Inspired To Learn - Homeschool Blogger

Free biblical creation science videos

Wed, 8 Jul 2009 22:24:00 -0500

Here is a large online library of biblical creation science and history videos. These are all free! What a wonderful gift!

"Educational documentaries may be the best witnessing tool available to combat evolution indoctrination. People have become more accustomed to multimedia education than any other type, and new and exciting creation science programs are becoming available each year."

http://www.nwcreation.net/videos/index.html

Teaching to your child's strengths

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 15:37:00 -0500

You will spend a ton of money and everyone in your home will be frustrated until you learn specifically what makes your children each tick. Maximize your student's learning and time spent learning by teaching to their personality and strengths.

If you do not know what those are, spend some time in prayer regarding each one of your children. Ask the Lord to reveal these things to you and for you to have your eyes open to see them.

Keep a notebook for you of each child and make notes, revelations and relevant scriptures that will help you better understand your child's learning styles, strengths and weaknesses and character issues.

If your child really likes to hear audio CDs of history but hates to read it, write that down when you notice it. Where are the character strengths and weaknesses. You may be surprised! If your child is creative, how is she or he creative? With creating music melodies or rhythm? With planning out how a project should lay or color usage? Think outside the box and pay attention. Soon a picture will start to form of all your child's strengths and loves. In the same way, watch what your child loathes or struggles with and jot it down. This will help you to see where the weaknbesses are and hopefully you will pray and ask the Lord how to strengthen those areas. He is always faithful!

Important to note, when you see a strength, be sure to share that with your child to encourage them! And if you see even a small improvement in an area of weakness, be sure to mention it and give praise to them! Record these improvements! With younger children, you may want to make some kind of award or medal that you made to give out periodically. Take their picture wearing it!

Timelines for history

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 13:44:00 -0500

One of the coolest things you can take advantage of as a homeschooler is using timeline. It can be added to every year or a fresh one made. If you add to it every year, it becomes this wonderful living history project that will both cement learning and inspire learning. Discoveries/landmarks in science and family history are great additions to any time line.

Each student could have their own timeline or the whole family might share one. The benefit of each student having one is that your children may be studying different time periods and if they are making their own timeline figures it will be entirely their own creation, instead of a shared project. Each student's timeline would be a cool keepsake, too.

The whole family may decide to have one! It is possible to have a family time line and each student to have their own. What ever your family decides, it will be a project you all will benefit from and enjoy.

Styles of timelines can be mounted to the wall like a hallway, a folding accordian style, or as pages in a binder that you flip through. The binder style is more difficult to grasp the layout as it is not laid out in a linear fashion. If you want to use butcher paper, keep in mind that it may roll up on the edges. There is always the option to laminate it before you add the time line figures and that may help with the rolling edges. Another option is to tape pages together end to end on the back (with strong tape such as packing tape). You may opt for cardstock for a more sturdy project, which I recommend. The heavier, the better. The benefits of this page to page style is that it can be added to if need be on the end, can be folded, can be mounted on the wall, and is small enough to go into a folder or on a shelf.

Your student may create their own artwork for timeline figures, do no art and just write what happened when or use premade artwork for it. Many families enjoy the Homeschool In The Woods products for premade figures and you can reproduce them to save big money. Then all your figures "match" if that is important or you have a child who is not comfortable with their craft skills. I have included some links for free or nearly free timeline figures here below.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ClassicalEducation4Me/9726/

http://www.squidoo.com/homeschooltimelines

http://www.abookintime.com/timelines.html

http://isaiah5413.blogspot.com/2007/01/free-or-almost-free-time-line-figures.html

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=296481

(A topic thread here gives an address to a yahoogroup with 850+ members that share timeline help. I am a member myself.)

http://www.angelfire.com/or/mtdewbydo/timelines.html

http://www.biblioplan.net/timeline.htm

http://www.phillipmartin.info/clipart/socialsciences_ancientcivilizations.htm

37 Weeks of American History

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 11:58:00 -0500

This is a new site that offers up a complete homeschool curriculum, "People of America".
This is a 37-week schedule of scripted American History lessons, geared to kids ages 6-8, and includes units focusing on Native Americans, European Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans & Asian American History. It's a very large site. These are interesting, easy-to-use lessons for primary students. Check it out and see if this is a resource you can use in your homeschool.

http://www.prontolessons.com/

Spelling - Excellent program for 10 cents!

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:52:00 -0500

SPELLING

Pick up a simple spiral notebook in late August during the school supply sales. Usually you can get one for 10/$1.00! This will be your student’s spelling notebook.

You can choose to use this as the place to keep/record the spelling lists or to also complete spelling practice in. If you choose to do the spelling practice in another spiral notebook, try to pick one that is the same color as the first.

Open the spiral notebook and on the first page, or inside the cover, write the basic instructions down for your student.

Your student will be forming a list of words that they misspell throughout the week or over a specified period of time, say two weeks. These words will be recorded in list form on this spelling practice list’s page. Continue until you have 10 or 20 words – depending on the age and ability of the child- then stop the list. You may choose to carry over words that did not make the list because of quantity and any words that were incorrect on their test from last week. If you have trouble coming up with 10 words, choose words that are from lists you can find online or in books of most misspelled words. (200 Most Misspelled Words, AskOxford, Etme, 3 more links here) To buy something, you can get 1001 Most Misspelled Words at a thrift store or new for $10.

Have the student turn to the next page or work in the second spiral notebook to practice spelling each word 20 times. It also works to only spell 10 times and then require a sentence be made for each word. This is also good penmanship and grammar practice.

A test must be given by another student or yourself. If you required sentences to be written, you may decide to say the word and then say the sentence that they wrote for it. It is association and cements the learning process! Any words missed should be recycled onto next weeks list. Be careful to praise the words all spelled correctly. Remember, these are all words that were difficult to that person. These are not the spelling lists we were given as students and we knew how to spell most of them already. Try not to focus on errors made on the test and give plenty of praise where praise is due! So, there you go- an extremely effective spelling program that is tailored to the specific needs of your student and only cost you 10 cents.

Bible: Huge portal - Middle school, high school, adult

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:30:00 -0500

This site is not particularly exciting to the eye, but it has an incredible amount of information and files!!!

There are surveys of the Old & New Testaments, geography, interactive lessons, games & quizzes, Sunday school lessons, articles, entire classes, entire ebooks, just a ton of rich good material that you don't want to miss. I am so delighted to have found it!

We will be using one of the in depth surveys for high school this year.

BIBLE STUDY GUIDE .org

Tired of art messes?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:46:00 -0500

Does a big mess keep you from doing art projects? Here is an idea I came up with recently as I am beginning to implement the "Workbox System" into my home.

You can make up a workbox (plastic tote) for a particular kind of craft or art method.
Like watercolor painting, coloring in colorbooks, stencils, scrapbooking, lapbooking, etc.

One craft per workbox.

If you do this then all the supplies needed for that activity are there. Make sure the scissors, glue sticks, colored pencils or whatever are all in there- whatever is required to that art activity! The child just goes to retrieve the workbox and will not need to search for this and that! The bonus is that it makes it really easy to clean up and put away too!

Writing To Learn

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:11:00 -0500

I am not sure where this article came from or who wrote it, but it is so good that I had to share it. I found it in my files "un-named". Enjoy!

Writing to Learn

One of the best ways for a student to understand a topic is to write about it. Students must comprehend the material, restructure the new information, and then share their new understanding. Writing to learn is much more than an accumulation of report writing; it helps students think and learn carefully and completely. Writing assignments are about creating both ideas and learning. During writing assignments, students learn how to assess information and determine its appropriateness, to evaluate and compare, analyze and discern, add their own feelings, organize information, and communicate conclusions. Through these processes, students learn to manage and use information to solve problems, interrelate knowledge, and effectively communicate learning outcomes. Students develop excellence in achievement by producing the required quality assignments; they develop diligence by continually practicing clarity, accuracy, relevance, prioritizing, consistency, depth, and breadth through writing activities.

Charlotte Mason's narration methods for younger children involve telling back favorite stories read by parents. In later years, students progress to reading passages and telling back in verbal or written form what they have learned. Talking it out, whether aloud or on paper, helps students think.

Often teachers use writing as a way of testing. They use it to find out what students already know, rather than as a way of encouraging them to learn. But the active processes of seeking information, compiling notes, and evaluating, analyzing, and organizing content, as well as the processes of personal reflection, choosing and constructing words, and expressing ideas in writing, are valuable learning tools which students will use the rest of their lives.

Catherine Copley explains in The Writer's Complex:

Writing provides food for thought—it enables you to knead small, half-baked words and sentences into great big loaves of satisfying thought that then lead to more thoughts. Developing ideas involves getting some ideas—in whatever form—onto paper or screen so you can see them, return to them, explore them, question them, share them, clarify them, change them, and grow them. It really is almost like growing plants or kneading bread and waiting for the results: plant the seed, start the process, and then let your mind, including your unconscious, take over. Go to sleep and let your dreaming continue to develop your ideas. Humans were born to think; it's almost impossible to stop us. Writing helps us to bring all that activity into consciousness, helps to clarify and direct our thinking, and generate more thinking. Writing, thinking, and learning are part of the same process.2

Writing Activities in Unit Studies

Writing Summaries—A Narration Method

Unit studies often recommend the student to read passages (particularly Bible passages) and write a summary. This is an excellent way to tell how well people understand something they have read. This method is almost always required preparation for deeper thinking, and is an important tool for research writing. Adding summary writing to a study routine will increase the student’s ability to understand and remember what has been read.

Knowing how to write a summary is an essential skill for studying and writing in college. A good summary captures the essence of a piece of writing in your own words and indicates the degree to which you understand what you have read. Writing summaries helps you understand your sources, reduces your reliance on the words of others, and helps integrate the ideas and information of others into your own thinking. As with most writing, the length of your summary is determined by its purpose and audience.

To write a concise, accurate summary means you first achieve basic understanding of the material you have read and then carefully paraphrase the selection. One reading will not, in all likelihood, enable you to write a good summary. Using reading strategies including previewing, skimming, and scanning, read your material several times, locating the main idea in each paragraph. Highlight and then write down the main ideas, in order, on a separate piece of paper. Always plan on writing and rewriting this information so that you can condense, arrange, and write the summary in the best fashion. Rewrite and reread, and then select, eliminate, and add information. Remember, the summary is conveying in your own words (paraphrasing) the meaning of what you have read, using the fewest number of words and sentences, and without your subjective opinion. Be objective, as you are writing a summary of what the author stated, not your feelings or evaluation of the material. (Linares)

Informal or Free Writing

Informal or free writing is probably the easiest to implement of all writing-to-learn activities. In its basic form free writing is simply writing down everything that comes to mind, usually for five or ten minutes without stopping. Focused free writing, which uses some kind of prompt—a term, an issue, a question, or a problem—is useful for the thematic units.

This type of writing is unconstrained by any need to appear correct in public. It is not yet arranging, asserting, and arguing. It is still reflecting and questioning. This is probative, speculative, generative thinking that is written in class or at home to develop the language of learning. It may not always be read by a teacher. Specifically, informal written language will help your student to:

Develop abilities to define, classify, summarize, question, generate criteria, establish inferences, imagine hypotheses, analyze problems, and identify procedures.
Improve methods of recording and reporting data (observing), of organizing and structuring data into generalizations, of formulating theories, and of recognizing and applying the methodsthemselves.
Learn about central concepts, problem-solving, thinking, learning, language, and about knowledge itself, while developing the ability to question, to create problems and solutions, to wonder, and to think for oneself.
Understand one’s own beliefs and attitudes toward learning, toward knowing oneself, toward one's work, toward mistakes and errors, toward the knowledge and opinions of others, and toward the attitudes that affect behaviors.

Journals

Assignments can be gathered together in a "learning log" or other type of journal. A more powerful type of journal is the "double-entry" or "dialogic" journal in which students copy down quotes, facts, or concepts from a unit study in one column, and write responses, questions, and insights in the next column or on the facing page. In this way the writer engages in an ongoing dialogue with the material
—an ancient but still essential activity of serious intellectual life in any academic field or profession.

Examples of Writing Assignments

Write a letter to a person studied in the unit
Keep a diary or journal as if written by someone in the unit
Write a news article about an event in the unit
Create a web site about the unit
Make a mind map about the unit theme
Write a summary about a concept learned during the unit study

Footnotes

1. For more on this subject see the “Writing to Learn” chapter in Writers Inc or Writing to Learn by William Zinsser, Harper Collins; ISBN: 0062720406.
2. Copley, Catherine. (1995) The Writer's Complex, Empire State College

History, Geography, Current events

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:07:00 -0600

History:

Scripted People of America History Lessons. Home School Curriculum | Free Home School Lessons for Beginners
Little City Kids. Kindy or 1st grade world history and geography. Little City Kids : Daily Lesson Plans
American Heritage. Uses teacher jargon, but is complete. Curriculum
Mosaic Introduction to World History Free Lesson Plans: Mosaic Introduction to World History Part 1: Myths, Maps, and Marvels
American History American History Curriculum

Geography:

Current Events:

TIME for kids. Time For Kids | Classroom
NY Times Learning Network. Updated daily and many archived lessons. The New York Times Learning Network

Countries and Cultures around the world. Elementary age. Countries and Cultures of the World
Sheppard Software Geography (Online) World Maps - geography online games
Discover America State by State. Uses the C is for...... book series. Gale . Discover America Series . Find Out More . Student Activities
Outline Maps Outline Maps

Language Arts

Sat, 7 Mar 2009 17:05:00 -0600

Literature/Reading Guides and Units:
Novel Study Guides Novel Study Guides for the Classroom Teacher
Reading Units by Gay Miller. Awesome resource. Book Units
Garden Of Praise Reading Units. Many popular 2nd and 3rd grade reading level titles. Literature Based Reading Lessons
Glencoe Literature Guides. Lots of popular titles. Glencoe Literature: Literature Library
Literature Activity Guides by Nancy Polette. These are samples, but are in depth enough to test if your child understood the story. Literature Guides
SCORE Cyberguides. California Schools. http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/SCORE/cyberguide.html

Free Books:
Classical Education Library Classical Education Library
Kids 4 Classics. Read Free Classical Literature Online at Kids4Classics
Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog - Overview - Project Gutenberg
Online Library of Liberty. You could spend a lot of time on this site. Online Library of Liberty - Groups
Google Books.Tons of books to read for free. Google Book Search
The Baldwin Project. Lots of free Classic books to print or read online.The Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project...Bringing Yesterday's Classics to Today's Children
Planet ebook Free section. Lots of Classic literature available to print or read online. Free eBooks at Planet eBook - Classic Novels and Literature You're Free to Share

Spelling/Vocab.:
ZB Spelling Connections Spelling Connections - Practice Pages
Splashes from the River Free Spelling Course
Webster’s Spelling http://www.donpotter.net/PDF/Webster...ook%201824.pdf
(online) Spelling City Online Spelling Program*-*SpellingCity.com
Merriam-Webster. Daily Buzz Word. Merriam-Webster's Word Central

Handwriting:
ZB Online Zaner-Bloser FontsOnline 0.6.4
Writing Wizard Make Handwriting Worksheets - ESL Writing Wizard
Custom Tracer Pages Custom Tracer Pages
Nice Writing Paper printables Patterned Paper Index Page@2Learn.ca

Grammar and creative Writing:
Harvey's Grammar Elementary Grammar and Composition - Google Book Search
Young Novelist Workbooks. There is a workbook for elementary, middle and high school. Designed to go with national novel writing month, but can be used any time. Young Novelist Workbooks | NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program
English Banana Elementary Workbook. For individual pages go to: englishbanana.com - Print Your Own: Big Grammar Book > Free Worksheets for English, EFL and ESL Lessons For complete download go to: English Banana.com's Big Grammar Book - Reviews and free English Banana.com's Big Grammar Book downloads at Download.com
Scott Foresman Scott Foresman Reading: Teacher Resources
Kiss Grammar The KISS Grammar Site -- Main Page
Daily Grammar Daily Grammar Lessons Archive - Comprehensive archive of grammar lessons