Making a 3-D snowflake

Got this idea from Holy Experience, who referred me here.

Think it's something I can do sometime with Justin (not yet though, he's not quite old enough to handle it). :)

Written directions
Take 6 squares of any kind of paper.
Fold in half on the diagonal.
Cut 4 slits on both sides, don't let the slits connect.
Lay it flat, and then using tape, take two sides and loop them together. Alternate sides.

Do this for each of the four slits.
This makes one side of the snowflake.

Then make the other 5.

Take three of the sides and staple the ends together.
then do the same for the other three.

Put the stapled ends together and staple them as well.
Then staple some of the edges together to make cohesive unit.

Then hang up! :)

The video does a better job of explaining it. :)

Ah here..found one on Youtube. :)

Surprise find

When I was looking up Spelling stuff, I found this page. I didn't find it very helpful as this colour coding stuff didn't make much sense to me. I hit the home button though....and it led me to pages I found more useful.

They have Curriculum outlines.
They have a humanities link. To a Mr. S.

And Various Homework pages, with activities to do to learn stuff. :) Things like Life in the Artic, and explorers and so forth. Might be a good resource. :)

Spelling

Spelling, spelling, spelling...what child doesn't need to know how to spell, and how to spell well.
It's one of the things that drives me nuts with many of the youth I meet now-a-days...they can't spell even simple words.

Anyways, spelling helps for if and when I should need them.

Inspired by a email newsletter from TOS.

SpellingCity. I went there using my firefox browser, and was told I should use IE instead as there is a known bug using firefox with their system. So... IF you go to Spelling City...use IE.

All About Spelling has free spelling tests. They have them for each grade level.

Here's a page called Spelling It right. Run by a teacher.

Busy Teachers Cafe has this language arts page.

Everyday Spelling is a useful site as well. Comes up with common words misspelled and helps for dealing with spelling as well.

I found the Mount Diablo School District Spelling List to be the most comprehensive that I have found so far.

TLS Books.com has some worksheets. I didn't find them very extensive, but it's a resource none-the-less.

Lots of sites on-line to look at. These seem to be a good start.

Reasons to Homeschool

I have to admit, I liked these. :)

Top Reasons To Home School Your Children

1. Studies show that home-schooled children average between the 80th and 90th percentile, regardless of the socio-economic background, or educational level of the parents.
Great student teacher ratio.
Very good communication between the student, teacher and parents.
The student can’t lie about their homework.
With a class size of one, they can’t copy anybody else's work.
The curriculum is in perfect agreement with the values of the parents.
The children will not bring bad habits home from school.
The pace of learning will be geared to the ability of each child, not the lowest common denominator.
You don’t have to fix lunch in the morning.
Children will be better adjusted socially if they don’t learn social skills from the street gangs.
Without peer pressure, they learn to think for themselves, not just parrot what the “group wants to hear”.
Every educator agrees that parental involvement is the key to success in a child’s education. How could one be more involved?
Your child will never be “just a number” in the classroom.

AND THESE ONES TOO!

The Top 20 Reasons to Home-school

20. Your kids never tell you that you're a lot dumber than their teacher.

19. If you can't find matching socks for your child first thing in the morning, who cares?

18. Cleaning out the refrigerator can double as chemistry lab.

17. Your kids never have a reason to think they'll get beat up by a gang at school.

16. If the principal gives the teacher a bad evaluation, she can stick her icy feet against his legs at night.

15. You can post the Ten Commandments on your school room wall, and you won't get sued.

14. You never have to drive your child's forgotten lunch to school.

13. Your child will never go to their 20th high school reunion, meet an old flame, and recklessly abandon their marriage.

12. You get to change more than diapers, you get to change their minds.

11. If you get caught talking to yourself, you can claim you're having a PTA meeting.

10. It's better to be slightly concerned about socialisation than very concerned about socialism.

9. Your child will never suffer the embarrassment of group showers after PE.

8. The only debate about the school lunch program is whose turn it is to cook.

7. You never have to face the dilemma of whether to take your child's side or the teacher's side in a dispute at school.

6. If your child gets drugs at school it's probably Tylenol.

5. The teacher gets to kiss the principal in the faculty lounge and no one gossips.

4. Your kids recognize that this list is numerically in reverse order.

3. Your honour student can actually read the bumper sticker that you have put on your car.

2. If your child claims that the dog ate his homework you can ask the dog.

1. Some day your children will consider you to be a miracle working expert and will turn to you for advice.

Merry Christmas to all

Children's Bible Studies

Children's Bible studies

325 bible studies of the entire Bible free to download and use for nonprofit use. Each study features quizzes, puzzles, and a picture to color. Free Adobe Acrobat is required to view.

Keys for Kids

Unlocking God's Word for young faith
You can learn more about God’s love every day! Read a fun story and hide God's Word in your heart with the Key Verseof the day. Check out today’s Key, or look for your favorite story in the archives!

Uncle Noah's Children's bible study I thought this site interesting. It Even has studies for little children...non-readers. Most sites don't do that.

I've been familiar with Calvary Chapel's stuff for years now. I've often used it as inspiration when doing Children's bulletin's.

This Geocities site looks promising. I'll have to check it out more sometime.

Steward Ship

Friday Freebies at The Old Schoolhouse, pointed me in the direction of Steward Ship.
These folks produce Unit Studies and other such things to help homeschoolers teach their children.

With the unit study method, we choose one topic and combine different subjects to revolve around and tie into that topic. First of all, the unit study approach is different from the traditional textbook approach (which is to read a portion of text, usually full of facts and not very interesting and then answer some questions at the end).

Unit studies are conducted in a more relaxed fashion and are interactive in nature.

.........

A unit study can be anything you want it to be. It can be short or long, filled with lots of activities or just a few, it can be something you do alongside your other studies or a full blown unit study that takes several weeks. But the key is, YOU get to decide.

There are three avenues to consider when deciding how you will do a unit study:

— Purchase a complete unit study
— Use a prepared topical guide
— Create your own from scratch

If you want to know more, check out their website. For a brief unit study, check this out.

Jesse Tree

I've heard of these before.
It's something that my sister does.
I have not embarked on the Jesse Tree journey, at this point, what Justin and I is this.

Anyways, Jesse Tree resources, these from Friday Freebies via The Old Schoolhouse, are:

Here is a PDF file of designs for making Jesse Tree Ornaments.

And hey...my very own denomination has section for doing Jesse Tree devotions! That was a surprise to me. Kinda like that. :)

There are other sites on Jesse Tree
Here is one from The Voice.
Another from Catholic Culture.
Diocese of Erie has downloads and instructions.

In the month before Christmas, the church anticipates the coming of Jesus, the light of the world, through readings that span from the Old Testament creation story through Jesus’ birth. Jesse, for whom the tree is named, is the first person in the genealogy of Jesus. At the top of this family tree are Mary and Jesus. Depicted in church windows and artwork for hundreds of years, this visual tree of life may even have been a forerunner of today’s Christmas tree.

All you need for this project is a homemade drawing of a tree that can be taped to a wall or hung on your refrigerator. You can also make a Jesse tree by putting a few tree branches in a pot filled with gravel or sand, or using a tabletop Christmas tree on which to hang Jesse tree ornaments.

Reflect on the readings and symbols of this ancient tradition. You can download our symbols on card stock, or print them on paper and glue them to construction paper or felt. Sharing the Jesse tree story is a great way to help build anticipation for the birth of the Christ child, allowing the roots of faith to take hold and grow.

Just look around the web, if you want to do a Jesse Tree, there's lots of help out there for you. :)

Sail to the New World

Okay, this Friday Freebie sent in the newsletter from The Old Schoolhouse, sounds VERY familiar to me, but I can't see where I might have posted on it before so here goes.

Sail to the New World. Put out by Tapestry of Grace

Sail to the New World takes you through the first three week-plans in Unit 3 of Tapestry of Grace Year 2: Between Ancient and Modern. Tapestry is designed as a rotational program, and many families discover Tapestry after they have already studied world history with other programs. Tapestry plans are available by the unit, so you can take up your Tapestry studies wherever you left off with your other program. This Colonial America unit is one of the most popular places to begin Tapestry mid-year. Do you have a break coming up in your regular school year? Try printing out these weeks out and using them to do a three-week mini-unit on early Colonial America as you approach Thanksgiving.

Korea

For a unit study on Korea, go here. Better yet, join Knowledge Quest and get a newsletter sent to you with interesting stuff in it. :)

For more on Korea you could check out the following:
Wikipedia.
You could go to google earth and explore it via satellite.
You could check out South Korea's tourism site.
Or you could see what the CIA has on South Korea and North Korea.

I learned that just doing a search on Korea will draw up more resources for south korea than for north. I found that interesting and am not sure why that it is. Perhaps later today I will have a chance to discover the reasoning behind that.

There are a lot more resources on-line, just go check them out. :)

Math Helps

This Old Schoolhouse continues to send out their Friday Freebies.

Sept 13 contained these math ones:
Games, games, games

Worksheets and Printable games on math

In other places I found these:
SoftSchools.

Toon University has these two sites: grades 4-6 and grades 1-3, I think they are a little stupid in how they "reward" the correct answer. But I'm not a child so perhaps I'm a bit out of it. :)

This one seems neat. Actually gives some examples of how to do different math. Called Coolmath4kids. Taught me again how to teach long division.

This math game page actually contains how to's with printouts. So not done so much on-line as it is in real-life.

I haven't checked this site out a whole lot, seemed a bit more advanced at first glance, but Free math Help might be a good site to check out sometime.

I do find it surprising just how many sites there are on-line to help with math.

Challie's Contest

Math for Kindergarten

From what I've been able to determine, math for kindergarten means teaching

EQUAL and NOT EQUAL

LESS THAN and GREATER THAN

MAKING TWO GROUPS EQUAL

That these concepts lay the foundation not only for arithmetic, but also for algebraic thinking.

One also needs to teach the basic number families 0 - 20.

I can do this! :)

Some places to go from printables and such like:
Free Kindergarten math sheets.

Not sure how do able this will be...it's all online, Kindergarten math.

AAA math lists some Kindergarten math topics.

once again, not sure how doable this is for kindgarten children, but it's an idea generator in the very least. :) From Harcourt school publishers.

Kindergarten Math Worksheets. These pages look doable.

lots of math pages here at this about.com page on Kindergarten math sheets.

Ideas for make it yourself math worksheets from Lesson Exchange.

Unit Studies

Corresponding with this post over at Fisher of Disciples, Here are some places to find unit studies that are already made. Need to be purchased for the most part.

Amanda Bennett's Unit Studies.

Heart of Wisdom Publishers has unit studies.

homeschooling at Sassafras Grove has some unit studies. Took a quick breeze through the site and wow! Using this will save me time and energy. ;)

Family Classroom. net has unit studies, free, already made up for use. Might make good base for developing unit studies of my own.

From Homeschool in the woods comes this unit study on Christmas.

Home School Learning Network lists units of study I would not have thought of on my own. They give actual studies too! This site also have unit studies that you can purchase, and a whole whack available through a subscription program.

Zone Unit Studies has some fairly basic studies as far as I can tell. Might be a source of inspiration. :)

Home Sweet homeschool lists a fair number of resources. Worth checking it sometime.

Autumn

The Old Schoolhouse has once again, sent out a treasure of freebies. :)

This focus of this one is Autumn stuff, goes to figure since well....summer is technically over. :)

First up... I really like this, It comes from treasure house press. A PDF file of the science of autumn.

It's called "The Science of Autumn" (and trees!) and looks like loads of fun! There are activity pages, informational write-ups, notebooking pages, web resources and more!

Next up is a page loaded with Fall craft ideas for children. Bookmarks, place mats, ponytail holders. Fun for children. More can be found here and here.

Sunday School Curricula or a Home-school aid?

So Carla at Reflections of the Times pointed my way to Children Desiring God and their Sunday School Curriculum.

Looks good to me.
Not the cheapest curricula out there.
But looks good. Makes me think I could use that with my boy child as he matures a bit.

Scripture memory

I have to admit, I do like this idea as well for scripture memory.

Use clipart to illustrate the verse/s that you are trying to learn. Connect the visual with the mental. :) might help!

Applying Scripture in your home

So ran across this site: Doorposts.

This is a site designed to help people use scripture effectively when they are parenting.
They have a page of free resources, as well as books you can purchase.

One of the things that I don't like about the site, is some of their charts I think are interesting, but would like to actually see the whole thing before ordering it.

Homeschooling with Toddlers

I get a newsletter from Knowledge Quest.

This week they had a link to an article on homeschooling with toddlers in the house. I thought it interesting and helpful.

There are three strategies to use when homeschooling with toddlers in your home and these are 1. Keep them busy, 2. Divide and Conquer and 3. Get Creative.

Some of the ideas listed I liked.
like the one about having a preschool box with activities to do. Just stuff ready to do in a ziploc bag. Takes a bit of prep work...but makes it easier later on.

This one I do all the time:

Put the step stool up to the kitchen sink, close the drain and run a drizzle of water into the sink along with a little bit of dish soap. Give your child some plastic cups, bowls and spoons to "wash". He'll feel glad to know that he is helping with the chores.

The divide and conquer I haven't had to use too much. I only have the one boy...though two dogs so sometimes hubby watches the boy while I walk the dogs. :) Does that count?

So anyways, check it out. Good ideas to be found there.

Geography Layouts

I get an occasional bulletin from the homeschool e-store. I find it a useful bulletin, most come focused on one thing or the other.

This week it came with some good geography lesson planning ideas.

Geography Reference Tools
By Maggie Hogan

Assigning students to label maps or to do some other mapping project is a great hands-on way to instill map skills. But don’t jump in too soon! Before making assignments, it’s vital to: Instruct students in the use of geography reference tools!

Choose appropriate reference material. Consider:

* Typeface. Look carefully at the font style and size. If it’s too small for the student to read clearly, it will cause frustration. Younger students need bigger, clearer fonts.

* Lay-out and design. Busy and detailed maps that may appeal to a high school student may easily frustrate a fifth grader.

* Content. Look for atlases containing material complimentary to your lesson plans. While studying American history, you’ll be pleased to have a USA atlas on hand. (These too, come in a variety of levels.) Some atlases are almost strictly maps, while others include a wealth of other information: flags, planet and earth statistics, and cultural information.

* Atlas age. Is your only household atlas a ponderous volume from college days? It may be useful for some projects, but its political maps will be hopelessly out of date.

* Variety. No single atlas is going to answer every question asked. One atlas may be strong in political maps, while another is a great atlas for thematic maps, and another has exciting, eye-catching cartography.

* Wall Maps. Look for:
Africa in the center so that Asia isn’t split. (Many American made maps use a projection with the USA centered on the world map. This projections makes the USA look bigger than it really is and has the added disadvantage of splitting Asia in two. It’s hard to explain to younger students why one continent appears on opposite sides of a map!!)
Politically up-to-date.
Pleasing to look at and read.
Enough labeling to be helpful, but not cluttered.
Teach students which reference to use when:

* Road Map - for specific driving directions.

* Wall Map - countries and continents at a glance. Excellent for current events and the “big picture.” Not well suited for detailed map work.

* Globe - countries and continents in relationship with one another. Excellent for physical geography/science topics such as: latitude, longitude, hemisphere, rotation, eclipses, seasons, day and night, time zones, etc. Not well suited for most “find this place” type activities.

* Atlas - for finding specific places, political and physical features, and thematic information such as climate maps, population maps, etc. Not well suited for the “big picture” of physical relationship of continents/countries around the world.

* Almanac - concise information in one easy source on a huge variety of topics. Typically updated yearly. (Think of it as the “highlights” of an encyclopedia.) Not well suited for in-depth studies.

* Encyclopedia - in-depth information on countries, peoples, places, events, etc. Not well suited to current events - only as current as its publishing date.

* Dictionary - concise definition, pronunciation, and spelling of geographic terms. What is a “butte” and how do you say that?!

Excerpted from: The Student History Notebook of America by Maggie S. Hogan. Available from www.BrightIdeasPress.com