- Articles
- Charlotte Mason
- Learning Disabilities
- Message Boards
- Organization
- Workboxes
- Curriculum Distributors
- Used Curriculum Sites
- Happy Hands Posters
- Our Favorite Curricula
Articles:
Grass is Greener Syndrome - how to overcome curriculm hopping and when to switchHelp with Writing - Editing Tips
Why Homeschool
10 Helps for a Homeschool Slump
When Family Disapprove
Stories of Hope on my Hope is My Anchor blog.
Homeschool Oasis Avoiding burnout, lots of ideas and over 100 home schooling & parenting articles!
Practical Homeschooling Magazine Articles/columnists--what a collection of HS articles from well-known authors and speakers!
Bad Homeschool Day Some good ideas for helping your home school to run more smoothly. One more thing I'd add to their list--undiagnosed learning disabilities. If you are struggling with teaching a child, this is an issue to look into.
The Myth of Superwoman--a great article to read for all moms who try to do too much!
Planning the New School Year Great article on Crosswalk.com
Homeschool Highlights Dean and Karen Andreola's site, some Charlotte Mason articles.
Narration: Great article by Karen Andreola!
Sonlight homeschool helps--videos, articles--lots of resources for new homeschoolers
Whole Heart Ministries Newsletter by Clay and Sally Clarkson--go to their website to sign up.
Charlotte Mason:
I'm partial to many of the CM methods. If you haven't read about it before, hopefully these sites will help. I really enjoyed the book, For the children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macauley. See also Karen Andreola's site linked in the articles section.
4 real learning: This site has a good overview of the CM method.
Learning Disabilities:
If you want to strike fear into a parent's heart, mention the idea learning disabilities. This area of education is misunderstood and often avoided out of fear. Did you know that many kids with learning disabilities also have areas of giftedness? Truly this is an area that parents should become educated about if they are going to meet the needs of their children. If you have a child who is struggling, appears "lazy," seems to remember things one day but not the next, struggles with attitude during school, then I urge you not to dismiss this possibility until you have done some research. Even if your child doesn't seem to have a true disability, you may learn some methods and approaches that will help you and your child.
The Mislabeled Child An excellent resource! From their website: "to help you, as parents, teachers, or other child-care professionals to find the right names for the challenges keeping children from learning to their full potential." Includes real-life examples and practical tips for helping your child. If you are not sure whether your child has a learning disability, this book is a good place to start.
ADHD
Westfield Academy "Dedicated to Helping Children Discover and Develop the Gifts They Have been Given." Also link for help with teaching ADD/ADHD and highly distractible children.Sizzle Bop! Where Highly Distractible People are Celebrated, Encouraged & Empowered. This is the place to come to if you are the parent of a highly distractible child or the spouse of a highly distractible mate. This is also the place to come if YOUare the highly distractible person.
HelpGuide Lists symptoms & ideas to help both adults and children.
Dyslexia
What is Dyslexia?Dyslexia Symptoms
All About Reading All About Reading consists of eight levels and begins with Level Pre-1, which gives your child the best possible start in learning to read. Both programs come with lifetime support and a 100% money-back guarantee.
All About Spelling An incremental, multisensory program that takes the struggle out of spelling. It's been a huge blessing for our kids--check out my blog review.
Stealth Dyslexia A great read for people whose kids don't struggle with reading but do struggle with spelling or math or vocabulary...
Vision Therapy
College of Optometrists in Vision Development If your child struggles with reading, writing, or math, or with coordination, this site is a must-read.Lane Learning Center
Vision Care Center
Message Boards:
All About Reading and All About Spelling Facebook Support Group: A language arts board sponsored by All About Spelling and All About Reading
Homeschool Chat: "Get ready to be encouraged" Scheduled topics and open chat times.
Homeschool Library A nice mix of homeschoolers on this board!
The Well-Trained Mind A great site for classical homeschoolers, although a lot of non-classical educators hang around too. I'm not a classical homeschooler, but I like a lot of the ideas I find on here. I've also enjoyed some of Susan Wise Bauer's videos on You-tube.
Organization:
See also Workboxes (below)Manager's of Their Homes I am not a "scheduler" by nature and I don't clock-watch most of the time, but this book helps me define & accomplish my goals. I appreciate Teri Maxwell's emphasis on prayer. I do make up a "schedule" but in reality I am flexible with it and tend to follow more an order of events. And unlike her, I need 9 hours of sleep or I burn out! I don't agree with all of their views but have gleaned some good ideas from this book. (Note, it's been updated since I used it! Go to their product page to find it.)
Workboxes:
I was hesitant to try these at first. Were they just for little kids? Would they be too much work and not enough pay-off? Instead, I found that they were a great asset to our school! I think of them as being a 3-dimensional schedule--they organize all of my kids materials (no more lost books!), hold me accountable for checking their work daily (well, almost! better than I used to be!), and give structure and flow to our day.
Our Workboxes--Here's my blog with pictures of what we use and a description of how we use them.
Sue Patrick's Workbox System--Sue Patrick is the author and consultant who popularized this method of organization.
There are tons of blogs out there, and yahoo groups with files of downloadable forms and ideas. I have read some experiences of Moms who jumped in and tried to change everything to fit the system--only to abandon it a few weeks later. I encourage you to use the system as you deem best fits your family--don't change what's already working. Identify areas in the flow of your day or in how you organize your materials or day that are not working, and then look for organizational tools such as workboxes that can help you address those needs. Only do a complete overhaul if you really need one, LOL! And even then, you may benefit from a gradual implementation of a new system.
Curriculum Distributors:
Rainbow Resource I think their print catalog is easier to use than their site, I refer to it often. Reviews of almost 30,000 homeschooling items--if it's on the market, there's a good chance RR carries it. Great prices.
Sonlight (see my longer note and links under History.)
Timberdoodle Just plain fun, wish I could buy it all up, LOL! Also great prices.
Used Curriculum Sites:
Please note: While I've never personally had any trouble buying or selling used, I know it happens. Be careful!
Places I've sold:
Ebay
Homeschool Classifieds I love this site particularly because all of the listings are organized--you can find whether someone is selling what you want so easily!
The Well Trained Mind - Classifieds. I always seem to have good luck on this site--and the search feature works well. Use the sub-forums--there is one "for sale" and one "want to buy." You need to have a minimum of 50 posts on the WTM before you can post items for sale.
Happy Hands Posters:
Our Favorite Curricula and Resources:
Here are some of my favorite resources throughout the years:
Art:
Artcyclopedia Wow! Search by artist or by artwork
Drawing Tips: Top 10 Mistakes Beginners Make
Glossary of Art Periods
Homeschool Arts--free visual arts lesson site (in various mediums!)
Miller Pads and Paper--hands down my favorite place to get art supplies--great prices, and they have an awesome newsletter too, with art lessons for your kids included, and sometimes contests and other information.
History:
Mystery of History "This everything you need for teaching Ancient Civilizations through the time of Christ, all in one book. Chronological, Classical, Complete. This is a truly unique and remarkable new product! Written for 4th - 8th graders but adaptable for the whole family." I appreciate the integration of biblical and secular history. I enjoy the MOH yahoo email groups (there's a group for each level).
Bright Ideas Press This company created a literature-based program around the Mystery of History called Illuminations. We are not using their guides at this point, though I may use the high school guide. We are using a few of their recommended books, plus the challenge cards they created. They also have a yahoo group.
Christian Biographies Lots of great info on Christian Heroes!
Sonlight--One of my all-time favorites for read-alouds and readers--a wonderful, literature-based program. We liked some of their history and biography selections, while others we subbed over the years, but I always found myself wanting to use their book lists and packages. They pick great literature, and we enjoyed wonderful years of reading together. We used Pre-K, Cores A-H, 100, and selections of 200-500.
My kids enjoyed the Prek books for many years! Cores D and E were our favorites. Core F is very different, and while we liked many of the books, the style of the curriculum just didn't meet our needs and wasn't very enjoyable to us. We used Mystery of History with Cores B and C, and again with G, H, and the selections from 200-500.
We also used their Science for A-C, which was sometimes hit or miss for us. We tried LA for A and B but it didn't really work for us--we found it was better to separate needed areas like reading and spelling, grammar and writing, rather than try to use an all-in-one resource. Here's more about Language Arts in My Household.
Sonlight also has an amazing array of homeschool helps--videos, articles--check it out!
Paula's Archives This is a great site for Sonlight support as well as articles, curriculum reviews (very informative), activity ideas for school-age and for toddlers...
Roads to Everywhere: Ideas and Links for Supplementing Sonlight
Math:
Math-U-See--Great multisensory program, and the explanations make sense. I used Pre-Algebra through Pre-Calculus with my kids, plus the MUS Stewardship course.
Horizons Math--we used levels 1-6, and it worked pretty well. My son wished we had used Math-U-See all the way through though, I just hadn't really considered it in the early years. But my daughter loved Horizons: as my daughter said, "Mom, it's got color, it's got jokes, it's got Bible references...what more could I want?"
Graph paper Great for math homework because you can choose the size, shape, and color of the lines, and it's convenient. We typically use the 1/2" grid with light gray lines. Just enough to help my kids keep their columns straight.
Baseball Math Game Great game for addition and multiplication. Other games too!
Short Division--I never learned this in school, but it's pretty neat, try it! Especially if you have a child struggling with long-division.
Kidzone: Graded pre-made math drill sheets with cute winter theme graphics
Living Math I didn't know whether to put this link under Charlotte Mason or under Math! You'll be amazed at how much math-oriented literature there is! Check out the "library" link for extensive lists. I recently learned that there is a Living Math Yahoo Email Group.
Youngzones Children's Literature I am absolutely astounded at the volume of literature on mathematics! Not just counting--addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, probability...copy the list and check out these resources at your local library!
Music:
San Francisco Symphony Kids Cute site, learn instruments & more.
Christian Guitar Resources Extensive database of music and artists. You can download sheet music that is no longer under copyright.
Classical Kids CD's--these are available at many distributors and are a wonderful way of incorporating music and story. Beethoven Lives Upstairs is my favorite (love the Moonlight Sonata), but they are all wonderful.
Classics for Kids Listen to music and stories, plus learnabout composers and instruments
Worship Guitar--dvd lessons for 9.5 to adult
Kid's Worship Guitar--dvd lessons for 4-9 yo's
Reading:
All About Reading I would have loved this for teaching my kids to read! I looked and looked for something like their Pre-reading level when I was helping my oldest get ready to learn to read. If you aren't sure whether to start with Pre-reading or 1, here's an article on Reading Readiness with a checklist you can use.
1000 Good Books List Put together by 25 homeschooling moms, this is an awesome list!
Reading Level Assessment: For a quick, general idea of your child's reading level, scroll about 1/3 down this page for a reading test.
Spelling:
All About Spelling We've had phenomenal success with this program when so many others just didn't work for us. This is a great, multisensory, Orton-Gillingham-based approach that is easy to use and fun too. Check out my blog for more info: Spelling Progress!
All About Homophones This is a fun program that has games and independent worksheets to help kids solidify the meanings of various homophones. Over 100 worksheets, plus a listing in the back of over 1000 homophones. You might also enjoy playing with the Homophone Machine!
Science:
Classical Astronomy - You can also sign up for their email newsletter for learning the seasonal constellations, keeping informed of upcoming sky events, and showing the historical relevance of astronomy to our culture.
Dinosaurs Word searches, questions to answer, pages to color, a matching game, and more. It is based off the book that Science 2 uses, The Great Dinosuar Mystery and the Bible.
Mentos Experiment You really need to watch the video footage on this, funny & great for kids too!
Supercharged Science Great curriculum with more than 100 videos of experiments and all the information your children could want to learn about them, plus the ability to communicate with the author and more. Here's my review. It was fun for a year, then we moved on to other things.
Tree ID Cool site for identifying what kind of tree you are looking at--it asks you questions & takes you through step by step, very helpful!
Apologia We enjoyed both the elementary books and the highschool books. My son especially appreciated that Dr. Wile would present some arguments and the pros and cons from both sides of an issue in General and Physical Science. (Biology did not do as good of a job with this on the topic of Evolution.) We used Astronomy, Botany, and the elementary A & P book, plus General, Physical, Biology, Chemistry (2nd edition), Physics, and Advanced Biology (my daughter really enjoyed that.)
Dr. Jay Wile This is his blog.
We used some Sonlight--see my note under history.
Writing and Grammar:
Essentials in Writing. I came across this gem at the Cincinnati Homeschool convention last year. The author, Matthew Stephens, calls it a "Math-U-See" approach to writing because he uses short video segments to teach incremental lessons. This is by far the easiest writing program to use and implement that we've ever tried. It totally makes sense to my son, and it's laid out in a way that's easy to follow. No more tears for child (or MOM!). Great price too. Here's my review.
Gift of Family Writing Remembrance Press. Inspiring site! "...a delight directed, practical approach to writing that will teach your children how to communicate from their hearts, strengthen family relationships, and preserve a spiritual legacy for generations to come."
BraveWriter "Live honestly, write bravely" is the motto on this site. The Writer's Jungle is a great LA resource for parents of kids in upper elementary and Jr. High (which could be modified for younger kids as well). This is a book to teach moms how to teach writing, rather than a curriculum. The author utilizes the style of writing I learned in college through Peter Elbow's Writing With Power. Great articles, discussion board, blog, and email reminders--almost a full-service LA! What a breath of fresh air! She also teaches online writing classes, and has a course for highschoolers/college prep. I have taken the Copywork and Dictation class (now called Foundations); it was very helpful for us, but unfortunately the price has doubled since I took it. I tried the Arrow--good ideas but not a lot of quantity. I suggest trying the sample first and buying just one or two to start with before purchasing a bunch.
The Un-Scope and Sequence Great article for those teaching K-12 yo writers. If you're in the throes & frustrated, a must-read!
Jump In The link to Jump In is on Apologia's site, where you can see a full sample chapter. However, it's available for $10 less from places like Rainbow Resource. I liked how it was laid out, but we needed things broken down a bit more than some of the assignments in here.
Grammar Guide Excellent grammar site for questions.
Easy Grammar Just like the title says, it makes grammar fairly easy to learn. Use the grade level book even if you haven't done grammar previously.
Karen Andreola's Story Starters was a really fun resource. Large black and white pictures with a story that ends at a climax--the child finishes the story.
Visual Thesaurus Type in a word & see a visual "word tree," very cool!
We tried Sonlight--see my note under history.
Literary Devices
Literary Devices
Literary Terms This site has an EXTENSIVE list of terms.
Handwriting
Startwrite We used this for all of our handwriting in K, I loved being able to customize my own pages, and my kids improved a lot through tracing.In later years we used Handwriting without Tears and A Reason for Handwriting. I especially like HWT Can Do Cursive because it incorporates some grammar and some exposure to Greek and Latin roots.
