Saturday, March 15, 2008

Free Posters, PowerPoints, PDF's

Science Posters


Friday, March 7, 2008

Free Printables: Calendars, Lesson Planners & More for Homeschoolers

Calendars, Lesson Planners, Forms, & Teaching Tools (free printables)

  • YHighland Heritage Forms
  • Countless homeschooling printables including such things as: teacher planning & organization sheets, reading forms, spelling forms, math and science forms, awards, forms for music and art, and field trips.
  • YThe Home School Mom
  • Free printable homeschool planners and organizers including menu planners, chore charts, school records, and planners.
  • YDonna Young
  • Free printable school calendars, study plans, grade forms, book list forms, lesson planners and more.

Free Online Homeschool Planners/Organizers/Record Keeping

  • YHomeschool Tracker
  • Offers a free basic version and a paid version. Online record keeping of student assignments, attendance and hours, scheduled activities, and reports.
  • YHome School Incorporated
  • Offers a free online record keeping program/planner. We're currently experimenting with this now. :)
  • YOklahoma Homeschool
  • Offers free planners, worksheets, and forms. Be sure to scroll down the page to view all the free pdf's!

Activity Calendars

  • YReading is Fundamental
  • offers some great printable calendars, providing daily activites for your homeschool. You'll find the Leading to Reading category for ages birth to 5 and the Reading Planet category for ages 6-15. I highly recommend taking a peak!
  • YMonthly Calendar from Teacher Created Resources

Free Lesson Plans

Behavior Charts

Discipline & Behavior (free printables)

  • YChart Jungle
  • Great resource for free printable behavior charts, rewards, certificates, diplomas and behavior bucks, homeschooling charts, calendars, day care printables, home budget, baby sleep charts, chore charts... just to name a few. Colorful and attractive with good quality resolution.
  • YLatitudes
  • Great behavior chart for very young kids. Colorful, quality resolution, attractive design.

Charlotte Mason Link List

Charlotte Mason

Homeschooling Special Needs Children

Special Needs

  • YAnother Path
  • Homeschool for the deaf
  • YAutism in the Christian Home
  • Homeschooling advice and information for children with Autism
  • YBorn to Explore
  • The Other Side of ADD/ADHD
  • YBrightWord
  • 10 Steps to Successfully Homeschool Children with Special Needs (article)Includes a list of resources and suggested reading.
  • YHomeschool Diner
  • Strategies for Teaching Children with Asperger's.
  • YNATTHAN
  • (National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated NetworkChristian families homeschooling children with special needs.Government Homeschool

Handwriting Practice for Early Homeschoolers

Handwriting Practice

Free eBooks for Homeschooling

Free eBooks... our growing list:

Science

  • YEssential Principles of Ocean Literacy
  • Made available by: National Marine Educators Association, this is very cool, full color... which makes it appealing to even younger students. The target audience is K-12.

General

  • Y"Education is an atmoshpere, a discipline, a life"
  • Simply Charlotte Mason
  • Angelfire.com offers these eBooks for homeschoolers:
  • YLearning My Letters
  • Basic handwriting practice (37 pages in length, loads slow)
  • YLearning My Numbers
  • Handwriting practice for numbers 1-20, w/ some letter practice too (10 pages in length)
  • YMy Color Crayons
  • Pages to color, with room to practice writing color names (11 pages in length)
  • From funlearningexpress, we found:
  • YFriendly Gifts Craft Recipes for Kids
  • (recipes for play-dough, clay, finger paint, silly putty, soap crayons, and many baked goods like banana bread, muffin mixes, and hush puppies. (218 pages in length, loads fast)
  • YShel Silverstein
  • Every kid’s favorite poet offers 2 free eBooks and a printable bookmark. The eBooks include a poetry kit and a drawing and activity booklet!

Homeschooling Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts

  • YCreativity Portal
  • Best I've seen for arts and crafts. You'll love this!
  • YCrayola
  • This site being owned by Crayola, will encourage you use their products, but the art lesson plans are free... and um, you can use whatever brand you want! tee hee.
  • YDanielle’s Place
  • Great source for fun crafting projects for young kids. Includes animal, historical, holiday, music, learning crafts and more.
  • YEnchanted Learning
  • YMake Pen & Ink Drawings from Stills
  • Learn to draw people in pen & ink best suited for older students

Elementary Homeschool... Teaching Music

Teaching Music

Elementary Geography Links & Lessons

World Geography

US Geography

  • YKidSpace
  • The Internet Public LibraryStately knowledge (this site additionally offers countless other subjects)
  • YMapmaker
  • Grade levels 6-12, learn to evaluate historical and geographical info through map study... comparing maps spanning 16th- 19th centuries. Will also create their own maps.
  • YEnchanted Learning
  • State Map Printables (portions of this site are free, others require membership, but it's well worth the price)
  • YWorld Atlas Travel
  • Stats from around the globe including population, wealth, size, tallest mountains, deepest lakes, driest and wettest inhabited places on earth, language, temperatures and more.
  • YWorldAtlas.com's
  • homepage... there's a lot there.
  • YReliable Answers
  • GoogleEarth-Virtual GeographyThis site also offers a wealth of homeschooling articles and information.

Bible Geography

Homeschooling Science

Field Trips Online

  • YeField Trips
  • I've not registered for one as of yet, but they appear to be free!

Science Notebooking

  • YNeoScience
  • Cool!! Free printables for your science notebooks.Science/Nature

Various Science Links

  • YHurricanes
  • Links for all grade level, photo gallery, storm history, online tracking, lesson plans and more
  • YKids National Geographic
  • What a great site! Great information and activities for grade school aged children. I also strongly recommend the magazine,
  • YNational Geographic for Kids
  • We make it a part of our science curriculum by reading a portion of it every Monday. It’s proven to be a highlight to the kid’s day!
  • YChildren’s Butterfly Site
  • Great for young and more mature kids alike. Even adults will love the photos and butterfly information on this site!
  • YSongs of Insects
  • Listen to the songs of a variety of crickets. Sure to please even the youngest of learners!YThe Gorilla Foundation
  • Kids can write to Koko the gorilla, learn about animal preservation and about the Maui Ape Preserve. There’s a kid’s club and free teaching materials for schools requesting information. The free materials are sent via email and include printable materials for your classroom. I’ve registered using the name we’ve given our homeschool. You can request free materials for any grade level, even as high as college!
  • YNature Journal
  • Explore nature with your kids! Print free
  • YNature journal forms
  • along with scavenger hunts, seasonal poetry, folklore, Bible verses, weather data collection sheet, and more.
  • YK-12 Science Curriculum
  • Offers free online curriculum, great resource!
  • YPlanet Earth
  • A Discovery Channel site, with some cool visuals, videos and information on animals, climate and environment.

Science Fair Projects/Science Experiments

  • YScience Buddies
  • Free science fair project ideas. First rate site! Each experiment is ranked by rate of difficulty (includes grade level recommendation, K-12)
  • YSteve Spangler Science
  • More free science fair project ideas.Recycling
  • YFreecycling-
  • find a new home for what you'd otherwise toss into a landfill. Make a family project out of sorting through yesterdays treasures, while teaching your kids how to love the environment.

Astronomy

  • YAmazing Space
  • Best suited for Jr. High and High School, but you can incorporate some of the information found here into lesson plans for younger kids as well. Offers free downloads, teaching tools, homework help, for learning astronomy basics.
  • YThe Size of Our World
  • Great reference for comparing the sizes of the planets in our own solar system to one another, to our sun, and to larger sun’s outside the Milky Way. This site is appropriate for all grade levels.
  • YHubble Heritage Image Gallery
  • Breathtaking images of galaxies. Great for building an appreciation for Astronomy. Images include “fast facts” to build knowledge of constellations, planets, nebulas, and so forth.
  • YPhoton-Echoes
  • Beautiful photographs of our solar system.
  • YLunar and Planetary Institute
  • This is a pretty extensive site, rich in information suitable for homeschooling, however... if you're teaching from the young earth perspective, you'll want to be prepared. This site provides a fascinating timeline of what they call the evolution of our solar system , which theorizes that the universe is 4600 million years old.
  • YAnswers in Creation
  • The perfect spot for Christians who reject the theory of macro-evolution
  • YRobGendlerAstopics
  • More Beautiful shots of the Universe
  • YNASA

General Science

  • YUSGS
  • Science resources for grades K-6. First rate site for supplementing education on biology, geography, geology, and water. Middle School through High School, visit same site at
  • YUSGS Secondary
  • Beautiful Photo's of Planet Earth
  • YScuba Photography
  • beautiful underwater paradise

Elementary Reading Links & Resources (Free Reading!)

Reading

  • YTop 100 Books for Children
  • Categorized by age. Lists book title and author.
  • YAmerican Folklore
  • Free stories online! Examples include Brer Rabbit, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill as well as nursery rhymes and tongue twisters. The site also offers free lesson plans, ghost stories, States lore, Native American stories and more!
  • YChildren's Books Online
  • Free stories online! The Rosetta Project Library is yet another source for complete stories, organized by reading level.
  • YeBooks for Young Readers
  • Free stories online! Use your discretion here... some books may not be appropriate for young children (this despite the web pages title!). The site offer such classics as Little Women, Aesop's Fables, A Little Princess, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, The Jungle Book, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and more. I had a bit of trouble trying to open the offered e-book links, but had no problem with the web versions.
  • YJust So Stories
  • This is more like an eBook, in that it’s a book of stories, but it’s not in PDF format. The stories are over 100 years old, offering your kids different style of story telling than what they’re likely accustomed to! The stories are fun and each includes a rhyming poem towards the end. The Just So Stories are recommended as part of the Charlotte Mason program.

Lapbooking Links, Freebies & Resources

Lapbooking

Lapbooking Freebies

Budgeting Homeschool Resources

Free Curriculums

  • YOld-Fashioned Education
  • Christian based, offers books for sale or free online downloads. Complete curriculm for grades K-12.
  • YThe Book Samaritan
  • Free books and curriculum to low income homeschooling families.

Homeschooling Poetry Links

Sites on Poetry

  • YShel Silverstein
  • Includes printables, games and the tools for your kids to practice being a poet. A fun site for children of reading age. Their site offers a printable bookmark, poetry kit and drawing and activity book… all free!
  • YCanTeach
  • Songs and poems for young learners. Seasons, holidays, animals, vegetation, food, math, family and friends, language arts, school, and more! This site makes it easy to add a dose of rhyme or song to your school lessons!
  • YOgden Nash
  • A handful of cool poems to share with your children... really cute by the way!

Writing Poetry
  • YGigglePoetry.com
  • A wide assortment of poetry classes to choose from.
  • YPoetry Forge
  • For older children and parents, but this is a great interactive to generating poetry and lesson plans. The poetry generator is fun to use. On sight forum allows you to discuss ideas.
  • YPoet's Corner

Homeschooling Poems

Homeschooling Magazines