Monthly Archive: January 2013
Because of the holidays I missed this article about homeschooling in The Economist until today. The article explains that homeschooling has increased dramatically over the past thirty years. One thing I didn’t realize is that there are about as many homeschooled students now (estimated to be about 2 million) as there are students who attend charter schools. Another interesting statistic I hadn’t heard was, ” In 2007 a report found that...
Update Tuesday morning Jan. 15th: I just checked and it looks like the sale has now ended. I want to spread the word that the wonderful Scholastic Dollar Deals sale is back! I’ve bought and downloaded dozens of books and resources over the past couple of years and use lots and lots of them in our homeschool. I’m not sure when the sale ends. The website states “we have extended the...
I made a set of equivalent fraction cards. LD has to figure out the correct answer and then moves that many spaces on our homemade Fast Track Gameboard. You can download these Equivalent Fraction Cards (pokemon-theme) here. They are free to download. 🙂 We made our own gameboard years ago and still have it tucked in the corner to pull out! This was an idea I got from the wonderful book, Games for...
Last semester, we spent time reading simple stories together in German. There are a couple of stories we downloaded from Amazon, Peter und das Huhn and Der Kartoffel-troll. We read them aloud together and I had the kids do a few activities related to those stories. Peter und das Huhn ($0.99) is considerably easier than any of the stories in Der Kartoffeltroll ($1.50), but the kids enjoyed them both. We still regularly read...
DD is learning her multiplication tables. Yesterday, I shared the multiplication practice worksheets I made for her in the Pokemon theme. I made her some cards with some of her beloved Pokemon characters. I’ll share it here in case anyone else is interested! Click here to download the Pokemon Multiplication Cards We’ll use these cards to play a game called Fast Track that we made years ago. This was an idea...
I asked DD to choose a few of her favorite Pokemon characters and used these to add a little flavor to her multiplication practice sheets. If anyone is interested, you can download and print them off for your own kids. Multiplication Practice Sheets 3s through 6s (Pokemon) DD has been using a bunch of different resources in starting to learn her multiplication tables. She still has another page left of...
Over the break, I wanted to pull together a fun packet for ED with activities she can (mostly) do on her own when I’m working with the other kids. I settled on a winter-relating unit– snowmen, snowflakes and things like that. Here are some of the resources I pulled together for her: When I want to find some preschool resources for ED, here are some of the first websites I...
I spent a lot of time over our winter break thinking about what we will cover this spring. Our kids are in grades 4, 2 and preschool although as homeschoolers this doesn’t mean much as they cover what they are ready for and go at their own individual paces. I wrote up a general set of plans and you can take a glimpse at what is in store for our family....
I was touched by a Random Act of Kindness today!! With Grams and Gramps still visiting, I wanted to have a special “date” with each of the kids on their own. ED and I went out for breakfast. We giggled and played tic-tac-toe and talked… and when it came time to pay, someone had already paid for our meal!! Isn’t that just the loveliest thing?!! Thank you, kind stranger! It...
Honestly, I will start posting about our homeschooling stuff again. In fact, I have all kinds of materials I’ve made for the kids and have a heap of new things to share with you all, but since I was on the topic of health and well-being (with yesterday’s post about LD’s horrible allergies) I thought I’d share with you some of the struggles I’ve personally had the past eight to ten...
I’ve been alluding to our health issues here at the Homeschool Den. There’s nothing too terribly major thankfully, but LD has had illness-induced asthma since he was little. Since we moved back to the USA he’s been steadily having more and more asthma attacks. Some land him in the hospital and some have been controlled at the doctor’s office. Our pediatrician suggested that we look into some underlying triggers, so...
