Home Education Year 2005-2006

8-11-05 | Tired of Taxes

[Tired of Taxes]

A spot for homeschool families to share advice and offer support as we prepare for the 2005-2006 Homeschool Year

Many home-educated children continue their lessons throughout the summer, but we parents often look to purchase new materials and begin new projects in September.

In the past, FR homeschoolers started a thread every year to post links and recommend books and materials to each other. I haven't seen that done recently, so I'm creating one here. (My apologies if I missed anything).

If there is anything you'd like to recommend to other home educators, please do so:

• Are there books, CDs, DVDs, or other educational supplies that your family has found most useful?
• Do you use organizational/recordkeeping/transcript software that you think is worth recommending to others?
• Any ideas for Co-ops or Study Groups that you'd like to share?

Those are just a few topics. Maybe we can keep a running list of recommendations here on this thread.

[mother22wife21]

Awesome site!! Thanks so much for the heads up! We're on that shoestring budget :D, and it's getting a little frayed and double knotted so we can hang on. This was a blessing.

[Tired of Taxes]

Absolutely! And welcome to homeschooling!

I'll be pinging everyone again in a day or so, just to try to keep this thread going and the information coming.

[INhsmom]

Re books that feature homeschool kids, have you read Williwaw, by Tom Bodett (the leave the light on guy?)

We listened to it on tape, and thought it was great. My 10 yr old liked it, as well as my 14 yr old.

As far as curriculum, we use a little this, a little of that, but really enjoy the Christiana Latina from memoria press, Men of Rome series from Greenleaf press, and the Easy Grammar Systems, and Sonlight.

[Tired of Taxes]

More suggestions added above.

Also, welcome to all newcomers to homeschooling. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. You will find the homeschoolers here very helpful.

Here are a few more links. Some of these sources were mentioned in posts above, too:

SUPPLIES:

The Key To Series: Fractions, Decimals, Percents
http://www.keypress.com/catalog/products/key_to/index.html
Also see "Key Curriculum Press" mathematics by clicking on "Home" there.

Educators Publishing Service
http://www.epsbooks.com/
"Explode the Code" (mentioned already here) is available there. We've used "Ridgewood Grammar".

ORGANIZATIONAL NEEDS:

Donna Young's Free Printables:
http://donnayoung.org/

The HomeSchool Mom
http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/gettingorganized/allplanners.php

UNIT STUDIES: BASEBALL

My 9yo son loves baseball. Here are some free online lesson plans we found on baseball math, physics, sportswriting, etc.:

PBS Fantasy Baseball (this is a PDF file)
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/mathline/lessonplans/pdf/msmp/fantasybaseball.pdf

The Batting Cage
http://library.thinkquest.org/11902/physics/batting.html

Fun with Baseball Stats:
http://www.teachersfirst.com/autoframe.htm?http://illuminations.nctm.org/index_d.aspx?id=257

Learning from Baseball
http://www.teachersfirst.com/baseball.htm

Physics in Sports connection (online video):
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/VideoTestbed/Projects/NewPhysics/newtons_3.html

Hope all is going well for all of you!

[TightyRighty]

The Homeschool Mom website is great!

As someone who is just starting out with a preschooler - here are some sites I found to be a big help:

Core Knowledge Lesson Plans - this site has some great lesson plans for Preschool thru Eighth grade.
Core Knowledge Lesson Plans

Another website that goes with that is:
Baltimore Curriculum
For someone like me who is still trying to get their bearings - this site was great! They have used Core Knowledge to develop a curriculum from Sept. thru May. I've taken some of their ideas and added some of my own for a solid study.

For anyone who has a preschooler/kindergartner and needs some websites - feel free to Freepmail me. I've got a bunch of sites bookmarked that have great worksheets and number/letter tracers.

[Tired of Taxes]

Those sites will be very helpful. Thanks for posting them.

[ican'tbelieveit]

My favorite science site:

www.hometrainingtools.com

[Tired of Taxes]

Thanks for posting that link.

Btw, I know someone who is doing the "owl pellet dissection" (that was on the list of experiments) with her kids. That one sounds difficult.

I'll probably stick with something like the Terrarium idea. :-)

[ican'tbelieveit]

That site actually has kits for whichever curriculum you are using as well as their own curriculum. My son is going into 10th grade, daughter just starting 9th. So, I held back on his labs for 1 year (half year for them) so they could do labs together. It is so nice just placing a single order and it all comes to you.

[P8riot]

2Jedismom has a Homeschool ping list. I copied her on this, but you might want to FReepmail her to get on the list

[BikerTrash]

Bumpmark.

[Tired of Taxes]

Thanks, I'll do that.

[samiam1972]

ping to self

[VeritatisSplendor]

another request for ping list

Mrs VS

[Domestic Church]

I'm looking for a webtext for highschool geometry. I also have a good website reference book (for those who haven't read about it yet):

Homeschool Your Child For Free by LauraMaery Gold and Joan m. Zielinski

[Domestic Church]

Did you know those guys on Mount Rushmore were all HSed at one point or another ;~)

[Tired of Taxes]

Welcome aboard. :-)

[Tired of Taxes]

Ping...

See message #55 above. Domestic Church is looking for a webtext for highschool geometry. Any recommendations out there?

Also, other posts and suggestions have been added since my last ping (starting with message #45).

[bboop]

Hey, Red Boots!! How are you? Haven't heard from you in a while....

[Diva Betsy Ross]

I wanted to share something with y'all.. I am in love. Yup. Head over heels. I found a book and My 7 year old and I are having a blast with it. No doubt many of you have already seen this series- but I just found it and have checked out the website and downloaded every thing I could from the site for school work tomorrow for my three and half year old reader and my 7 year old reluctant reader to all work on together..without further ado, my new love:

The Spiderwick Cronicles