Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - Mailbox Surprise
Look what I found in my mailbox today:
This is one of my absolute favorite homeschool resources. Bigger than a major city's telephone book, the 1,358 pages are filled with detailed descriptions and reviews of thousands of products for your school. I refer back to this book all through the year. I take my colored pens and mark things of interest, folding the page corners as I go for quick reference. I use the order forms in the back of the book as a sort of wish list that I look over and fine tune as I go. Every year since we began homeschooling I have ordered from this company and have always been completely satisfied. They have a wonderfully helpful customer service and their website is easy to navigate. If you can't find what you are looking for at the Schoolhouse Store I highly recommend you check out Rainbow Resource Center.
Remember my list about wanting to catch up on some reading. Well this quickly moves to the top of my reading list.
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Monday, June 8, 2009 - Paper Crafts
I found this really neat site that might ward off any summertime boredom that might set in. Because of such a busy week that we have been having, we haven't had a chance to do any of the projects yet, but I have bookmarked it for future use. There are some really great projects that will be perfect for school. Most of them look like they are geared for older children.
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Monday, April 6, 2009 - Free Bible Study Resources
I saw this website the other day and wanted to share. While I am not familiar with this ministry after downloading their free Bible Study resources they seem very straight forward and Biblically sound. They offer full Bible study courses that could be used as a high school credit course. They even have lessons for the younger set.
Check out The Church of Christ in Zion, Illinois.
Another cool site for Bible study for children is Calvary Chapel Children’s Ministry. Broken down into bite-sized pieces, this site offers lessons in both English and Spanish. The mini units include coloring pages and puzzle activities to reinforce the lessons.
Home Life Ministries offers Biblical character training lessons on line.
Another on line Bible study for children that offers downloadable supplements is eBible.com.
Christians Answers has a ton of coloring pages, lesson plans and activities sure to keep you busy while you explore everything offered.
I know there are a whole lot more Bible study sites out there but these are a few that I have used in the past. If you search the web, I'm sure you will find a ton more.
And don’t forget to get your free Easter Bible study e-books from the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. They are not just for Easter.
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Friday, December 19, 2008 - Molly Green at Econobusters
This site was mentioned in the Old Schoolhouse Freebie Friday newsletter. For all kinds of wonderful hints and articles about living within your means this is a really cool site. At this time of year when many tend to overdo and overspend finding help to be good stewards of what God has given us is always welcome. If you haven't had a chance to stop by Econobusters and meet 'Molly Green', I highly recommend a visit.
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Monday, November 17, 2008 - Bird Study
Have you seen this resource from Project Feeder Watch? They are offering a free sample of The Homeschooler’s Guide to Project FeederWatch from the BirdSleuth team at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It has some goods ideas for bird study. The Great Backyard Bird Count has a fun page for kids that you can use along with your study of birds. There are coloring pages along with puzzle and games to play. And if you browse around the National Audubon Society’s kids pages you will find more things to enhance your bird studies. Wild Birds Unlimited has a page with all kinds of interesting tidbits with numerous informational PDFs you can download. Armed with these few resources you can create your own study of our fine feathered friends.
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Thursday, July 3, 2008 - Message from Hobby Lobby
Does anyone get the Hobby Lobby Weekly Specials and Coupons delivered to their e-mail? Well this week they had a great extra that I wanted to share. They have a very nice 4th of July message to download for free. I think you will like it and may find it useful throughout the school year. I don't know how long they will keep it up so you may want to get it soon.
Hobby Lobby Independence Day Message
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - Blog Tools
Cable was out all morning, so I'm late posting. Oh well.
Back in February I told you about Blogarithm and how I used that service to keep track of updated blogs. Well, wouldn’t you know, they switched owners or some other such venture and I no longer get e-mail updates. I found another place that seems to be working even better though. Not only do I get separate e-mails when someone’s blog is updated, but the post comes directly to my mailbox. This seems to be working well especially when I’m stressed for time. I love to keep up with my favorite bloggers and this seems to fill that need. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to work it, but now that I have the hang of it, it is very convenient.
Also, I stumbled upon Feedburner. This tool allows someone to subscribe to your blog and receive e-mails when the blog is updated. I put it on my sidebar, so if you are interested, sign up.
Neat little tools to have around when time is an issue.
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Thursday, May 15, 2008 - Free School Book Resources
I thought I’d share a few website finds especially helpful for older children.
On the McGraw-Hill company website, you can find a lot of supplements for many subjects. Of special interest may be the free PDF English workbooks for grades 6-12. I’ve checked all of these out and they appear to be a great supplement to any curriculum.
You can also find grammar and writing workbooks for grades 1-6 at Scott Foresman.
If you haven’t already checked out the Hoagies Gifted Education page, you may want to. It offers free online high school courses and curriculum material.
At XP math you can download complete math books and some study charts.
For all kinds of e-books and MP3 audio books, visit Free Books.org.
With the bustle of ending the school year and planning for the next, perhaps these resources could come in handy to someone else.
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Thursday, May 1, 2008 - Coloring Pages Links
I have always loved to color. Those great black and white pictures that come to life through the imagination inspired by a box of crayons or palette of colored pencils. My children occasionally share my passion if the picture is just right. During my frequent travels around the web, I have found that there are a whole lot of sites providing a seemingly endless supply of coloring pages.
AokTeacher Stuff has links abound for all kinds of pages.
Author Jan Brett shares the cutest pages from her books.
First School has a wonderful set of coloring pages for little ones. While your there, if you have a preschooler or kindergartner, be sure to check out the other printables they have.
CDK Kids has a nice collection of theme-based pages.
The Plant Conservation Alliance is a fantastic resource for wildflower pictures to color featuring both the common name and the botanical names of flowers
Family Crafts at About.com has a nice list of pages including alphabet, animals, educational, and holidays among others.
Family Crafts also has a long list of character pages including Disney characters, cartoon characters, and other childhood favorites.
Coloring Pages is another resource for lots of coloring links.
Another site that offers Disney character pictures is ABC Home Preschool.
Papa Jan offers a large variety of pages sorted by theme including Bible pages.
One of my favorite resources is Ivy Joy. There is a great source of PDF formatted coloring books that have been put out by various agencies and companies. This is a great resource for educational material.
You’ll love stopping by Mary Engelbreit’s site. I love her whimsical and sweet art.
An awesome site for quilt makers and those that love to color geometrical designs is the WWQP Quilt Coloring site.
For the fisherman in your life, check out Team Tacklebox for some great pictures of fish.
Children’s Garden has a small selection of butterfly, bird, dinosaurs, vegetable, and flower pictures.
Coloring Book Fun has a huge list of pages for just about anything you can think of.
Mom’s Family and Kids Directory has an interesting assortment of pictures to offer.
Looking for realistic animal pictures, National Geographic is the place to check out.
Coloring-Pics has a wonderful choices to chose from.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Services offers all kinds of interesting educational coloring books along with links to other resources.
I know there are a zillion more coloring book sites out there but these are the ones that I have bookmarked and that I come back to the most often. They are great for lapbooking, notebooks, and just plain fun. I hope that you find something that fits your needs.
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Monday, April 21, 2008 - Stewards of the Earth
April 22 is the Earth Day. There may be the argument that this is a secular day, but Genesis 1:26 tells that that we were put in charge of the Earth. I think this means that God wants us to be good stewards of the land. Growing up in the ‘70’s around the influence of the ‘hippie tree huggers’ (no, my parents weren't hippie tree huggers), I have tried to live an eco-friendly way of life. That’s not to say that I am totally green, because I’m not, though we try to make conscientious choices. There are some simple things that we have been doing for ages that I hope have made a difference.
1. We use cloth napkins all the time. Over the years I have made them from discount fabric (from 1 yard of 44” fabric you can usually get 12 napkins), bought them at tag sales, and, when the kids were younger, we used inexpensive facecloths. You not only save trees, but they are much sturdier than their paper counterparts and last for ages.
2. Speaking of facecloths, we never invested in those diaper wipes. We kept an old cool whip tub, filled it with warm water and a facecloth for all our diaper changes. We also applied a thin layer of Vaseline before putting the diaper on and none of the kids ever had a diaper rash.
3. We have been using cloth shopping bags for years. You can find these now at various grocery stores for about $1 and some stores offer a 5-cent credit at the check out for each one you use.
4. Weather permitting; we hang our clothes out on the line. This saves on energy use and the electric bill. (Blogger Friend School Assignment 8)
5. We used reusable sandwich containers, snack containers and water bottles packed into mini coolers whenever we need a sack lunch. We also use reusable storage containers for leftovers and the pantry.
6. We try to recycle what we can whether it be by bringing it to a recycling facility (in SC they have it at the convenience centers where we take our trash making it easy) or using reusing it around the house or for school.
7. As most homeschoolers can attest to, we use a lot of paper, but the rule in our house is you must use both sides. We keep little baskets to store our scrap paper in. Below is an example of what I pulled from cleaning out my files at the end of last year. I was amazed at how many companies only print on one side. I recycled anything that was printed on only one side into scrap paper and this is what I came up with.
I used my paper cutter to cut some of this into 3" squares
Look how much came from that stack.
And this is what was left from cleaning out the files of 1 years worth of bills and reciepts that I couldn't recyle.
These are only a few things that can be done to help take care of our planet. There are so many more and most are not as expensive as buying a Hybrid. Recycling, conservation and just plain conscientious thinking can do wonders.
Here are some links I found if you were planning on doing some Earth Day activities with your kids.
Education World-Happy Earthday Lessons Plans
The Teachers Guide- Earth Day Lesson Plans
Teachervision-Earth Day Teacher Resources
The Science Spot- Earth Day Lesson Plan Links
South Dakota Department of Education- Earth Day math
A to Z Teacher Stuff-Earth Day Theme
The Teacher's Corner-Earth Day Themetic Unit
Note: Tomorrow is the last day to help my daughter reach her goal at her Virtual Home and Garden Party. See the top of this blog for details. We haven't had much luck, but we do appreciate those that have ordered. Thanks again.
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