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Check out Kinder Art, which has one of the largest collections of FREE art lessons on the internet! This mother-daughter team love art and have spent the last 10 years developing this awesome resource to share with all of us.
The site has art lessons, crafts, teaching kits, printables, preschool art, holiday activities, and much more. For a sample, check out this whole page of fun Thanksgiving Art Activities:
Looking for some fun Thanksgiving Day activities? Check out Enchanted Learning. The site has over 20,000 pages full of printable worksheets, crafts, books, and activities on almost every topic imaginable. I’ve enjoyed using it for years whenever I need a hand-on activity to go with what we’re currently learning.
The only downside: it has changed some of it’s content to membership only. Many of the printables are free, but some are not. If you end up using the site extensively, it may be worth it to you to pay the small $20/yr membership cost, which gives you access to printable versions of every page along with an ‘ad-free’ site.
Enjoy!
Do you have a favorite site for printables of worksheets, crafts, and activities? Share it with us in the comment section. Thanks!
(Here’s a fun list I came up with for a bit of a laugh)
Top 10 Signs You’re a Homeschool Overachiever
It takes you three trips to the car to bring in all the supplies for the lessons you teach at the local homeschool co-op.
Your kids are careful about asking you simple questions, because they don’t want to check out a book at the library on the topic, write a book report, do a lap book, build a diorama, and finally, give a presentation to the rest of the kids about the answer.
You make it a point to attend local venues during the day on school days so you can gloat over how empty it is, a valued perk of homeschooling . . . and you’re furious when the the seven busloads of school ‘fieldtrippers’ show up and spoil your fun.
You realize you’ve gone too far with the multi-tasking when you find yourself listening to one child reciting a poem, another reading to you, and you’re trying to slice homemade bread for lunch and nurse the baby, all at the same time. It’s a no go.
When you first started homeschooling with your perfect plan, you secretly sneered a bit at the ‘unorganized’ idea of Unschooling. But lately, it’s been looking very attractive.
When you’re asked about homeschooling, you hand out a tri-fold color brochure (designed and printed as a homeschool project) detailing all the positive statistics and studies supporting homeschooling.
Because of # 6 above, friends have either started homeschooling with you, or make sure not to bring up the subject anymore.
You have a whole shelf of untouched curriculum in the basement. And this isn’t just ordinary homeschool curriculum. You spent hours combing the internet, reading reviews, asking other parents, and then shopping everywhere for the best price including shipping before buying. But, it’s untouched because you somehow can’t find time to fit it into your schedule or your kids just don’t seem to like it.
You recommend the above curriculum to other homeschoolers, since someone should benefit from all the work you did discovering it.
You have a spreadsheet on each of your children showing ages and major milestones in reading and math. You print them with corresponding graphs to use as visual aids in discussions with other homeschool parents about their children.
Did you think of anything to add to the list? Add it to the comment section. Maybe we can put together a Part II
P.S. I have to admit, we’ve been mostly not getting any schoolwork done ‘Unschooling’ after a 2-week vacation, followed by a couple weeks of being sick, and now heading into the holiday season. Ok, maybe that isn’t fair to true unschoolers. Wait, I know! We’re learning socialization!! How to help the sick, keep our tempers, function on little sleep, resolve arguments between sick kids, etc., etc.
In my few free seconds of the day – (or way late at night, because the kids are asleep and I finally have some of MY OWN TIME), I like to surf the web for homeschool websites and ideas.
Here’s one I can’t believe I’ve missed for so long. This is one of the most authoritative, complete sites on homeschooling I’ve seen in a while. It is run by Ann Zeise, a ‘retired’ homeschool teacher:
First off, isn’t that a fun word play on ‘Home school’? Get it? Home’s Cool. Ok, it’s a Laffy Taffy class joke, but pretty cute.
And her site has so much information, it’s hard to even scratch the surface. Here are a few of them:
Just getting started homeschooling? Check out this great list of guides, articles, and FAQs for the beginning homeschooler.
Methods & Styles Directory – Once you’re past the beginning stage, check out some of the homeschooling styles and methods out there. Pick and choose what fits your family and also each individual student.
Scheduled homeschool chats - check out the upcoming chats if you’d like to get into a virtual conversation with some homeschoolers.
Homeschool Discounts – saving money has been my latest hobby, and this is a great article with lots of outgoing links on the topic.
Curriculum Advice – Lots of links and info on a variety of homeschool curriculum topics.
Lessons and Ideas – And if you’re just looking for a fresh idea, check out some of the sites listed here.
Enjoy this free resource!
(FYI – many of these free sites are paid for by the advertising you see throughout the site. If you enjoy a resource, consider clicking on some ads or going through their site to buy something on Amazon.com you already planned to purchase. They will appreciate it and get a small commission.)
Do you have some favorite internet homeschool resources? I’d love it if you would post a quick link in the comments section. In the future, I’d like to compile the ideas suggested by all of you into some “Top 10″ lists or homeschooling resource guides to share with everyone. Thanks!!
(This is the third in a series demonstrating how easy it is to homeschool by using everyday moments like these during our recent vacation as teaching opportunities)
My husband decided early on that he’d like the kids to attend half-day kindergarten, mostly for the fun of it. And what do the kids say their favorite part of kindergarten is? Well, besides recess, gym class is a close second.
We love our homeschool gym classes, too. Here are some of our gym classes on vacation:
Jumping on our cousins trampoline until the sweat pours down our faces and we look like we just had showers. Mom loves how we sleep at night.
When’s the last time you brushed up on your lasso skills in gym class? Here we are at the Fielding Garr Ranch on Antelope Island located in the middle of The Great Salt Lake. Gym, history, bison biology, etc., etc. It’s a homeschool bonanza!
And this is sadly as close as Chris came to riding a horse, cow, or bison But, at least it doesn’t buck!
Skateboard skills and helmet safety class with our instructor, Tim, the daredevil 3-year-old.
Look at those happy, sweaty faces! The Classic Fun Center and it’s huge selection of bounce houses, climbing structures, and a skating rink kept the kids happy and breathless for hours.
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Of course they can be taught. Still, how many time have you heard kids and adults say, “I’m not an artist,” or “I can’t draw.”
(And for the grammar teachers out there, where does the “?” go in the previous sentence?)
Well, I think much of artistic ability is a learned skill, like anything else. I can at least progress past the boxy stick figures of my childhood, even if I’ll never be a Michelangelo.
There are drawing sheets and step-by-step drawing lessons for lots of kid friendly characters. And the drawing lessons even include instructions to draw the images in popular paint computer programs for the kids who want to dip their toes into beginning computer graphics.
The pros? It’s full of resources that are once again, free Enjoy!
The cons? The site is a bit advertising heavy with pop-ups (my browser is set to block those, so I don’t notice so much.
Do you have some favorite art and drawing sites? Please share in the comment section. Thanks!
Would you like to get the latest from HomeschoolBytes without checking back every day? You can have posts delivered right to your inbox, or subscribe to my RSS feed! Thanks for stopping by!
Would you like to get the latest from HomeschoolBytes without checking back every day? You can have posts delivered right to your inbox, or subscribe to my RSS feed! Thanks for stopping by!
This amazing site was one of my first introductions to the generosity of so many people who use the internet to give back and share their work with us all.
Katrina Lybbert has homeschooled her children from birth, and on Letter of the Week, she shares her entire curriculum with us. It is aimed at children from birth to age 8. When I first discovered her website, the main premise was to pick a letter to study each week. She has laid it out so that it is very easy to understand and implement. There is a general plan for the week, showing an outline of what to study and for how many minutes.
Instead of a boring lesson on the letter “C“, how would your children like to read Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, listen to Aaron Copland, sing “Never Smile at a Crocodile”, eat Cantaloupe and Crackers for snack, read about The Creation, learn about a Calendar and how to Classify for math, study Cougars and Crabs for science, Christopher Columbus for social studies, mix Colors for Art, and play Catch for sports?
No, not all in one day, unless you’re an over-achiever This is over the course of a week . . . or more. Whatever works for you and your child.
For each letter, she has a list of specific resources including:
Language Arts
Theme Words
Poetry and Rhymes
Books to Read Aloud
Music with specific composers and songs
Snacks
Bible stories and character traits
Math
Science
Social Studies
Art Project
Sports and Games
Over the years, her site has expanded to offer even more excellent curriculum outlines for tons of other topics including:
Nursery Curriculum
Sound of the week
Story of the week
Science of the week
Country of the week
2 Levels of Spellbright – her spelling curriculum
Journal Ideas
Orchestral Beams – music appreciation
and much more . . .
I have really appreciated this curriculum for my younger ones! Thank you!
And best of all? Once again, it’s free
Do you have a favorite resource or curriculum for your preschoolers? Please share it with us in the comment section or email it to me at HomeschoolBytes @ gmail.com (If you’re looking for more ideas for early reading and phonics instruction, check out this series or other posts under “Reading Curriculum“.)
(This is the second in a series demonstrating how easy it is to homeschool by using everyday moments like these during our recent vacation as teaching opportunities)
Here is a sample of all the art classes we had on vacation:
Halloween Theatre - starring Grandma as “Witch Zaugg” in her annual presentation covering such topics as “Where Do Pumpkins Come From?” and “You may wonder how I ever got a husband”.
Talk about art! We joined our Utah family for their annual crazy marathon pumpkin carving event. Here’s Alex’s Darth Maul.
Check out the amazing line-up of all the pumpkins everyone carved!
And to top of the art lessons, we learned all about fondant and cake decorating from Aunt Lynette who spent a whole day making this awesome R2D2 cake for Alex’s 9th birthday party. Amazing, isn’t it?
Who says you have to go to school to learn? Why not find ways to learn while experiencing life? It’s so much fun. Don’t you think?
Do you have fun ideas for adding art to your homeschool adventure? Please share with us in the comment section. Thanks!!
I’ve been a bit absent from the blog the last couple of weeks while our whole family went on a vacation an educational school field trip. People always say how hard it must be to home school. I keep insisting that it really isn’t. We just have to open our eyes to all the educational moments around us. Here’s how our vacation was actually a school trip. I thought you might enjoy a sample of our studies:
The Great Salt Lake – a science smorgasbord!
Tracks in the sand – Can you guess what animals made them? Answers at the end of the post. (The first one is much smaller than the second ones)
We learned about the brine shrimp in The Great Salt Lake and how the cool sand is made of oolites which are ”particle(s) with a shell of concentric layers of calcium carbonate deposited around a central core–usually a tiny piece of brine shrimp “poop” or a mineral fragment.”
States of Matter – liquid turning to solid salt crystals - A splash of water from The Great Salt Lake happened to land in a perfect teardrop and dry into this cool salt crystal shape.
Biology and Animal Husbandry Class - We watched the Great Bison (“Buffalo”) Roundup on Antelope Island where they roam free the rest of the year. We watched the tagging, immunizations, and pregnancy tests that are part of the yearly health maintenance routine for these amazing animals.
And a final lesson in nature: The wondrous autumn molting cattail! Moms everywhere dread them and boys love them. Here are two of my boys shreading them into a huge pile of fluffy ‘cotton’ to make a bike trail booby trap. They loved watching me ride right through their trap, cotton flying everywhere. Just remember to get the vacuum hose out before letting any ‘cotton’ covered clothes in the house.
(Answers: The first track is an everyday dog print. The second are bison tracks, something you’ll have a hard time finding nowadays)
See. Science is everywhere and a lot more fun to experience than to learn about sitting in the house reading a book. This lighthearted series about our great vacation school trip will include followup posts of how we learn art, gym, language arts, and the infamous socialization while having a fun vacation. Enjoy!
How do you turn your everyday life into homeschool moments? Please share with us in the comment section. I appreciate all your input!
Do you need an idea to help cram more learning time into all the busy work or errands you run during the day? Here’s a great and easy idea: Teach about maps.
1. Use Google Earth to teach the concept of maps with this amazing software program you can download and install for free. My kids love ‘flying’ anywhere in the world and then zooming down to street level to explore. Give them a location to find, like their own house, and watch how quickly they learn to identify continents, states, cities, and on down until they find their own street.
2. Buy a compass: Get an inexpensive compass for each child and introduce the concepts of north, south, east, and west as you are driving in the car. Who knows, you may improve your own sense of direction.
3. Make a neighborhood map and have fun learning about some of the following concepts:
Taking measurements: Discuss ways to measure your neighborhood like using the odometer, counting their own steps, or a measuring wheel. A fun idea is to make your own measuring wheel using a stroller, bike, or something with a wheel. Make a visible line on the wheel, measure the circumference and do a bit of math to measure distances.
Scale: Once you have measurements, teach how to reduce them to a scale that will fit on graph paper.
Beginning geometry: Introduce graph paper, angles and curves to get an accurate map.
Legend: Introduce symbols to represent items on your map. Have kids practice observation skills and keep a list of things they notice in the neighborhood. This provides ideas for their map legend. Ideas include symbols for houses, trees, fire hydrants, businesses, etc.
Art and creativity in color coding and illustrating their maps will make the project fun a well-rounded learning experience.
4. Map your destinations.
Next time you need to run errands, think ahead and give your child the assignment to map the location, print a map, and then direct you as you drive. Start simple and close by, which is perfect for many of your everyday errands. Use free mapping sites like Yahoo, Google, or Mapquest. What a fun way to learn what makes up an address, their home address, the names of streets, etc.
So, next time you hop in the car and wonder how you’ll get all your schooling done, pull out a map and let your kids enjoy learning where they are in the world.
But, at least it doesn’t buck!
by Esphyr Slobodkina, listen to Aaron 
