Thursday, April 19, 2007 - Book Choices

It’s that time of the year again when I start looking for the kids’ learning material for next year.  Where I have chosen not to use a prepared curriculum, choosing the right books and resources to use can be a daunting task.  Although I feel that I am very thorough in my investigations, the best measure of my choices is my children. 

My absolute favorite company for information is Rainbow Resource Center. Their catalog, the size of a phonebook from a major city, has a permanent place among my homeschool resources. I refer to it often whenever I want to learn more about a particular program or book.  It not only has excellent product descriptions, but they also provide very helpful reviews among its thousand plus pages.  I have ordered from them many times and they have an exceptional customer service.  For example, shortly after receiving a book I had ordered, I received a phone call from Rainbow.  They had just received the revised version of the book and they were sending it out to me, no charge. I didn’t even have to return the older version.  Another time I had e-mailed a question about a product and a personal reply was sent the next day. I really appreciate being able to deal directly with a person and not have to deal with a ton of automated services.  Their commitment to personal service has kept me going back to this company. Their website is easy to use and has reviews and product descriptions also.

Along with Rainbow Resource, I also rely heavily on a few web sites to get different views of the product I’m checking out.  A lot of books on Amazon have a ‘Look Inside’ feature so you can get a better idea of what the book is about and there are also customer reviews.  Christian Book Distributors also offers views and insights to the books they carry.  Then I usually try to go to the publishers’ sites to see what information they have to share. I don’t always buy from these companies but I do appreciate the valuable information that they provide.

So, with these ‘tools’ at my disposal, I set about the task of next year’s choices.  I’m sure I will make some good one’s and I know there’ll be some bad, but with much prayer maybe my kids won’t be scarred for life. LOL

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - Link Sites to Visit-1

Posted in Websites and Other Resources

Here is a list of some of the link sites that I have used over the years.  Some are homeschool sites, others are teacher sites.

EduHound              

Free Stuff For Teachers                 

Books for Homeschool

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators-Discovery School

Home With Kids Links for Schooling         

Homeschool Christian

Pro-Teacher         

Resources for Christian Teachers

Teach at Home

Happy Surfing!

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007 - Sites to See

Posted in Websites and Other Resources

Here are a few more sites to check out:

Cathy Duffy Reviews is a great place to find out about different curriculum choices.

I also like to go to Homeschool Reviews and read what others who have used certain curriculums think.

 

Core Knowledge Foundation is a great source for lesson plans that you can search by grade level and/or subject. I have used this site when we did unit studies.

Homeschooling Family to Family has a huge list of resources and links to publishers arranged alphabetically .

 

A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling Web Site,

American Homeschool Association,

Homeschooler Central, and Homeschooler's Helper are  all great places for information, resources, links and communities that cover all homeschooling spectrums.

Hope you find some of these interesting and helpful.  More to come later.

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Monday, March 5, 2007 - Couldn't Wait

Posted in Websites and Other Resources

I just stumbled upon these sites while looking for a way to help my daughter with multiplication and I just had to share.

This one has all knds of online educational games, info and printables.  I checked out only a few  and got excited with the possibilities.

Gamequarium

This one has online tutorials and exercises.

Visual Math Learning

Thought that they were great finds and had to post them. 

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Monday, March 5, 2007 - A Few Websites to Visit

Posted in Websites and Other Resources

I have a large list of ‘Favorite” websites that I have book marked over the years.  I thought that from time to time that I would share them with you.  I’m sure there are many that most of you already know about but I felt they were worth sharing over and over again.

 Paula’s Archives-This site is a great resource for those that like the learning through literature method. She includes information and resources in these categories: Homeschool and Curriculum Materials, Stages of Homeschooling, Non-homeschool topics like tips & recipes, and her favorite links. Along with her Vocabulary Vine for Latin and Greek roots, I especially like her Story of the World resources in which she has workbooks for SOTW 1 & 2, and has charts that correlates Tapestry of Grace, Children’s History of the World, Mystery of History 1, Veritas Press and other programs with SOTW.

 I am sure everyone is familiar with Donna Young’s site.  This is one of my very favorites for forms, planning sheets and other helpful worksheets. A must see for all new homeschooling families.

 

Another great find is Homeschool Tracker. When I first stumbled upon this, I downloaded the free basic edition and used that for a year.  Last year I purchased the Plus edition.  I love using this for my entire planning and record keeping.  It is fairly simple to learn how to use. Last year I added things week-by-week, day-by-day. This past summer I laid out my entire basic lesson plans for the year, so now all I have to do is submit them to the assignment grid, print out the week’s work (you don’t have to do this but my kids like to see what’s up for the week) and Viola! scheduling is done.  What is so nice is that if something comes up or changes it is easy to reschedule any assignment. Report cards, attendance records, and even transcripts are a snap now.  I highly recommend this to anyone who likes to keep his or her records on the computer.

 Hope you find these sites helpful.  Eventually, I’d like to create 1 blog or a place with just the sites listed (no description) as soon as I figure out how to do that. J

 

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