January 25, 2012

Check out this rich online resource called A.S.L.U., a free sign language website that offers lessons, videos, tests, quizzes, and everything you need to educate yourself to communicate with deaf friends and family.

I recently started working closely with a deaf woman in our church and really wanted to be able to communicate better with her.  I was pretty excited to find this site because the lessons were well organized and started out with valuable conversation tools I could use right away instead of just vocabulary lists.  I was frustrated with other resources that would teach me a bunch of words, but not how to ‘chat’ with my new friend.

It’s basically a full high school or college ASL curriculum offered online for free.  Take a few moments a day to do a lesson or encourage your children to.  It’s lots of fun, keeps the mind agile, and can help bridge a communication barrier in all kinds of situations.

Enjoy!

Posted under Foreign Language Websites

January 18, 2012

Ok, I need some ideas. We’re reaching that point during the winter where the kids are going nuts from being stuck indoors.

What do you do to keep the kids active during the cold months?

If you have something that works for your kids, take a second and add it to the comment section and maybe we can come up with a nice list to help us all keep our sanity this winter.

Thanks!

Here’s my idea:

We got the two boys a mid-sized trampoline (8 feet, I think) for Christmas.  It just fits in the basement and we’re planning to move it out to the deck in the spring.  Before that, we’ve had good luck with a simple exercise trampoline and a blow-up jumping ball pit, though the blow-up was not very durable with five kids using it.  It only lasted a year or so.

What works for you?

Posted under Homeschool Life

January 12, 2012

Have you ever sat with your child helping them learn history facts, Spanish words, multiplication facts, or any of the myriad of facts they learn throughout their school years?

Next time, head over to this great website that has done most of the work for you already:

Quizlet.com

What we like:

• It’s free, funded by ad revenues.  (You can upgrade to ad-free and ability to load images onto flashcards for an optional $15/yr)
• It’s well-established, so almost any facts you’re looking to study will probably already have a set of flashcards entered for you by previous users – over 8 million sets!
• A well designed dashboard showing all your flashcards, recently studied, statistics, etc.
• Many learning methods including spoken flashcards for foreign languages.
• Games to increase speed and fun with learning.
• Groups – If you are learning in a group, you can get together, share flashcard decks, keep in touch and help each other.
• Printable – A new feature allows you to print your flashcards if you need to take them with you.
• Built from scratch by a high school sophomore into a thriving business.  Read his story here.

What a great resource!  Enjoy.

Posted under Homeschool Websites

January 9, 2012

If your kids are gripping about writing lessons, why not start teaching them to type?

I remember watching my toddler use a mouse better than his grandma and realizing that we are in a completely different world now.

So, why wait to teach typing?  In fact, I have to admit, I type much more nowadays that I actually write.

One of my BFFs (hey, old people can have BFFs, too), recommended a great site that her kids have been using to learn to type, for free:

TypingWeb.com

What we like:

• It’s FREE (There is an optional one-time $10 fee to remove ads and unlock extra lessons and games)
• You can track your progress.
• Typing games make it more fun to learn.
• A free Teacher Portal:  If you sign up first, you can make a username and password for each of your kids.  Then, using the teacher portal, you can keep track of each child’s progress.  All the basics are free.  (They do offer ad-free and premium service options for $4.99 per student if you’d like.)

I hope you enjoy it, too.

Posted under Homeschool Curriculum

December 17, 2011

Photo by Alexbruda

If you’re looking for something fun to do with the kids next week, head over to Michaels, where they will be having three FREE “Make-it Take-it” craft sessions next week.  Here’s the schedule for our area.  Make sure to verify with the store in your neighborhood before going:

1. Monday, Dec. 19th, 11am – 1 pm:  Camille’s Fun Dough Shapes
2. Wednesday, Dec. 21st, 11 am – 1 pm: Orion’s Foam Block Stamping
3. Friday, Dec. 23rd, 11 am – 1 pm: Olier’s Sand & Glitter Art

Enjoy!

Posted under Homeschool Crafts

December 15, 2011

Photo by Julosstock

We found a great little app today that got my 3-year-old writing with his fingers and loving it:  IWriteWords:

It’s a $2.99 app that has a little crab your youngster can touch with his finger and drag over numbered dots to write each step in uppercase/lowercase letters, short words, and numbers.  It quickly teaches them the correct strokes needed to make the letters and has a cute childish drawing that pops up depicting the short words like ‘cat’ and ‘cup’ after correctly writing them.

My little guy wasn’t too interested in the letters by themselves, probably because they have no real meaning.  However, he loved writing words!  He looked so empowered and excited that he was actually writing words.  Then he started on the numbers, which he has recently gotten excited about through his newest game: ThinkFun Zingo 1-2-3.  He sat there, entranced, and wrote all the numbers up to 20 without a break.

Our favorite features:

• Price:  IWriteWords Lite is free to try (only abc, 1-3, and 3 words are included).  Full version is $2.99
• Both lower- and uppercase are offered and correct writing stroke orders are taught intuitively.
• Replay feature, so when I finally get my IPod back, I can tap through all the words and numbers he’s been writing and see a replay of his actual strokes.  Cool to see him improve!
• Included playable version of the ABC song he can tap his way through.
• My child loves it and is excited about writing – that’s priceless . . . I wonder if it would get my 8-year-old excited about writing. 

I wish they would make more apps with this kind of educational quality!  Enjoy.

Posted under Writing Curriculum

December 8, 2011

We love the Melissa and Doug toys for the under 6 crowd in our home, and today they are 50% off as Amazon’s deal of the day:

Melissa and Doug Sale

A couple of our favorites are $10 instead of $20:

Melissa and Doug Cutting Food Box

And for some fun early pattern and math skills, this keeps my 3-year-old intently busy for up to 30 minutes.  That’s a record! 

Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards

Enjoy!

Posted under Homeschool Bargains

December 6, 2011

In addition to homeschooling, I’ve always been an avid bargain shopper, so I hope you’ll excuse the occasional deal post.  Amazon seems to always have the greatest discounts this time of year, plus it’s delivered right to my door.  Win, win!

Here are a few tips that have helped me out:

1. Get a free Amazon Prime Membership Trial, which gives you free 2-day shipping and also removes the $25 order requirement to get free shipping.  You can only do this if it’s been 13 months since a previous free trial. (Make sure to go into “My Account” and “Manage Prime Membership” and review whether you want the Prime to automatically renew after the trial.)
2. Check out the Movers and Shakers Amazon page.  In the left hand column, you can click on the category you’re looking at like ‘toys’ or ‘books’.  This will show you products that have started selling much faster than usual.  This is usually the really popular items along with the ones you’re looking for – the best priced deals.
   • Like these two expansions to our newest family favorite game, Dominion.  We love it because everyone from age 5 to adult enjoys it.  The expansions are usually around $45 and today they dropped to $22 and quickly made the Movers and Shakers page.  Yay!
   • 
3. The Lightning Deals- These go on all day and have specific starting and ending times.  Here are ideas to help you get the items you want:
   • If you’re at all interested in an item, and they are going fast, click and add it to your cart.  You will have 15 minutes to think about it before you need to check out.  If you don’t buy it, it will go to the next person in line.
   • Lightning deals later in the day often only have a clue about what they are.  However, I have found that if you cut and paste the text of the clue and then do a google search for it, with the word “Amazon” you can often figure out what many of the upcoming items are.
4. Finally, if you want to avoid the urgency of the Lightning Deals, you can check out the Deals of the Day or The Gold Box.  Here’s an idea to sift through the many pages of deals offered in the “Best Deal” slider box.  Here’s what to do.
   • Go to the “Best Deals” slider box in the middle of the page (which can be hundreds of pages).
   • Go to the “Sort by” drop down menu and choose “Percent off (high to low)”
   • Click on the category you’re interested in (toys and games, video games, etc.) just below the product images.
   • Buy the good ones: like this $20 Littlest Pet Shop set for $12
   • 

And I appreciate any shopping you do through my links – I get a small referral commission for Amazon purchases made through my links or by using the Amazon search box in the sidebar on my homepage.

Thank you and enjoy your holidays!

Posted under Homeschool Bargains

November 1, 2011

For writing today, I remembered a style of poetry we had a lot of fun with in school – Haiku.

It’s a Japanese style of poetry that based on a theme or image. However, it doesn’t usually rhyme. Instead it has a syllable pattern: 5 syllables for the first line, 7 for the second, and 5 for the third. (Clapping out syllables for a few example words and sentences really helped the younger kids.)

After explaining the basics, we wrote one together:

Kids running around
Making a lot of messes
Fun for everyone

Then the rest of the gang came up with one each on their own:

Our 11-year-old, in reference to his latest favorite game: Minecraft:
Mine some wood from trees
Make some wooden swords and tools
Go kill a creeper

My 10-year-old daughter stormed off, insisting “I’m going to do my own writing, instead of this dumb poetry”, proving that no lesson works for everyone and that puberty emotions are in full force at age 10. 

Our 8-year-old boy:
I like Halloween
I can’t wait to trick or treat
Big bag of candy

And proving that imitation is the sincerely form of flattery, from our 6-year-old boy:

I like Halloween
People wear scary costumes
Big bags of candy

Overall a fun writing unit when you need a break from the daily grind.

Enjoy!

Posted under Writing Curriculum

September 27, 2011

We have had an epidemic of bickering, fighting, and condescending ‘You’ve got to me the stupidest creature on earth” voices in our house the last few months, and it’s driving me crazy.  At least until I came up with a simple idea to fix it all, with a little help.

I’ve always enjoyed the theory behind the Love and Logic books and would love to be the calm, empathetic parent when my kids misbehave . . . instead of the parent who finally loses it at the 452nd whining, bickering, complaining episode of the day.  “The straw that breaks the camel’s back” is a perfect synopsis of how I lose my temper.

So, in an effort to minimize my camel-back-breaking episodes, I’ve been reading, “Parenting Teens with Love and Logic” (the ‘teen’ part because of the ‘ah-hah’ moments about my 9-year-old girl’s frequent bawling episodes and my 11-year-old’s moodiness.)

So, my husband and I were discussing our frustration with the epidemic of nastiness we’ve had in the house lately.  I said I needed a simple consequence.  It had to be easy to give and not require thinking too hard.  (hey, that’s important at the end of the day.)

I had tried small chores, which resulted in slamming cupboards or other performances that I had a hard time staying calm through.  “Up to the room” usually just moved the fight to the hallway upstairs and I’d end up still having to break it up with an extra flight of stairs thrown in.

Then I had it:  OUTSIDE.

I could just escort the offenders to the front door and shut it behind them while saying in a sad voice, “Oh, what a bummer.  Fighting’s not allowed in this house.  We don’t talk to each other that way in our house.  Kicking your mother is not allowed in this house.  Speaking with that mean tone of voice isn’t allowed in our house.”  The possibilities were endless.

And there’s no time limit.  No forcing them to sit out there.  They’re welcome to come in any time they want to change their behavior.  And the door closing in your face while you’re standing on the front porch is such a powerful object lesson.  Instead of endlessly telling them, I’m showing them:  That kind of behavior isn’t allowed in our house.

How it works:

• Notice fighting, nasty voice, bickering, disrespect.
• In an empathetic, sad voice, use the phrase you like.  We use, “Oh, what a bummer.”
• Identify what they’re doing wrong.  “Speaking in that tone of voice isn’t allowed in our house.”
• Escort and even carry them out the front or back door and then shut it.
• They can come in whenever they want, even immediately, if their behavior changes.

So, my husband and I agreed to start the next morning and to my delight I heard a shrieking battle Saturday morning, a calm voice speaking, and then the front door opening and shutting.  After that?  Amazing silence that continued most of the morning.

Is it wrong that I really enjoyed the surprise and shock on their faces?  And we didn’t tell them when they could come back in.  We trusted that they could figure it out.  So, after a few days of this, they either stay outside to rant and rave where I can’t see the show and respond to it, or they pop right back in the house, minus their bad behavior.  I’m loving it.

Combined with this summer’s easy idea to encourage good behavior, we’re making great progress towards a more peaceful home.

If you decide to try it, I’d love to hear how it works.  Or if you have things that work for you, please share.

. . . and I was just thinking . . . winter is just around the corner.  I wonder how cold it gets on the porch?

Posted under Parenting