Monthly Archive: February 2015

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Note Taking and Research Skills in Our Homeschool

How are we introducing note taking and research skills into our homeschool? One skill that middle and high school students (and beyond!) need is the ability to take notes–either by picking out important key points from books and resources they read or from listening to a speaker or lecturer.  In the elementary years, I’ve slowly been trying to help the kids build these skills. I wanted to write this post...

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10 Posts From the Past

Hi Everyone, Not everyone uses Facebook and  with the way Facebook works now, the majority of my readers don’t see what I post to Facebook.  So, I thought that I’d highlight some of my older posts here on the blog as well every now and then. 20+ Thoughts for the Busy Homeschooling Family: 11 Year Old Shares Her Thoughts About Homeschooling Last winter on a snowy day like this one, I...

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Free German Grammar Worksheets for Kids (sein – to be)

This week my kids are going over the German verb “sein” (to be)… and reviewing all the pronouns (ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr, Sie, sie). These are some very simple worksheets they filled out.  These review… ich bin du bist er ist sie ist es ist wir sind ihr seid Sie sind sie sind I know we get a lot of hits on the free German worksheets, so...

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Two Free Multiplication Resources

As many of you know, my youngest is just starting to learn multiplication. There are two wonderful resources I thought I should mention again. Multiple Ways Multiplication: This is an *AMAZING* resource from the Positive Engagement Project to help kids learn how to multiply. This 295 page pdf download is free! Acing Math One Deck at a Time is also from the Positive Engagement Project. It is 70 pages and has...

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Blog News: Homeschool Resource Page and Updated List of Free Homeschool and Teaching Resources

Homeschool Resources: Today I have several great resources for you. The first is a new page of some of the books we use in our homeschool.  You’ll see that new button in the left side bar.  I hope to keep a fairly current list of recommended books from different subject areas (history, science, language arts, math & critical thinking, art). How to Find Homeschool Curriculum: Since the list above is mostly just...

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Middle Ages Unit: The Medieval Church and Monasteries Worksheets

Middle Ages Unit: Worksheets on the Medieval Church & the Development of Monasteries This week we talked about Christianity in the early Middle Ages in our homeschool.  We read about how the Church was organized and how monasteries began. The history book we are using [primarily  Early Times : The Story of the Middle Ages (affiliate link) by Suzanne Strauss Art] went into detail about a couple of the historical figures that went...

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Writing Workshop: Conflict in Literature (Man vs. Man, Man vs. Self, etc)

We absolutely love our homeschool writing workshop. We don’t use any special homeschool writing curriculum, instead we’ve designed a writing routine that works really well for us. (In fact my reluctant writer now really loves writing! More about that in How/Why we needed a change in our writing program!)  Today, I wanted to share a mini-lesson series I did with the kids on the literary device, conflict.  I learned these...

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Viking Unit – Norse Myths, Woodburning Craft and More!

Last week, we combined our study of the Vikings with a new art project — woodburning!   We have just started a new unit on the Middle Ages. Last week, we focused on northern Europe and the Vikings/Norsemen.  We started by learning the location of the Scandinavian countries. We talked about the “barbarian” invasions of the Roman Empire and read that section in our history book. The spine for our...

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Dragon-Themed Math Pages – Beginning Multiplication, Addition-Subtraction

This Thursday, Feb. 19th, is Chinese New Year. ED continues to work on multiplication for the first time and I wanted to make her some worksheets again this week to work on moving from skip counting to simple multiplication problems. There are 7 pages, 3 of them include addition with regrouping and simple subtraction problems.  Her worksheets are dragon-themed to celebrate the Chinese New Year! I hope someone else can use...

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Reptile Cards From Around the World – US Australia South America Africa

About the same time we studied the world biomes years ago, my son was *really* into reptiles.  I made some cards for him back then and made them into pin-map pieces that he placed on our world map. There were reptiles from the rainforest, desert and tropical savanna. I also used the cards as Montessori 3-Part cards (where he matched the name with the photo). You’ll find those larger cards below....

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World Biomes Pin Map – Rain Forest, Desert, Savanna, Tundra and More

If you are studying about different animal habitats or the word biomes, you may be interested in this free download. I made this world biomes pin map for the kids years ago.  It includes a world biomes map and legend has pictures of the boreal and deciduous forests, rain forest, grasslands/savannas, chaparral, and tundra that the kids can stick onto the map. How to Make This: Print out all three pages on card...

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What Are We Up To? (Grades 1, 4, 6)

Life is running away with me because I have so many irons in the fire! I love it!! So first off, about me and my new journey here at our new location: So just to fill in for those of you who are new readers… I’ve been blogging since my youngest was a baby (well actually since well before my oldest was even born, but that was a family blog to...

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Homeschool Motivation – 10 Ways to Keep Going!

It’s mid-winter. It’s cold and there’s still plenty of school left in the semester.  How do we keep ourselves motivated to homeschool? I’ve been thinking about that a LOT lately. When working with the kids, it’s not just having the activities ready, the books out, worksheets printed out. It’s the smile and positive energy that really inspires our homeschool. In that regard, there are times when I’m not doing my job.  Call it...

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Valentine’s Day Skip Counting Mazes for 2s 3s 4s 5s 6s

A number  of people asked for skip counting mazes of 4s and 6s, so I went ahead and made those for this week! This packet contains 7s mazes total: Free Valentine’s Day Skip Counting Mazes Valentine’s Day Skip Counting, Addition and Subtraction pages: This is the packet I made for my daughter. It is also free. She is just learning multiplication (2s 5s 10s). The packet also includes some addition/subtraction...