Online Favorites ~ Resources we have LOVED

In our five years of home learning, my daughter has tried a myriad of resources so I thought I would create a post that highlighted some of her favorites. This list is in no specific order, other than how they came to my memory. These are not all free resources, but those that aren't are very reasonable priced! I have also included links to any full length reviews that I may have done in the past so be sure to click through the links in each section! ENJOY!!!

Khan Academy - This was a great supplement for Math, Science, and History. I think if we had found it earlier we would have used it as full curriculum core and we plan to do so in the future for things like Art History and Computer Science.

Science Jim - KM LOVES Science Jim!!! She has taken a number of classes with him and has watched every one of his webshows! Here is our full review.

Hippocampus - We used this to supplement her history program for a while and it really seemed to help solidify the topics. Here is a link  to the course that she used.

Manga High - Super fun ~~ and FREE ~~ games for improving math skills and increasing speed! A few of KM's faves were Sundae Times, Pyramid Panic, and Sigma Prime. For a list of all the games click HERE.

Mathletics World Games - These annual events are so much fun! Check them out here and here are links to our experiences.

Yale Open Courseware - KM felt like she learned a lot from Listening to Music. 

Ko's Journey - This is a fantastic supplement to any math program. It is so engaging and interactive! Check out the full review and screenshots HERE. 

BrainPop - We have loved BrainPop since before KM was officially a home learner, but it always drove me CRAZY that they didn't have answer keys available to their lessons. GUESS WHAT!! Now they do in their Educator's section and you can sign up absolutely FREE!!

CNN Student News - This is our 3rd year using this incredible resource and it never lets us down! From the site - CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. This award-winning show and its companion website are available free of charge throughout the school year. At CNNStudentNews.com, you'll find a wealth of teacher materials presented free of charge, including Daily Transcripts for each show, Daily Discussion questions, the Media Literacy Question of the Day, downloadable Maps and additional support materials to help students understand the news. In addition, the educators at CNN offer Discussion Guides for CNN documentaries and initiatives, including Black in America, Latino in America and CNN Heroes. 

Check it out HERE! I should mention that I may be a bit partial as Carl Azuz tweeted with us and gave a shout out to homeschoolers! 

Scholastic Webcasts & Lessons - We have really enjoyed quite a few programs from scholastic, in fact I don't think there have been any that we didn't really like. Just a few that we have done are First Thanksgiving, 39 Clues Club, Iditarod Lessons, Winter The Dolphin, Science World and a link to view previous webcasts HERE

This really is just a small sampling of the things that she has used and enjoyed, but it is a great place to get started trying out alternatives!!!

Science Jim - Bringing Science to Life in Your Home!

For nearly three years now Science Jim has been our go to product for interesting, intriguing, engaging and amazing Science Curriculum! From his incredible FREE science webisodes to his well-written ebooks and his engrossing webclasses there are no other products being offered like these on the web!

Science Jim has a comfortable, humorous style that gets kids interested and keeps them hooked. The hands-on activities and experiments included in his ebooks always utilize things that can be found in most households and his sequential cumulative lessons have an overall focus of bringing science to life for learners.  Another important feature to me is always customer service and Science Jim has always gotten back to us in a timely manner no matter what question or issue was presented to him.




So if you are looking for affordable classes or ebooks to get your learners interested and engaged hop on over to Science Jim's site and check out some of his free samples!



To view pasts posts that have included info on Science Jim click HERE!

You Tube Monday - Science Jim Show: Strange Deep Creatures

KM has taken SEVERAL of Science Jim's classes and has LOVED the all so we thought it would be good to  feature one of his webshows for others to enjoy!

You Tube Monday - Halloween Picks

These are some new and old Halloween Favorites!!!

Science Jim Show: Bats! from Science Jim on Vimeo.

For the other two parts of Garfield's Halloween special visit You Tube - Part 2 & Part 3

Sometimes things just work out

May is one of those months when EVERYTHING seems to happen at once! On top of our regular schedule KM has theater practice twice a week, has signed up for a sailing class that was too good to pass up and decided to do a Science Jim class at the last minute. We also have lots of events and spring field trips scheduled and have been wondering when the two newest Littles were going to arrive.

Well this afternoon I got back from theater a bit early - our hike went REALLY quickly and we got to theater early so we ended nearly an hour ahead of schedule - and I thought to myself here is some "extra" time to get some work done. I emptied out the bags and got things put away, changed into some sweat pants, and was ready to get down to work. First I checked my emails and saw that due to the forecast of 40 MPH winds KM's sailing class was going to be cancelled for tomorrow - YIPPEE even more free time! What luck I will be able to get ahead of the schedule! I stopped for a second and went to check the mail. When I came back in the house the phone was ringing. I answered to hear MC saying - "Hey what are you doing tomorrow?" I replied, "actually I suddenly have a free day. Why what do you need?" "Well I think my water may have broken....."

So here I sit - at my sister's - waiting to hear if my new little niece and nephew have arrived! I will be sure to let everyone know when I have heard that they have arrived.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~UPDATE - 9:32p

All is well I just got the call - 

Baby Boy - MJ was 6'10"

Baby Girl - AR was 5'8"

pretty decent sizes for three weeks early.

Mom is doing well - Dad reports that AR is beautiful and MJ is a chunker.

The littles were perfectly exhausting and I am now going to crash into the big fluffy mountain of pillows that is beckoning me from my sister's bed. 

Will be sure to post pics as soon as I can get there to take some! 

Our Favorite Science Teacher has his own show!!!!

Science Jim Show: Holiday Gadgets #1 from Science Jim on Vimeo.

Loving Science Jim Shows

I know in the past I have raved and raved about Science Jim's classes, but I had to just throw a shoot out about his free shows on Fridays. He is doing some great science shows that have covered a myriad of topics each week and KM is truly loving them. You can sign up for them for free through Currclick and if you can't make the show time or want to see a previously posted one, he has them all recorded and available on Currclick as well.

Just our LUCK!

We are in the Sunshine state, but it seems as though we chased the sun away when we got here!

Today's hi temp was 66 here with a breeze that made it feel about 60 and was 68 at home with no breeze so it felt about 72 - That is our luck on this wonderful St. Patrick's Day!

The weather however, did not prohibit us from getting out and about today after KM finished up the last of her Newton's Laws Classes by Science Jim this morning. We headed over to the clubhouse for some shuffleboard and then KM went for a swim ~ luckily for her the pool temp was 83! Everyone loved that KM's hair was just the right color for St. Patrick's Day! I got some great shuffleboard pics, but of course I just realized that I only brought one of the camera adaptors ~ not for the camera that I was using today ~ so I will have to post pics at a later date!

Tomorrow we will be off to KM's second favorite Science Museum! I will be sure to take the camera that I can get the pictures off of!

Hope you had a very Lucky St. Patty's Day!

Science Jim Classes - DONE

KM finished up her final Science Jim Physics Ebook this week! She has loved them and the online classes that she has been taking are a huge hit as well! She completed the Force, Mechanics and Sound Books all in the last 9 weeks! Here is her last experiment with sound - water in crystal glasses - she had to listen for the difference in the sounds based on the water level and she also discovered that it makes a difference when you make the rim sing as well!

PRETTY COOL!

She has been taking a 10 week class on Newton's Laws and Science Jim really presents information in a fun way and so that it sticks. She likes him so much that she asked if he would be doing classes in other areas and she was EXTREMELY excited to find out that he will be doing Chemistry next year and has some other short classes in the works, like one on Einstein. This was one of the best curriculum picks we made this year!

On the customer service side of it - he answers questions in NO TIME! Both times that I have had to email him with something we didn't understand he got back to us in under an hour!

KM has one more live class that had to be rescheduled because of a snow day ~ so much snow in his area that the computer connections were down and causing lags in audio and video ~, but she is very excited that she will get to do it while we are in FL and Grampa can "see how high-tech" her classes are!

I highly recommend his classes as a core or supplement! They are totally worth the very inexpensive price!

Egyptian Resources

I got asked about our history plans 3 times over the weekend and twice today on a wet hike so I thought I would get myself together this afternoon and get them posted! Here is what we have so far -

• Complete Book of World History by School Specialty Publishing - this is may all time favorite spine. I am very impressed with how this book lays things out and although it is listed as grades 4-8 it could easily be used for younger or older children with very little modifications as a spine/timeline guide.
  
• Pocket Timeline of Ancient Egypt by Helen Strudwick - this will be our guide to the specific point in history. It has a beautifully done timeline that folds out of the book and looks like it will be a good read for KM.
• History Pockets: Ancient Egypt By Evan-Moor - We are really liking the looks of this series, we have experimented a bit with the lower level ancient civilazation kit when we got it as a free download from currclick a few weeks ago. I wish that I had known about the ebooks beforehand as this is basically a reproducible book, that will need to be photocopied/scanned, but hey at least I get to give you guys the recommendation - right?
• Egyptian Kid Kit by Usborne Books - this is another great hands-on thing and of course this is KM's favorite way to learn.
• Horrible Histories - The Awesome Egyptians - by Terry Deary and Peter Hepplewhite - we came across this series during our Prehistoric Study when KM read and loved Who are You Calling A Wooly Mammoth.
• Egyptology Code-Writing Kit - by Emily Sands - As many of you may remember KM LOVES anything that has anything to with codes, so we had to grab this kit when I came across it on clearance at a local book store.
• Pyramids: 50 Hands on Activities by Avery Hart - You can never have too many hands on things around here!
  
• Ancient Science by Jim Weiss - we have been using this book for a few months now and it has GREAT activities
• Websites that look rather interesting -
  

Ancient Egypt for Kids
Kids Konnect
Eternal Egypt
Mummy Tombs
Ancient Egypt Thematic Unit

I will continue to add to this list once we start the study itself as I know that we will be adding more as we go. If you have any favorite Egyptian resources PLEASE feel free to share!