Welcome to the kickoff of what I'm choosing to call "Teaching Tidbits" - a small tour each Friday of resources we've enjoyed or found valuable during our homeschool journey.  I hope new and veteran homeschoolers alike will find something helpful each week.

BOOKS: 

The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne

This was our introduction into the world of chapter books when ds1 was 5.  He's now 9 and still loves the series.  We've enjoyed many of the accompanying research guides as well, although I do not care for the information in some and have chosen to not use those in our studies/free-time reading.  As with any book, review the contents and make your own decision if it's right for your family or not.

ART & MUSIC:

Check out these free printable art and music notebooking pages.  Don't feel that you have to use them in a "notebooking" capacity.  I personally love the layout of some of the artist biography pages and picture study pages and will be using them individually starting next school year as we dig deeper into fine art studies.

PRINTABLE FORMS:

Highland Heritage Forms offers over 800 free printable forms covering an array of topics ... reading, planning & organization, Bible, portfolio, field trips, science, awards, music, history, language arts, spelling, math, and so on.

HOMESCHOOL PRESCHOOL:

Everything Preschool has changed a lot in appearance since I utilized it many years ago when doing preschool with our oldest.  I'll definitely be visiting it again ... quite often ... to use with our youngest.  Browse the site's themes, lesson plans, project recipes, coloring pages, and alphabet ideas for use with all the special little people in your life.

GEOGRAPHY:

An assortment of printable maps can be found here.

SCIENCE:

Visit Astronomy Picture of the Day for stunning photos and written explanations daily.  Be sure to enjoy the archive - it goes back to June 1995!  The index offers many more learning opportunities covering the cosmos, solar system, space technology, scientists, astronauts, and the sky.

HEALTH:

These printable human anatomy pages can be used as coloring pages or for labeling.