Know They Love You

Grammar Books Arrive

2012-01-21T16:57:00.001-04:00

When my oldest was in Grade 4 he started Grammar.
There were a few reasons for this. OK there were 2. One was that I discovered a great grammar program called Growing With Grammar just before finalizing my curriculum plan for the year. The other was because he was ready for it.

My youngest is in third grade this year. He's all boy. School work is fine with him, but there's no eagerness to do it, unless it means finishing early to do something fun.

Over the Christmas break he asked me offhandedly when he would be starting to learn Grammar. The conversation went something like this:

"Mom, when will I start to do Grammar?" note the incorrect verb usage "do Grammar."
"When you're in grade four."
"Oh, I would like to start to do Grammar this year."
"Really? We'll see." meaning, 'not likely.'

Two weeks later:
"Mom. Did you get me a Grammar book yet?"
"Oh, no I didn't get one. You have to order them."
"Can you order me one?"
"I suppose." meaning 'he'll likely forget about this and he's not really ready for Grammar yet.

The next week.
"Did my Grammar book come yet?"
"Oh, I didn't order it yet."
"Oh, (sad face.) Can you order it for me today?
"Not today (said in the middle of cleaning kitchen before heading to work.) But I will." meaning 'when I think of it at a time when I can actually act on it.'

Later that week:
"Did you order my Grammar book yet?"
"No, not yet, but I'll order it soon."
"Do you promise?"
"Yes, I promise." Which means 'looks like I'm actually going to have to order this boy a grammar book before grade 4.'

On Friday:
"Have you ordered my Grammar book yet?"
"No but, I did promise I would do it, and I will do it very soon." meaning 'shoot! I forgot to order the Grammar!'

On Monday I ordered the Grammar books.
"I ordered your Grammar books today."
"Yes!" big grin, fist pump. seriously?

On Tuesday:
"Did my Grammar book get here yet?"
"No it's coming from New Brunswick."
"Do they speak English or French in New Brunswick?"
"Both, or either, but the people I'm dealing with speak English."
"Phew." big sigh. "I was worried they'd send French ones!"

On Wednesday:
"I got a box in the mail today. Do you want to open it for me?"
"Sure." shoulder shrug.
The look on his face when he opened it said it all. I'd seen this face recently, but it was on Christmas Morning. I've got photographic evidence of this so that someday, and it will come, when he complains about having to do his Grammar assignment I'll have some evidence that he was happy about it once.

He started Grammar as soon as the mail was taken in on Wednesday January 18th, in Grade 3.

Mulitplication

2012-01-14T09:51:00.000-04:00

We're learning multiplication this year. One of the things that works best by drill is learning the math facts. There's a website called IXL that has tons of online educational resources for every grade level. They have multiplication drills for every stage of learning. The first one is writing multiplication sentences from a picture. Check it out here.

Kids really do love technology and (at my house anyway) they think that it's a special treat if they can do their school work on a computer or tablet.

Here's the full table of contents of math drills available for multiplication.

Documentaries for Free

2012-01-10T23:18:00.000-04:00

In our school we treat the core subjects as academic and the others as elective. Let me clarify what that means. For me it means we study math, reading, and writing on a daily basis using curriculum materials for the most part. The other areas such as world studies (history and geography) and science are explored in a free fashion.

A large component of our elective studies are documentaries and lectures. My eldest has a penchant for Astronomy and our family has purchased the Great Courses Lecture series Understanding the Universe: An introduction to Astronomy taught by Professor Alex Filippenko from California Institute of Technology, Berkeley. Our 12 year old is on lecture 44 of 96 30 minute lectures This is a pricey series. Right now they have a 70% off special on many of their courses.

There are also numerous high-quality documentaries available to view online for FREE. Such as Planet Earth presented by the BBC. We have started to catalogue documentaries of interest to us on our documenary blog.

Water

2012-01-10T00:04:00.004-04:00

This documentary, A World Without Water reminds us that water is something we as Canadians take for granted. Let's remember that we are fortunate to have daily access to clean safe water. Many countries around the world have very little water, and it is only available to the rich. Corporations gain marketshare on fresh water and individuals are having to do without.

Let's keep water on our minds. Let's advocated for the safekeeping of our water supply. Let's not let industry abscond this essential resource.

Climate change is at the forefront of all of our minds these days. Water should be as well.

Cable TV Free

2012-01-07T14:48:00.000-04:00

You might be wondering what we've been up to lately.

Life keeps us pretty busy, as I'm sure you're experiencing as well. And because we're so busy we don't watch very much television. But for some reason we still had cable TV. It's a bit of a hard habit to break.

The TV keeps me company sometimes when I'm alone at night. It's dynamic and mindless so I don't have to think. Just hit the "on" button and then surf around until I find something that catches my attention. So, the thought of a dead TV: one without a life line of network feeds from around the continent was a scary one. One that I was not willing to embrace.

About a year ago I got up the willpower to cancel my cable subscription. But, the lovely supervisor of customer service convinced me that what I really needed was cheaper services. So, they wooed me to stay on for another 12 months by offering me a 10% loyalty discount as well as discounts on the equipment I was renting from them: effectively reducing my bill by $30 a month.

Now finally, at the end of the year I found the gumption to pack up my DVR and my cable box and return them. In the process saving myself $55 a month over and above the $30 savings that I was on the verge of losing. So, effectively saving myself $85 a month.

I have been watching streaming videos on my computer for a while now. The trouble is that in order to watch programming online you have to have an idea what you might like to watch. It's not as easy as just browsing the listings and flipping to your channel of choice. You need a place to start.

So, to help myself "surf" my favourite shows (and the favourites of other adults who use my TV like Grandmothers who child mind sometimes) I started a blog called Cable Free Lisa. Many of the shows I like to watch are now visually displayed on my computer monitor for perusal. I told a couple of friends about it and they wanted the link so they could surf shows easily. Albeit, they are my favourites not necessarily theirs.

I've begun to build a page for the kids as well: you can find it at CableFreeKids. I haven't got much up there yet, but I'm sure you'll see a few more shows there as time passes.

Back to the School Room

2012-01-03T15:15:00.000-04:00

Several years ago we renovated our house to expand the usable area of the home to include the area above the garage. It's on the upper level with the bedrooms.

We build lovely built-in book cases and put a nice hardwood floor down. It was our School Room.

The "problem" was that our youngest was only 4 at the time and it was difficult for us to work in the room, since none of the kids (the oldest was 8) could be left in the room alone and expected to continue working at a task. So, the room became the craft room/hobby room/ironing room /storage room. And then of course we didn't use it for school work, it was just too cluttered.

Over the Christmas holiday we purged the room and prepped it for school use. Our youngest is now 8 and the oldest 12.

Each child has their own workspace which they chose for themselves. Their books are conveniently located on a shelf to the right. At the start of the day I make a pile on their left (the inbox) for their academic subjects that follow a curriculum. As they work through the pile the completed work gets placed in the "please mark me" pile or returned to the book shelf on their right (the outbox).

We are loving the change. It sure beats cleaning up school books in order to eat lunch off the kitchen table!

Why Homeschool?

2011-07-31T11:30:00.004-04:00

People often ask us why we homeschool. Over time we have discovered that there are many reasons that we homeschool. Ultimately, we do it because it works for us. And because we love it.

I read an article that talks about homeschooling as an option for families considering alternative educational opportunities for their children. This quote struck home for me:

"What I have since discovered is that depending on the approach, home schooling can actually be quite stress-free, social and advantageous. It all comes down to why and how a family chooses to approach it."

http://newtown.patch.com/articles/home-schooling-as-an-option

This couldn't be more true.

When I think about the stress of juggling multiple schools, schedules, rules and the disadvantage of the ageist social structure of schools. I can only see advantages to our choice to learn together at home.

We have grown together as a family. We support each other through difficulties, cheer for each other in victories and share those quiet special times together that would be forever lost if we had chosen an institutional approach to schooling. And we are happy.

Planetarium

2011-06-06T22:00:00.002-04:00

With all the rain we've been having it's hard to gaze up at the stars these days. But a trip to the Halifax Planetarium remedies that in a hurry!

We had a blast last Thursday night learning about the constellations and planets that can be seen in our night sky (when there's no cloud cover!)

This show is only $5 per person, and is good for anyone aged 8 and up. They have shows every fortnight, on Thursdays at 7:15. I bet it would be a great place to take a birthday party...I wonder if they let you bring guitars and s'mores...

Getting it Done

2011-05-16T21:43:00.007-04:00

One of the most important aspects of home learning is time management. This is a lesson that students can learn very effectively once they are old enough to take responsibility for their workload.

I was surprised to learn what a motivator it was to give my boys control over the schedule of their curriculum.

In the past we tried to adhere to a set daily schedule which mandated the subjects to be

accomplished each day. This worked for the most part, but then we found ourselves "falling behind" when exciting field trips or other events came up. These other activities were inherently educational. But, they caused me, the teacher, stress since it meant that I wasn't getting all of the "required material" accomplished in the week we set out to do it.

Enter the Quarter Planner.

The quarter planner is the perfect solution to never being behind, or being able to work ahead.

It works in a very simple manner. At the start of the quarter the teacher uses a single grid sheet for each subject and plans out single lesson blocks. This grid then serves as the schedule for the progress of that particular subject. If you plan to do a subject 3 times a week and there are 9 weeks in your quarter, fill 27 blocks with lessons; if you do it daily fill 45 blocks. It's nice to allow a little wiggle room, by filling 2 or 3 less blocks than that.

Students begin in the top left corner with block A1 and progress through the grid left to right, top to bottom, recording in their progress in their log or checklist as they go.

In this way, if a day is missed due to illness or last minute change of plans there is no erasing the "day's" schedule for Tuesday. The student simply resumes the subject in the next assignment box on the next day of work.

In our house each week Elementary age students does 5 blocks of each of Math, writing, spelling and musical instrument practice; 4 blocks of Grammar and Geography; 3 blocks of Music Theory

and History and 2 blocks of Science. During school time, students can select which subject area they want to work on as long as they accomplish all of the blocks in a given week.

My kids have discovered that by doing one block of all 9 ares on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, that they can have only 6 blocks to do on Thursday and 4 on Friday. And if they are

ambitious and want to have Friday off, they can do 10 blocks on Thursday or do one extra block per day on the first 4 days of the week.

from DonnaYoung.org

Easing into Writing

2011-05-08T12:41:00.003-04:00

For the past couple of weeks we've been doing timed writing assignments.

The boys LOVE it. There's freedom in writing about anything you desire or nothing at all. Spelling doesn't count, it doesn't need to be cohesive, and there are no paragraph structures to worry about. It's just what is says it is....free.

Donna Young put us onto this, and I'm glad we gave it a try. All you need is blank paper, a sharp pencil and a time. Poof!

Despite the freedom of the assignment there is a continual improvement in the quality of the writing that is produced. It's like anything else, you have to do it more to get better at it!

Classical Education

2011-04-27T09:43:00.002-04:00

We use the classical approach to education and we've recently been studying 14th Century African History. The kids were mapping Mansa Musa's pilgrimage from Mali to Mecca.

We always like to take a look through google images to see what might inspire us to remember more about a topic, and in our search we stumbled upon this gem of a website! Edsitement!

All I can say is WOW!!!

If you're studying the humanities, you need to visit this website.

You can search by subject area, time period, grade level, or length of lesson.

there are 385 History Lessons, 179 Lessons in Literature and Language Arts, 157 Lessons in Art and Culture, 29 lessons on Foreign Languages, and many many lessons on American Culture and History.

Check it out! Let us know how you've used it!

Wow...did I really stop blogging?

2011-04-25T16:37:00.005-04:00

It would appear that I did stop blogging. Almost 2 years ago. Life threw a few lemon pies at us and we had to do a lot of cleaning up, but it would seem that we've got things tidied up and we're back in business.

Our home schooling adventures have continued. And with Spring in the air we've got the urge to purge. Does that urge ever hit you?

It's so easy to collect things over time. Some things like toys just keep amassing until one day you have enough toys for triple the number of children in your home. Other things seem like they will serve a future purpose, so you just can't part with them. And then other things just find their way to the back of a drawer, cupboard, closet or basement (!) and hideout for months or years.

So, after cleaning up the lemon pie it seems we've got lots of drawers, cupboards, closets, a basement AND a garage full of previously useful things. It's been about 3 years since we've done a really good purge so we've got our work cut out for us.

Our mission is to yard-sale or give-away everything that still has life left in it and toss the trash. We're hoping to keep about 1/3 of our current "stuff." Our goal is to hold a yard sale either on the long weekend in May or the last weekend in May, whichever one seems to be the yard sale kick off weekend. Everything left from there will be loaded into the Diabetes Association's truck!

Being organized, I've made a list of areas that need purging (pretty much our entire home) and budgeted the time needed for each. We've got some large boxes to use for storing our previously loved goods temporarily while the yard sale date approaches.

For each area of the house it is our goal to keep only the essential items that we need and a very few special items that make us happy. So, we'll take a bag for garbage into each area and a yardsale box. And, we'll arm ourselves with soapy water in a bucket to do a good cleaning while we're there. Here's our task outline.

Drawer (we have 15 drawers in our house) each can be done in about 5 minutes: 15x5=1.25 hours total
Cupboard (11) can be done in about 20 minutes each. 3.5 hours
A closet takes an hour (for a coat closet(2)) or two (for a linen closet or bedroom closet.(4)) 10 hours
Kitchen Pantry (1) takes about 2 hours if you're going to move everything out and wipe down all the shelves and re-organize, but it's well worth it. We've stayed on top of this one, since we're in it everyday! phew 2 hours
A bookshelf (7) takes about 10 minutes and requires a box for books to giveaway. (It will be pretty much empty when you're done and nearly all the books will still be on the shelf!) Let's face it homeschoolers LOVE books! 1 hour
A basement...ah the basement. tackle the garage first.
The garage takes a full day after a long winter of neglect, and ends with a trip to the enviro-depot with cans and bottles that can be refunded, but once the garage is done, there's a place to store the items which need to find their way out of the basement. 6 hours
And then there's the basement. Why is it so easy to use the basement as a catch all for "off season" or don't have the heart to toss it items? The basement requires a whole weekend, or 2 full days, a lot of garbage bags and room in the garage for the yard sale goods. 12 hours

Having done the math, that means we've got a total of 37 hours of purging to do before the big day. With "2 man power" (2 of the 3 of us are children) means we need to budget about 18 hours for purging. 6 hours a week for 3 weeks. Totally do-able. :/

We'll report back.

Halloween Costumes on a Budget

2009-10-14T11:19:00.006-04:00

At our house, Halloween is the most fun time for innovation and creativity.

This year, my boys are quite obsessed with Star Wars, the Clone Wars. And, as a result they decided to be clone troopers for Halloween. As with most Halloween costumes, our endeavor started with a trip to the local fabric store. $12 later

we were home with 1.2 m of white upholstery vinyl, which I estimated was enough to make costumes for both boys.

Using newspaper we created templates directly on their bodies by looking at a picture of a clone trooper.

Once they were satisfied with the shapes for all the

pieces we laid the newspaper pattern pieces out on our piece of vinyl and cut them out

A bit of hot glue was all that was needed to afix the pieces to some dark colored old clothes

Add a couple of helmets (gifts from last Christmas.)

-voila! Clone Troopers!

Our Newest Additions

2009-08-14T11:34:00.000-04:00

Welcome Ralph and Leia!
Our family increased by 2 in late July! Spurred on by the reading of the Beverly Cleary book The Mouse and The Motorcycle, our youngest decided he wanted a pet mouse for his birthday.

Well, after a little research, we determined that the best type of rodent to get was...well...rats. Yes, I thought the same thing. Well, anyway the research wasn't wrong.

As it turns out rats are: affectionate, smart, trainable (even litter box trainable) and do not readily bite. They also like to wake up during the day to play with you. Unlike other rodents they do not become cranky if they are awakened during the day, in fact they adjust their sleeping patterns to accomodate having fun with people!

These little lovelies enjoy our playtime together and our leftover bits of strawberries, and boiled eggs. What great pets! -- Really!

Sneakers

2009-07-01T19:44:00.001-04:00

Sneakers

Oh dear! Is Sneakers in trouble again?

The kids have been asking for lots of new little critters these days, so my latest amigurumi creation is Sneakers!

If you crochet, and are interested in a pattern, head on over to Etsy. You can find it here on
Etsy at Ashton11.Etsy.com

Father's Day Craft

2009-06-15T17:14:00.000-04:00

Check out my most recent post to handmadenews.org

It's is a quick and easy Father's Day gift to make!

Mom's are so easy to please when it comes to crafts made by their children. But Dads, well, they like something a little bit more practical. So why not make him something he can use all year. Get it? Coffee can??

Oh, I am so bad! I can never resist a pun!

Anyway. Have a peek at this article and see how it's made!

Do you Google?

2009-06-14T12:01:00.004-04:00

Do you use google? Sure you use google as a seach engine... but do you REALLY use google?

Google is much more than a search engine. Their account service i-google wants to be our online solution to a harddrive and computer software!

Google Docs is a feature that lets you create documents for sharing or editing online.

For example, I began this document in my gmail account as an emailand then sent it to my google docs address. From there, I could continue to work on it from any computer that has internet access and finally I could blog it instantly with blogger or send it to a friend for collaboration or sharing! No need for a word processing software on my computer and able to be shared with any other computer (PC or mac.)

How easy is that?

Get your own Google account simply by signing up!

And if you'd like an easy-to-use photo interface that also makes blogging instanateous, then check out Picasa, by Google! Just choose a picture and click blog this! Thanks google.

If you are using google in a way that makes your life easier please tell me, as I have discovered all the things I know about google by accident!

Handmade News

2009-06-07T05:42:00.001-04:00

Homeschoolers are always on a quest for creative ways to offer up curriculum.

Arts, crafts, science, math. You name it! We want hands on ways to teach it.

A great place to find for a full range of craft instructions and ideas can be found at handmadenews.org. They have a Crafty Kids department with ideas that kids can do themselves, and there are many other departments which highlight green crafts, craft techniques, business tips and more!

I believe in teaching my kids to be self-sufficient and to work at entrepreneurial enterprises. Handmade news is a trove of resources to help with this. Have a peek if you'd like some inspiration, or just for the plain fun of it!

Oh, and did I forget to mention…I’m one of their newest columnists! Yay for me!

Charles Darwin

2009-06-05T21:45:00.001-04:00

Many of us who have studied Biology and Genetics have heard of the famous biologist, Charles Darwin. Well, this past week the 2 boys got a chance to live the history of this famous historical figure.

National Geographic and PBS television have teamed up to begin producing a movie about the life of Charles Darwin. And guess who was cast to play 2 of his sons? That's right - my boys! So, our Biology/History studies this week took on the form of reinactment! One scene at a time.

Keep your eyes out for this as it will be televised on Nova, likely in December of 2009. I'll try to remember to post again when we know a specific air date!

Don't you just love those hats and jackets??

Inuksuk

2009-06-04T19:08:00.004-04:00

We've been learning about Inuksuk! What fun.

In case you don't know what an inuksuk is....It's a Canadian indiginous place marker.

They have been used for thousands of years by the Inuit, Canadian Arctic people, to mark an important location.

An inuksuk (pronounced Ee nook sook) is used to mark a spot where surplus food has been stored, or to tell about a prime location for hunting or fishing. They also were used for marking a good resting place, or to indicate a residence.

Inuksuit (the plural form of inuksuk) were originally built in unique shapes to give specific meaning. But, more recently, they have come to resemble the shape of stone people.

We built an inuksuk in our backyard.

First we collected up the required stones

Next, we decided on a good way to arrange them.

Next was the tricky part, stacking them!

We wanted ours to look like a person!

And here it sits, to welcome us and our friends!

To learn more about inuksuk visit this site:

http://www.pinnaclefarms.ca/ORIANAsite/AboutNameandLogo/InuksukNew.html#In1

Solar Box Cooker

2009-05-28T21:34:00.000-04:00

This a very exciting project that we can't wait to try!

Recently, we have been studying solar radiation and energy conservation. What better way to marry the 2 concepts than by building a solar box cooker?

We have come across many design ideas on the internet and have narrowed our choices down to a box cooker or a parabolic umbrella cooker. Since we live in a cold climate, my son has deduced that the box cooker would be more suited to our cooking needs.

Solar cooking has helped many people in developing countries reduce their dependence on firewood and charcoal for their cook fires. This is a zero carbon footprint approach to cooking food. What a concept!

According to our research a box cooker does all types of cooking like boiling, stewing, grilling, and baking. And, food cooked in a solar cooker reportedly tastes better!

We plan on using the instructions for the Easy Lid Cooker.

Stay tuned for our results!

Homeschooling around the Toddler - 0r - Keeping the Cat out of the Toilet.

2009-05-20T08:18:00.000-04:00

Toddlers bring lots of sloppy kisses, big excitement and cuteness to the family. But, if they are not properly attended to they can make homeschooling a bit of a tricky endeavour! Ok, let's be honest they can make it seem nearly impossible!

A few tips can make life a lot easier for you and them!

First of all, make sure that you spend some time one-on-one with your toddler before you begin to work with your school-aged children. If you've just spent 15 minutes playing or reading together, the toddler will be more likely to be ready for a change of pace and will be more ready to spend some time in independent play.

Once you and your toddler have snuggled and huddled for 15 minutes or so, get them settled with a "special fun exploration activity." It's good to have these things organized ahead of time, and only available during "teaching time."

There are lots of things that fit this category, if you think about it. Some of them can be store bought but often the best ones are things that are already around the house.

I stumbled upon this great trick quite by accident at first. It was time to work with my youngest school aged child, who was 6 (and my toddler was 2 ) and so I opened the bottom drawer in the kitchen where I keep all the plastic storage containers and lids. I let my little guy have at it and he was amused for half an hour, safely playing with plastic containers. I made sure we were working in a spot where I could keep my eye on him, and where my 6 year old was not able to see him! After all, it sure looked like more fun than learning ways to "make 10."

Some other low cost and fun things to play with are:

Shoes and hats
Dry pasta and containers
Cardboard boxes
Water (supervise carefully!)
Finger puppets
Toys that the older children have outgrown, but haven't made their way officially into the toddlers collection
Lace up Games or spools
Non-breakable Mirror and a hairbrush
Pots and Pans

The list can grow as long as your arm, but these are some free ways to get started. Post a comment to share ideas that have worked for your toddler.

Happy Homeschooling!

Explode the Code

2009-05-13T09:32:00.002-04:00

Even the title of this series is catchy! This is a great little series of books for teaching explicit phonics to children who are emergent readers and also beginning writers.

We are using it with our grade primary son this year.

Beginning with Explode the Code 1 students learn the short vowel sounds and beginning and ending letter sounds. They are shown how to decipher the sounds they are hearing, and match them to letters.

The series includes matching activities, copy work, spelling practice and short reading activities. My son enjoys the predictability of it, and I enjoy the continual gradual progression of skills. EPS has a nice website with lots of sample pages to look at.

The books are a numbered series, and if you found that your child needed more time on a particular level, they conveniently have review books that follow each level. The review books are all numbered as 1/2 so the review of book 2 is book 2 1/2.

I was uncertain that the books would have appeal to my son, as the drawings are simple and the work is repetitive. But, luckily for us. It's a winner!

Vocabulary From Classical Roots

2009-05-11T09:07:00.004-04:00

Spelling and vocabulary are the pillars of good writing.

Teaching them is not always very inspiring.

My eldest, who is in fourth grade, is a very precocious reader. And because of this, his vocabulary is also quite precocious! Finding a spelling or vocabulary program that gives him challenges has been a bit of a challenge for me!

We have tried a few over the years but the one that we have stuck with the longest has been Vocabulary from Classical Roots by Lee Mountain.

We began with the Book 4 last year and we are just finishing book 5. We have used the program as a 2 in 1 vocabulary and spelling book. I don't think it is really written as a spelling series, as there is never any mention of it in the introductions or lessons. But, for us it is very logical to use it as a spelling resource.

Every unit is built around a set of roots which are either Greek or Latin. The units all begin with the presentation of the words, followed by a description of the roots. Next, there is a dictionary style definition of each word. The lessons include comparing words for synonyms, using the words in context and knowledge extension exercises. There are extra words that use the same roots as the words being studied. These are classified as familiar words and challenge words.

I love that this program helps students find a method to understand unfamiliar words.

To turn it from a straight vocabulary method into a spelling method, I have him copy all the words from the unit on Monday, on Wednesday, I get him to do a self-test by recopying the words without looking, on Thursday he studies any that were tricky and prepares for his Friday test.

House guests have been impressed to find a spelling test on our fridge with a score of 100% of words that included: chronometer, biometric, trigonometry, and thermoelectric.

We have ordered it directly from the publisher EPS.

There are lots of online samples available to peruse. Check it out!

Sunday Surfing

2009-05-03T07:00:00.001-04:00

Got your coffee or your chai? Sit back and surf around.

I always love finding new websites that inspire me to learn more about teaching and learning. Here are a few that I like to poke around in. These ones have a rather math/science slant!

Ah, New Math! Check out this old video of the New Math from 1965!

Multiplication facts made easy: Multiflyer!

This is a great game to learn mulitplication facts while playing a fun game. Kids earn extra credit for speed!

Science, Social Studies, English, Math....you name it, Moby and Tim can teach you about it!

Check out BrainPop.com. This link takes you to the free videos, but if you subscribe you can have access to all of them.

Need to brush up on advanced math? Let Midnight Tutor's videos remind you about what you never learned in highschool and university math!