Cookie's Domain

Learning and Retaining More in Less Time - Or Why I Like the Charlotte Mason Approach

2012-01-13T13:41:00.000-06:00

After only a few months of homeschool this year it became very obvious that what we were doing wasn't working. I had a reluctant writer who was frustrated to no end at the thought of having to practice his handwriting. I had a 4 year old who would wander off and get into things while I was working with his older siblings. And I had a child who seemed to be bored due to not being challenged enough.

Time for a Change
I have been familiar with Charlotte Mason's method of school for a few years. I even tried implementing it with my oldest but it didn't work for him because he was used to - and liked - the more traditional way of doing school. He was in public school for 2 years and he thrives off of learning from textbooks and having a school schedule and a set curriculum to follow. So by trying to switch to CM with him, I was attempting to fit a round peg into a square hole.

But given that the school year was not coming together for everyone else, I started revisiting the idea of giving a Charlotte Mason type homeschool a try. And I am so happy that I took the plunge.

What to Do?
I spent some time going over 3 free homeschool curriculum that seemed to like a good fit for us. They were:

I decided on Ambleside Online because EVERYTHING was available for free and I was able to find all of the books in PDF format on either Google Books or Archive.org. I spent about a week printing out the books and setting up a 4 day school schedule. I got each child a 3 ring binder and away we went!

The Change is Phenomenal
We have been finishing each subject in just a few minutes. But a lot of times the children go on talking about it long after that or they'll bring the subject back up again throughout the day. My son is OK with handwriting now because he only has to write a few words a day. He has to write his letters correctly, but it's not that many letters so he isn't overwhelmed any longer. My youngest listens to the reading in all subjects and it holds his attention. As a matter of fact, everyone seems to be learning something at his or her level.

Also, I've been feeling much more laid back about school because I know that adhereing to a strict schedule does not guarantee that the children will learn all that they need to. But exposing them to living books and a love of nature in a relaxed setting is proving to be much more effective. Homeschool will never be perfect but it has been soooo much better since making this change.

Use Ray's Arithmetic and Math Worksheet Generators to Teach Homesschool Math for Free

2011-12-31T08:12:00.001-06:00

The very first public domain math book that I ever heard of was Ray’s New Primary Arithmetic for Young Readers. And after skimming the book it quickly became evident that this is an excellent resource for teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I suspect that the book could be used as the sole means of teaching arithmetic. But I use it along with a few other free resources available online to help my kids become proficient in basic math.

Flash Cards are Your (and Your Kids) Friends
Flash cards are my favorite way to have children memorize math facts. I know it’s old school. But it worked way back when and it still works today. I printed off addition flash cards for numbers 1 - 9 from Apples4theTeacher.com. And I found 10 through 12 on another site, the name escapes me right now. But there are numerous free printable flash cards available online; they’re just a search away.

I printed them out, cut them all to roughly the same size, and laminated them. Yes, it was time consuming. But I invested some time and now I have cards that are already being used by 2 of my students and will be able to be passed down to my youngest when the time comes.

Once the children have their addition facts memorized then I will go through the same process for subtraction, multiplication, and division. I teach in the same order as Ray’s Arithemetic does.

Math Worksheet Generator
To reinforce the math facts I print out math worksheets from Super Kids. You can customize the sheets to be exactly what you need. For example, if my daughter has half of the 3s addition facts memorized then I generate a worksheet with a minimum number of “0” and a maximum number of “6” and all of the numbers are added to 3. Take a look at the generator and you’ll see what I mean.

What’s 3 + 5?
I also quiz the children randomly throughout the day to see if they are truly memorizing their work. It’s not unusual for me to ask them a few facts at the kitchen table or while they’re playing with toys or whatever. I also sometimes make a game out of the flash cards. I quiz the child and if she gets the answer right then she gets to keep the card, if not I keep the card. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins. This was my husband’s idea and the children actually started learning their facts quite quickly once there was some competition involved.

As you can see, it’s not that difficult to use public domain books in combination with other free online resources and come up with a very effective way of teaching arithmetic in your homeschool.

Free Thanksgiving Notebooking Pages, Printables, and Videos

2011-11-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

I have been interested in notebooking with the children for a few years now. I even did a bit of it with my oldest for his science class when he was in the 6th grade. But he had just come out of public school and it didn't provide the structure that he was used to (and liked to some degree).

But now that I am homeschooling 3 little ones close in age the notebooking concept has become appealing again. So I figured, why not start with a subject that should be easy enough to find materials for? And sure enough, there is a plethora of printable Thanksgiving sheets available online.

This is the material I have come up with so far.

Free Thanksgiving Notebooking Pages

Homeschool Notebooking has a free Thanksgiving notebooking set that contains pages with both primary and regular lines. There are numerous other free notebooking pages at this site as well.

Super Teacher Worksheets has several Thanksgiving themed math sheets. I printed out the basic addition mystery picture for the children to complete and add to their books.

TLS Books has a Thanksgiving fun mini packet with a few useful pages for my youngest.

Thanksgiving Printables

The Indian Years coloring book - for beginner readers
Learn About Texas Indians activity book- for middle school and up

Thanksgiving Videos

Day of Thanksgiving

History of Thanksgivng

We Shall Remain is an award winning PBS series that tells the Native Americans side of the first Thanksgiving and beyond. I will probably let my children view this when they are older. My 13 year old already knows about how terribly Native Americans were treated. But, everyone else would be very saddened by it. I'll save these truths for a few Thanksgivings down the road.

Interesting Thanksgiving Facts

I was surprised to find out what was probably really on the plates of the Pilgrims and Native Americans that first Thanksgiving. History.com gives a list of what may of have been eaten and what probably was not. History also gives some interesting myths about Thanksgiving as well.

Interactive Site

I am really looking forward to going through the Voyage of the Mayflower with the children. This definitely looks like a resource to take your time with.

Thanksgiving Projects I Plan on Doing with the Children

You may have to scroll down to get to some of the crafts.
Corn project -
Native American headband
Boy and girl pilgrim hats
Teepee centerpiece

Free Online Educational Games for Kids

2011-11-03T16:19:00.001-05:00

Educational games keeps homeschool fun. It doesn't really matter to me how the children learn, as long as they are learning. So, if a game, a video, or a comic will deliver the information in a way that will help the children remember - then I'm all for it. So, below, I have listed a few sites.

ABCYa - games sorted by grade level
Funbrain
Funschool
Gudli - free sign up required
Kinderweb
Knowledge Adventure
Learning Games for Kids
Play Kids Games
Primary Games
Prongo

Water Cycle Unit Study

2011-10-21T08:47:00.001-05:00

Questions about water have come up more than once by 2 of my children. So, I am putting together some links so that we can study that some time in the near future.

For starters, here is a great resource for learning about the water cycle for kindergarten through the 9th grade. The Bundaberg Regional Council Water Council, in Australia, has put together an activity book, coloring book, and water cycle chart for each of those grades.

More Water Cycle Activity Books

Every Drop Counts - K-6
My Water Activity Book - Pre-k - K
Rivers are Fun - grades 1-3
Thirstin's Wacky Water Adventure - grades k-3
Water Conservation Activity Book
Water Cycle Activity Book - for fluent readers, or can be read to younger children
Water Cycle Video Activity Packet - K-3 and 4-6

Water Cycle Activities

Set up a rain machine - page 8
Water Cycle Activities - says grade 4 but there are several activities for various elementary grade levels

Water Cycle Copy Work

Amos 9:6

Water Cycle Videos

The Water Cycle with Molecule Max
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Water Cycle Jump (Bill Nye)

Water Cycle Song

Animal Habitats for Kids Study

2011-09-23T16:45:00.000-05:00

On Tuesdays we study Science or Social Studies. Right now we are focusing on Science and I plan on introducing animal habitats to the children next week. To know what I will be doing on Tuesday a few days in advance is a first for this school year. Since school started it has been a bit "hit or miss" because I was winging it quite a bit on this day.

When we had cable, I used to let the children watch Sid the Science Kid as the science portion of the day. That was also when I was trying to cover every subject, every day. Thank God for some insight on that, courtesy of the Holy Spirit. We know focus on one subject a day and just make sure to incorporate writing and reading into that day's plans, along with daily math drills.

But today I thought about Sid the Science Kid again and remembered that some of the shows are on Netflix. Today we watched the first episode in the backyard science cycle(I know it's not Tuesday) since the children finished up all of their work very early; and, I was out of ideas of what to do for the day. But watching that gave me the idea to show one episode each Wednesday and then plan the rest of the day around the topic that's covered.

The next episode we will watch is titled Home Tweet Home and is all about animals and their habitats. The description on Netflix says:

Sid wonders why there aren't any birds living in the birdhouse he made with his father. Sid and his friends later discover that many animals build and live in their own homes, including beehives, anthills and birds' nests.

The Super Fab Lab

The Super Fab Lab Investigation that goes along with this episode is The Big Bird Nest. And below are several resources that will, hopefully, help the children learn about animal homes in a fun way.

Lots of Great Info
The first site that I came across looks like a great starting point. The Utah Education Network has a page dedicated to animal habitats. The page looks very basic. But it links to almost 60 sites that go into detail about how various animals live. Some of the sites linked to are zoos, aquariums and National Geographic.

Animal Habitats Worksheets

Kids Zone has a match the animal to its habitat worksheet that I know my youngest will enjoy doing. Also, I plan on using the "Where Do Animals Live?" page from Boggles World as a handwriting worksheet. I might also use the Biome word search that is found there as well.

Animal Habitat Lesson Plans

Homes and Habitats is intended for children in grades 3 - 5 to use in conjunction with their trip to the Cosley Zoo in Illinois. But I think it will work just fine without the zoo trip.

PPPST is one of my favorite sites! I have used their resources a lot over the past few years. They have already done a great job of compiling lesson plans about ecosystems. So, I don't have to. :) National Geographic also has a plethora (I like using that word) of lesson plans as well.

Animal Habitat Games

Despite the grade range, I know that my children will enjoy playing the Bingo game found in the zoo handout. Or, the kids can play the Great Habitat Match-Up online. In Animal Homes, your little one has to help several animals reach their correct home. The kids can also play Animal Inn to learn about forest animals. And in Design a Habitat, you make a home for the black footed ferret.

Animal Habitat Projects for Kids

I'm sure that there are many crafts relating to animals and their homes. But I plan on helping the children make a habitat diorama. I will let each child pick out which animal they want to focus on. Since this will be time consuming with 3 children, my plan is to do the projects on Thursday. Since, that is our arts and crafts day.

There are probably enough resources here to study habitats on more than one Tuesday. But, more than likely we will just pick a few activities that seem interesting and keep the lesson to one day. That way we can move on to the next video the following week.

Bird Unit Study: Free and Fun Ways to Learn About Birds

2011-09-14T15:16:00.002-05:00

I figured that now was a good time to start finding materials for a free bird unit study since my 4 year old asks about a nest in a tree that we pass each day on the way to the park.

This study could possibly last for a long time. There are so many different types of birds; and, there is much to learn about birds in general. But as usual, I will let the bird unit lesson ideas that I find online dictate how much we learn. Also, if the children start to lose interest then that's a clear sign that it's time to move on to the next topic.


Swans on a Lake

All About Birds

AllAboutBirds.org is a site run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Ornithology is the study of birds. (I had to look that up.) On this site you can identify over 600 North American species using the Cornell bird guide.
You can also listen to bird songs. And there are numerous bird videos you can watch on the site via their You Tube channel. I am barely skimming the surface of what all is available on All About Birds. Check it out for yourself to see how much potential there is to use this site to form bird unit lesson ideas.

Here is an example of one, of the many, videos on AAB. This one is about the Acorn Woodpecker.

Bird Coloring and Activity Book

Feeder Birds will keep any bird enthusiast very busy during Science time. The book can be used in conjunction with the All About Birds site to maximize learning.

Bird Crafts

Hands down DLTK Teach has the best bird crafts for preschoolers. Little hands can do a lot of coloring, cutting, and gluing; and, you can talk to them about birds while helping them construct their crafts.

I am down to only 1 preschooler so I need some bird activities that will keep slightly older children interested. Family Fun has quite a few crafts that seem to be for varying ages. I will probably let the children browse the bird craft section and choose what looks good to them. Or maybe by seeing what others have come up with they will come up with their own bird craft ideas.

Birds of Prey


Wedge Tailed Eagle

Over the years we have checked out a few books from the library on the more "aggressive" birds. I wonder if the fact that I have 3 boys contributes the extreme interest in birds of prey in our house. That, and the fact that we see turkey vultures perched on a tower for the power lines almost daily on our walk to the park. It is a bit off putting. But our walks there are never dull.

Anyway, here is an activity book on Oregon Zoo Birds of Prey. Most of the pages are applicable to these birds in general, not just the ones in Oregon. This book doesn't have any coloring and it appears to be geared for children who are able to read the book and do some of the activities themselves. However, I do not see why it could not be used, as a guide, as a lesson plan for birds of prey.

Birds of Texas

We live in the great Lone Star State. And a few years ago when we moved into our house, our oldest became interested in the birds that perch in the tree in our backyard. So, I printed out Learn About Texas Birds. I cannot tell you what a great resource this book is.

My son and I compared it to the unit about birds in his 8th grade science book. And almost all of the same information was contained in both. But we got the added benefit of learning about Texas birds in our area as well. The book has activities in, like: how to make a bird feeder out of a milk jug, crossword puzzles, and how to make a paper birdhouse.

Birds on Netflix

I used to spend a lot of time finding free videos in the public domain. I still agree that there is a lot of great material out there. But since we joined Netflix, it has been a huge time saver to check there first. I have the streaming service (no DVDs) and I still manage to find quite a bit of educational material. For this lesson we have already viewed the first episode of The Life of Birds with David Attenborough.

I spent a good bit of the video discussing with the children what evolutions say versus what the Word of God says about the creation of birds. It made for an interesting discussion and the children left the video understanding that we hold everything that we hear up to the Word of God. Used that way, I think that the video series will work just fine for our needs.

Bird Curriculum/Bird Unit Lesson Plans

I was going to link to some specific bird lesson plans. But I think that there is sufficient information in the resources already listed so that you can come up with your own lesson plan. That's pretty much how we do things around here. Even when I have tried planning out our learning in the past; we have always wound up having to be flexible and willing to explore other topics, depending on the children's interests.

Back to the Free Readers on Google Books

2011-03-28T08:00:00.004-05:00

I have managed to rack up my highest library fines to date, a whopping $67.00. We check out 50 books (the limit) at a time and I am very careful about due dates because of that. But recently we had family visit from out of town and I was having so much fun with them that I didn't think about the books until they were a week overdue. And it didn't help that I didn't receive the reminder notices that I usually get by email from the library. I was missing a lot of my mail on Yahoo until I switched over to their new format from the classic one.

Anyway, so the next time that I go to the library I am going to ask for mercy regarding my fines based on past good behavior. But in the meantime, the kids still need some good books to read. The little ones have been enjoying the level 1 and 2 beginner reader books. And I want to keep the love of reading alive. So I went through the links on my post about free primers, readers, and spellers.

Last school year Smiley was going through the McGuffey Primer. I thought about continuing on to the first reader. But I think that he will find the first Kendall Reader much more interesting. So, I printed the book out yesterday and bound it using my handy dandy heavy duty stapler. And I then covered the spine with duct tape to keep little fingers from getting hurt on the staples.

The first Aldine Reader seems very girly. So GG will enjoy reading that one. I did not print out the stories that had fairies and witches in them. But there is still over 100 pages of reading material. So the book should keep her busy for a bit.

And I printed out Poor Richard's Almanac by Benjamin Franklin for my 12 year old. I discovered that book on the school library shelf when I was that age and I really enjoyed it. Hopefully he will too.

I also found an alphabet picture book, but; I'm debating whether or not to print that out for Jr. I don't think that the black and white pictures will hold his interest. So we'll keep using Starfall to learn letters and phonics and I'll probably try to find some ABC books that we can read online from Netlibary.

Free Piano Lessons for Kids

2011-03-24T21:45:00.001-05:00

I found PianoLessonsForKids on YouTube and can't wait for Smiley (my 6 year old) to give the free lessons a try. I can't even begin to tell you how much he enjoys having a keyboard. He has been calling himself a "music artist" since his dad gave him a tiny, old school Casio that used to be his when he was a teenager. Smiley has since moved on to a bigger keyboard (rest in peace old Casio) and he really wants to learn how to play it.

The instructor for the lessons is an actual piano teacher who wants to reach and teach as many people as possible how to play the piano. You can find all of the free piano lessons for kids videos on You Tube or you can also access them through the Free Online Piano Lessons for Kids website.

Here is the first of the 20 free lessons.

Gardening Unit Study

2011-03-17T16:42:00.002-05:00

I have wanted to try my hand at gardening for a couple of years now. But the poor soil in my yard has been a deterrent. However, I recently started doing a lot of research on container gardening. It doesn't seem as difficult as trying to grow food in the ground. So I am going to give it a try.

I want to involve the children as much as possible. So, it just seems right to incorporate gardening into our homeschool. Currently we are still going through our agriculture study. So, gardening will fit right in.

Below are the free educational resources that I was able to find online. There is actually a lot of good material available on gardening. Praise God! I told the children that we will be purchasing our soil and necessary materials this weekend. And then we will begin our unit on gardening using the resources listed. I hope you find them useful as well.

Coloring and Activity Books
5 a Day the Preschool Way
Do You Know Where Fruits and Vegetables Come From?
Food Fun
Gardening is Great
Growing Gardeners
Meet the Bean: Soybeans are Everywhere
Old Orchard
Organic Farming w/ Lily the Ladybug
Spuddy Buddy

Educator Guides w/ some Activities Included
Awesome Agriculture: Soybeans
Organization of Living Things study
Pondering Plants
Seeds We Eat
Spring

A Complete Unit Study
While searching for coloring books on gardening I came across a great unit study called Seeds, by Gwendolyn Nicodemus. I think my children are too young to benefit from it this year. But it will definitely come in handy if we repeat the study in a few years.

The Plan
This is the part where I map out how I plan on using the above free resources. In an ideal life, I would just refer back to this once I start the lesson and follow the plan and have a smooth homeschooling experience. But over the years I have learned that all plans are just that - plans. I have found out (the hard way) to be flexible and to be willing to shorten, lengthen, or skip material - depending on what's working at the time. But I still like to map things out anyway so that I don't go into a new study unprepared.

I am going to print out pages 3,5, and 7 from the 5 a Day book on card stock and put them on the wall as posters. I'll do that before we begin our garden unit study. Then I'll introduce the lesson with Gardening is Great and use this copywork* with it.Organic Farming is an excellent reading book; so, we'll do that next. Here are parts 1, 2, and 3 of the copywork for that - in case it takes a few days to get through the reading. Then we'll move on to Meet the Bean. This activity book does a good job of explaining how seeds grow and there are several hands on activities that look like they will be fun to try. Here is the Bean copywork - 1 and 2.

Once our container garden actually starts to grow we will do as many activities as possible from Pondering Plants. And I'll finish up with Growing Gardeners to help review some of what we have learned.

*The copywork needs to printed out on the landscape setting of your printer.

Milk And Dairy Mini Unit Study

2011-02-28T12:04:00.001-06:00

Milk Coloring and Activity Books
How We Get Our Milk
Milk Matters with Buddy Brush
Polly Pride's Activity and Coloring Book

Where are the Milk Group Foods activity page
The Yummy Fun Book of Low Fat Milk

Valentine's Cards in Homeschool?

2011-01-22T08:00:00.000-06:00

We have never celebrated Valelntine's Day in our homeschool. I'm not against doing that, but it never really seemed like something that we needed to do. And none of the children ever requested that we did.

But I have been contemplating whether or not to exchange Valentine's cards this year. I think it would be fun to have the children each make a card and then they could exchange them. The only thing is that I am pretty sure that with 3 boys I will get a couple of "that's for girls" statements. But I'm sure GG would really enjoy making anything that is pink or purple with hearts on it. LOL.

I still have until February 14th to figure it out. I think I'll see how the tone of school is going that day and then I'll decide if that's something that we might pursue. I think that the main thing is that I encourage the children daily to demonstrate the love of Christ. That is love 365 days a year. As long as we keep Him as our focus then I don't think it really matters one way or other if we celebrate a day of love once a year.

If you are planning on celebrating Valentine's Day in your homeschool then you may find this list of printable Valentine cards for kids helpful.

Martin Luther King Jr. Book Online

2011-01-17T12:55:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I told the children that we would be off from school today because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. And my 6 year old turned to me and said, who's Dr. Martin Luther King? I told him we would talk about it the next day and this morning I woke up early and scrambled to find a Martin Luther King Jr. book online.

I remembered finding one from scholastic a few years back when my oldest first learned about the great civil rights leader. I searched unsuccessfully to find that one. But, I am happy to report that Scholastic has another Martin Luther King Jr Book Online that is free.

The book is for grades K-4. It's a little over 20 pages but it is has just enough information to introduce little ones to Dr. King. It looks like you have to be a subscriber to print the book out the way it was intended to look. But you can view a full screen version for free and read the book directly from your screen. That is what I did with the children. They found the book very interesting and asked me a lot of questions afterward.

Eventually, I did find the book that I was looking for. It's called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream. However, it appears that it is no longer free. You now have to have a subscription to Scholastic's mini-books in order to print most of them out. But I did come across one more Martin Luther King Jr. Book online - Our Friend Martin. This is probably best suited towards preschoolers.

An In-depth Study of Agriculture

2010-10-08T08:00:00.011-05:00

At the beginning of this year I decided to utilize as many of the free coloring and activity books as possible. So, I started with the first activity book on the list which is The ABCs of Oklahoma Agriculture. As I started to look through the book I got so happy. The book is a great guide to put together an extensive study on agriculture using various coloring and activity books that I've collected links to over the past few years. I even threw in some recipes that the children and I can make together, to keep school interesting.

Now I can finally put my handy dandy heavy duty stapler to use. Yippee! So below, I have linked to the mini unit study, book(s) , or recipe that I plan to use for each subject.

Agriculture - I used this page as an intro to our studies.
Beef
Cotton
Dogs
Eggs
Feed - I focused on farm instead, since farm animals eat feed. Maryland Agriculture: Farm Fun, Farm Service Agency for Kids, Southern Maryland Farms
Greenhouse

Horses - Go Harness Racing, Life on a Horse Farm (from NetLibrary)
Insects - Coloring Fun with Insects: I'm going to read the online book to the children. Then I'll let each of them pick out a few insects that they want to color.
Jelly - homemade jelly recipe: We're going to reduce the recipe down to 16 servings, or just one pint.
Kabob
Legume - peanuts (yes, they're legumes)
Milk - Guida's Milk and Supercow, How We Get Our Milk, Milk Matters with Buddy Brush, Fuel Up with Milk
Nuts - Pecan breakfast loaf recipe
Oklahoma - OK coloring book
Pork - Kids Pork Cookbook
Queen Bee - Adventures of Beatrice the Bee
Rain - My Water Activity Book
Sheep - I am the Good Shepherd
Tractor - tractor activity found towards the bottom of the page
University
Veterinarian - Veterinarians
Wheat - whole wheat honey bread recipe
Xylotomy - Trees: A Colorful Look at Our Forests
Yam - yam smoothie recipe
Zucchini - zucchini bread recipe

Eggs Mini Unit Study

2010-10-07T14:42:00.000-05:00

I think the Iowa Egg Council website has enough information about eggs on it for me. There are a few egg coloring and activity pages and some fun "eggsperiments" for older students there.

That's pretty much it for now.

Dogs Mini Unit Study

2010-10-04T12:04:00.000-05:00

I'm sure that there are numerous resources on the net pertaining to dogs. So, I may revisit this dog mini unit study in the future and add some additional free resources.

Dog Coloring & Activity Books
Be Bite Free
Bow Wow Ow
The Lucky Puppy
Safety Around Dogs

Homeschool Bible Lessons

2010-09-20T21:18:00.002-05:00

I have tried several different approaches to teaching the Bible to my children. My oldest began reading pretty early so from about ages 5 - 7 or 8 he really enjoyed the free bible lessons from Calvary Chapel. But once he outgrew those I really struggled with finding a good free Bible curriculum. But my husband started having D write Bible verses as copywork to help improve his handwriting. And it is still amazing to me how much scripture has gotten inside of him from such a simple task.

Since I have 3 little ones so close in age I have tried teaching a Bible lesson a little at a time over the course of a week. But now I am thinking of taking a "Sunday school class" approach with the children. I will teach the lesson in one day. I will try to keep it short (to keep everyone's attention), but memorable.

Here is the new method that I'm going to try on Wednesday.

listen to the passages on our dramatized Bible CD
have children read, discuss, and color a Bible mini book
do a craft
have the children recap the lesson out loud

Why I'm Switching to this Approach
I recently started helping out in the children's church and I was amazed at how much my children retain from a single class. So, I realized that it really doesn't take a week long of "studying" scripture when they're so small. What a relief. It was challenging to try to stretch a Bible lesson for 5 straight days. But I'm finally learning that quality really does matter more than quantity.

Bible Mini Books
I am so glad that I cam across Bible mini books during my search for free Bible curriculum. These things are pure genius. And I am so grateful to those who have made these little treasures and offered them for free online. Here are the resources that I use for free Bible Mini books.

By utilizing all three sources, you can cover quite a bit of the Bible. We're covering the stories in the order they occur in the Word . And my 12 year old is studying the same lesson using the free Padfield Bible curriculum. He did a few lessons from it last year and really enjoyed it.

Update 03/30/11 Smiley (age 6) is starting to say that the DLTK work is "babyish". And he is not really into coloring. So I am keeping the Bible study the same for everyone else. But I am starting to print out lessons from Calvery Chapel for him. Everyone is still studying the same lesson, but with (hopefully) age appropriate material.

Cotton Unit Study

2010-09-16T07:00:00.001-05:00

Cotton, "the fabric of our lives®." Sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, there are probably several different directions that you could go in with a unit study on cotton (i.e. the cotton gin, clothing, cotton during slavery). I guess I'll just let the free materials dictate which direction we take. We usually wind up learning a lot when I do it that way.

Cotton Coloring Book
The Wonderful World of Cotton is a coloring book that looks like it will hold the childrens' interest. The words in the book are fairly simple. So, I plan on having the children and myself take turns reading.

Cotton Lesson Plan
This cotton lesson plan is for upper grades.It's a very short lesson but it contains a lot of information. This might be one of those cases where less is more. I'm going to print this out for my 9th grader. Even though he has his own curriculum, he still likes to study the same topic that his siblings are learning.

Cotton Website

I don't think I'm even going to look for another website besides cottoncampus.org. This site has cotton related educational materials for lower and upper grades. There is also a games section. You could probably spend a few days to a week going through all of the material that is on the site. I'm definitely going to use the "World of Cotton" slide show.

A Short Study
This looks like it will be a short study. I don't want to go into slavery and cotton picking with a 3, 4, and 5 year old. So, I'll save the Eli Whitney study for a later date. My plan is to read the coloring book, watch the slide show, and then let the children color the pages in the book. That's probably about 1 day's worth of school, two at the most.

Beef Unit Study

2010-09-14T15:00:00.022-05:00

I did a search on Google to find some resources to do a mini unit study on beef. Wow! The National Beef Council is serious about getting the word out about beef to young people. I would be listing resources all day if I tried to link to everything I found today. Let me just say that it seems that almost every state has free educational resources online pertaining to the beef industry. So, I just listed a few items below that I plan on using with my children this school year.

Cow Coloring and Activity Books

Beef - From Our Farm to Your Fork - a short "book"
Cattle in Colorado / Answer Guide
Guida's Milk and Supercow - dairy cows
How We Get Our Milk - dairy cows
Learn More About Veal
Vermont Beef Cattle Come in All Colors

Cow Crafts

Cow and bull crafts from DLTK-Teach

Cow Website

Have a Cow website

More Educational Material about Beef
There are a lot of great resources Iowa Beef Industry Council. I plan on using the power point slide shows there titled "Wow that Cow" and "My Cheeseburger Came from a Farm."

Cattle Videos

How We Used These Resources in Our Homeschool
I hope this will give you a good idea of how we utilize free educational material from the web for unit studies.

Day 1 We used the letter B is for beef page from the ABC's of Oklahoma Agriculture. We discussed the page and then the children colored it. Then we watched the "Wow that Cow" video from the Iowa Beef Industry website. Some of the sentences in the slide are pretty easy so I let the children read some, if they wanted to. Also, I printed out Cattle in Colorado for my 12 year old to read and go through the exercises in his free time.

Day 2 We started on the Learn More About Veal student activity book. I read the first page and showed the children a picture of a Holstein cow, pictured above. My 4 year old colored the coloring page of the book and completed the giant maze, her way. I skipped the decoding page with her. Instead, she created multiple drawings of farmers with their cows. Sometimes the farmers were sad, sometimes the cows were sad. But we all agreed that being happy is the best.

I worked with my 5 year old on the "Break the Code" page of the book. He did a little over half of it before lunch and then finished the rest after. It is very challenging to get him to practice writing his letters. But he didn't mind one bit when writing was part of decoding secret messages. So, praise God for that. Also, he completed the maze.

Day 3 Smiles (my 5 year old) did the crossword puzzle in More About Veal. It was his first time doing one but he did OK. He read the clues and wrote the answers without complaining. So, I'm pretty much ready to throw out the traditional letter copy sheets at this point and find "nontraditional" ways to get Smiles to write. Gigi (my 4 year old) drew some cows on the back of her activity book. And, all three children did a cow craft. Junior asked to turn his cow into a puppet. So, I helped him glue a popsicle stick onto it. And he had an instant puppet.

Day 4 I read an ebook about life on a cattle farm that I found on Netlibrary. That's one of a few online libraries that I have access to as a patron of the San Antonio public library. Longhorn cattle are mentioned at the end of the book. So after I finished reading we watched the video above about that particular breed.

Day 5 Today I read some and paraphrased most of Vermont Beef Cattle Come in All Colors. In hindsight, the reading in this book was a bit advanced for my group. But I did my best to make it work. I also read and we discussed the "My Cheeseburger Came from a Farm" slide show. I skipped some of it, like the parts about ethanol and some of the information about selling the cattle.

I can definitely say that we have learned quite a bit about beef cattle and cattle in general. Most of what we read and discussed today was review. So much so, that the children kept pointing out that we'd already learned this or that. So, tomorrow my oldest will turn in his activity book; and, I will let the other children do the coloring in the Vermont Beef book and that will be the end of that.

Making a Laminated United States Map

2010-09-13T14:35:00.004-05:00

I wanted the children to have a map that they can study on their own in order to learn the names and locations of all the U.S. states.

Printable United States Map

So, I printed out a colorful map on one side of paper. I got my free printable labeled United States map from NationalAtlas.gov. There are several to choose from under the "reference and outline maps of the U.S." link. I picked the one with bright colors, pictured below.

Blank United States Map

Then I printed a blank United States map from National Atlas on the other side of the paper. That way, the student can study the side with the names of the states and then flip the page over and test his memory.

After that I laminated the page using my laminator that I purchased a few years ago. I cannot say enough good things about my laminator. It was very affordable and it is still going strong after several years of use. Since I laminate quite a few of our school items, I purchase the laminating sheets in bulk. By taking this extra step my teaching tools usually last for all four of the children.

Different Uses
As I stated above, I think we'll use this mainly for the children to study the states on their own. We have a wall map that we use during school. But if we didn't have one then I'd definitely pull out this map and use it whenever a state is brought up so that the children could become familiar with the location. Also, as soon as I made the laminated map my 5 year old started sounding out the states on it. I hadn't even thought about using it that way.

Making a Puzzle Activity Book

2010-08-13T20:13:00.007-05:00

I used to buy activity books for my oldest (and then only) child when he first learned how to read. I'd get the books from Dollar General that contained activities like dot to dots, word searches, and secret messages. It really helped him become a fluent reader quickly because he enjoyed reading the instructions and then working through the activities on his own.

Today, my (latest) 5 year old picked up a coloring book and started working on a word search in it. He completed a lot of it by himself. He sounded out the words in the word list and then looked for the word in the puzzle. I helped him whenever he got stuck.

I had forgotten what a great learning tool these puzzles are. I was temporarily tempted to head out to the Dollar General and pick up a couple of the above mentioned books. But that would be going against my belief that most educational materials can be found for free online. So, I'm compiling some links to some good sites where I can print off some puzzles and put together a homemade activity book.

Free Printable Crossword Puzzles @

DLTK-Teach- several themes and each theme has several levels of difficulty
Free Printables - various levels

Free Printable Dot to Dots @

Coloring Crafts
Activity-Sheets.com - easy #'s 1-20
PrintActivities.com
Kids R Crafty - A-Z, by 2s, 5s, and 10s
Coloring.ws - arranged by order of difficulty

Free Printable Hidden Pictures @

Highlights Kids

Free Printable Mad Libs (ish) Word Games @

Mazes @

Kids R Crafty - 3 different age levels: 3, 4, and 5 year olds
DLTK-Bible - Bible mazes, varying levels of difficulty

Free Printable Word Scrambles (Anagrams) @

DLTK-Bible - Bible anagrams
DLTK-Kids - lots of themes and levels

Spot the Differences @

Kids Front

Word Search Worksheets @

DTK-Teach - lots of themes and you can choose either easy or hard puzzles in color or black and white

How to Tell Time: Free Resources

2010-08-09T09:00:00.003-05:00

My 4 and 5 year old feel like they know how to tell time because they can read a digital clock. So, we will definitely be covering how to tell time this year. As a matter of fact, that subject and money are two of the first topics we will be covering.

Teaching Clocks
I am making two clocks using this clock template glued to a paper plate. That way each child can practice on his or her own while I'm working with the other individually.

I remember there being a fun teaching clock in class when I learned how to tell time in school. I like the fact that those clocks keep the hour and minute hands in the right relationship to each other. So I contemplated purchasing this teaching clock.

But in the end I opted for this real clock that we can use permanently as our classroom clock. This will allow me to get rid of the digital clock in our school room and replace it with one that the children can use to help them master telling time. When we are studying the clock during class time I will just take it off of the wall and use it during our lessons. And then I'll just set it to the correct time when we're done and place it back on the wall.
Free Telling Time Curriculum
Learning Page is an excellent resource for teaching basic skills in your homeschool. You have to register to use the printables but everything on the site is free. Once you sign up you can print out the telling time worksheets. I am printing out the entire set and placing the sheets in a pronged folder to make workbooks .

I think that covering just one page a day will be more than enough. I don't want to overwhelm or bore the children. So I'll take my time teaching the clock. Of course, if they are very enthusiastic about covering more than a page a day then we'll do that. But there's no rush.

Printable Telling Time Games
The children have a lot of fun when we play educational games. I try not to let on that the children are supposed to be learning. So, I'm looking forward to printing out the Telling Time Family Man Game and using it during math time. We'll be able to use the game once the children have completed their telling time workbooks. But we can start playing the Telling Time Bingo Game (scroll to the bottom of the page) after the first few lessons.

Online Clock Games
The following games look like something the children will enjoy. I think I might let them do the games a couple of times a week for a few minutes once they've completed the page in their workbooks.

School Songs for Little Ones

2010-08-08T16:28:00.008-05:00

These are the songs we will be singing at the start of class this year. For some of my children it's review and for others singing these songs will present another opportunity to learn some more basics. Once everyone knows these pretty well (or we've tired of them) then I'll find a new set.

The Alphabet Song

A Counting Song

Days of the Week Song

Months of the Year Song

I'm also going to add a gospel "song of the week."

Learn How to Type Online

2010-08-06T15:56:00.006-05:00

I wanted my 9th grader to utilize one of the free sites where you can learn how to type online. After a little searching, I believe I have found a site that will work for our homeschool this year.

Learn How to Type Online with Peter
Peter's Online Typing Course is what we will be using. The site is pretty basic. There's nothing flashy about it. But I like that. I want to keep distractions to a minimum so that my son can concentrate on his lessons and get the most out of them. We are going to start with the preliminaries an then work through the exercises in order.

Work at Your Own Pace
One of the benefits when you learn how to type online is that your accuracy and speed is tested during each lesson. So, I will allow my son to go through the lessons at a pace that works for him. And I'll stress to him the importance of not moving on to the next lesson until the current one has been mastered.

Just One Semester
The typing class will take place everyday, Monday through Friday. So I doubt that it will take an entire school year to learn how to type online. So, I am scheduling this as a one semester class. Of course, if it takes longer than that for my son to become proficient in typing then I will extend it through the whole school year. But again, I don't think that will be necessary.

A Short Class
I'm not sure yet how much time should be allotted to learn how to type online. But this definitely isn't an hour long class. Even 45 minutes seems like it might be too long. So for the first week I'll schedule it as a 30 minute class. I'll tweak the time, if necessary, once I get a feel for how much time works.

Not Just for Homeschoolers
Obviously, Peter's Online typing course isn't just for home educators who want to learn how to type online. Anyone can use it. When I was in high school I taught myself how to type using a book from the library. But I stopped once I'd mastered the letters. I never bothered to truly learn the numbers. So I plan on doing that in the near future.

Abraham Lincoln Mini Unit Study

2010-08-05T14:50:00.007-05:00

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States and lived from February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865. The following links will help your children learn about him.

Various types of Books About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln coloring book
The Life of Abraham Lincoln for Young People: Told in Words of One Syllable
Abraham Lincoln mini book - children can cut out and put together themselves

Abraham Lincoln Crafts

Putting Together Abraham Lincoln - paper craft - pages 3 - 6 of the printable excerpt
Lincoln log cabin
Lincoln penny pendant

Abraham Lincoln Videos

Abraham Lincoln Historical Documents

Abraham Lincoln papers at the Library of Congress

Encyclopedia Entries about Abraham Lincoln
These are online encyclopedias that anyone can edit. So you may not want to rely on the information in them too heavily.

I plan on using these links during the first week of school when we'll be concentrating on the letter "A".