently added the ability to share lessons plans among users. So, if I have set up a lesson plan for using my math textbook, and I have a friend with HST+ that is using the same textbook, I can send them the lesson plan to import into their program. This feature is only for non-copyrighted plans. For example, Sonlight publishes an IG to go with books you can readily check-out from the library. Sonlight holds the copyright for the way the books are taught from, so I couldn't share that lesson plan. I can however, enter those lesson plans into my HST+ for my personal use. (That is all hypothetical ~ I don't use Sonlight).
For a comprehensive list of the HST Plus program features, visit the website and explore by clicking the logo above.
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