free educational links | Still Learning Something New

These are some of the links to sites which we tried out and learned from this week. We’ll be visiting these sites again, they’re all great!

The younger boys practiced math facts with pumpkin patch math games from http://www.fun4thebrain.com/index.html

We played the Daniel themed word games from http://kidsonlinebiblegames.com/

We started a couple of research projects using this interactive information site with over 900,000 topics! http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/

This music site sells music, but has free lyrics and a short sample of the songs. We read and sang the October themed songs. http://www.songsforteaching.com/themeunits/octobersongs.htm

The younger boys and I enjoyed some short stories from http://www.short-story-time.com/

I got some awesome craft and lesson plan ideas from http://www.franw.com/

We all played dictionary games and even submitted some made up words to the “Build Your Own Dictionary” from this Merriam-Webster site. http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html

The kid from this poetry competition responds to the accusation the he has been brainwashed. Brainwashing is a topic that comes up occasionally when discussing homeschooling. It was a wonderful presentation to share with my high schoolers. http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=27292&alias=my-parents-brainwashed-me#.Ul-DAOWOMog.facebook

Every day free resources are posted in the homeschooling social media groups. If you’re interested in finding your own great links for free teaching resources, need some advice, or have something to share I recommend joining these homeschool networking groups.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/210519735725683/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/567122276640599/

I hope you had a productive and fun homeschooling week. Enjoy the weekend!

betty jo

This week was our fall break, but not a break from finding some terrific educational resources. Below are the best of “new to me” sites that I have saved for next week when our studies resume. It’s my hope that you can use these too!

Children’s activities and crafts and more (warning – this site offers so much you will need to make sure you have a lot of time to spend browsing around) http://krokotak.com/en/

Thousands of lesson plans and worksheets http://lessonplancentral.com/

Health and science resources for all grade levels http://classroom.kidshealth.org/

Plants, animals, fungi, ecology, geology, and more http://www.backyardnature.net/index.html

Fun poetry resources http://www.poetryteachers.com/index.html

Great education articles from NSA’s weekly newsletter including “Strategies That Motivate All Students to Participate”, “Art Therapy Exercises”, and ” Childhood Damaged by Over-testing” http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=8fb495371ca5be23e1601ecc0&id=a2a873085d&e=3bba501884

Have a great weekend!

betty jo