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Pattern Block Templates (Ages 18mo-4 years)

When my kids were little I bought a set of Pattern Blocks. It’s been one of the most enduring resources we have. We still bring them out occasionally and also use them for math now and then. The kids have used templates like these: And they’ve also used the pattern blocks for free play: There are lots of places where you can find free pattern block templates: One of the...

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Our Homeschool Week (Grades 3 and 5)

The past couple of weeks have flown by. I wanted to write up a quick post to mention some of the things that are going well for us at the moment.  It’s hard to believe that we’ll be wrapping up another school year in four or five weeks! Here’s what we’ve been up to the past few weeks: Language Arts: In order to fulfill the requirements of our state, the...

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Free Grammar Sheets: Lay-Lie, Peace-Piece, Accept-Except and more

The kids are going over some tricky homophones.  These are some of the sheets I made for them.  If you can use them, they are free to download. Grammar Sheets — Lay-Lie Peace-Piece Accept-Except and other homophones   Other free grammar worksheets you can download: Their, They’re, There – Its, It’s Free Practice Sheets Comma Rules and Practice Worksheets Comma Rules and Practice Worksheets (Fall Theme) Grammar Practice: Possessive Nouns...

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Free Montessori Style Addition Sheets (And Place Value Activities)

Earlier this year, ED decided she wanted a math workbook just like DD and LD’s books.  We had been playing a lot of games, but according to her, that wasn’t “real math” anymore!  I bought a Spectrum math workbook for her (grade 2). She worked her way through the basic addition problems. Before she goes on to tackle double digit addition and subtraction in that book, though, I wanted her...

Homeschool Purchases and Organization — Furniture, etc. 0

Homeschool Purchases and Organization — Furniture, etc.

Actually, there is no such thing as homeschool furniture or purchases since everybody’s home is unique and everyone has their own style!  But that being said, there are a few purchases I’ve made in the past six months that I really love and I wanted to share.  Book Display Shelves: We have all kinds of book displays, but I wanted one that looked “nice” and would display the writing books...

Free Children’s CD (Beautiful, Gentle Piano Music) 0

Free Children’s CD (Beautiful, Gentle Piano Music)

Greg Hewlett has a new children’s CD out that he is giving away completely free over at his blog. His album, Heirloom,  is solo piano accompanied by nature.  It features quiet lullabies and two original songs written by Greg.  Heirloomis for children, though adults will enjoy this beautiful music too. Nature sounds are included on all tracks (though you can choose a version without nature as well). You can listen to...

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All That Crazy Rain

Like much of the east coast, we had a huge amount of rain on Wednesday.  We had just finished our writing workshop, when ED looked out the window and saw that our tiny creek was teeming with water. The kids rushed to get their swim suits on, I got on my big rubber boots and we went down to check things out. The little trickle of our creek was impressive!...

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Free Confucius Notebook Pages

Have you heard of these sayings? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you. Respect yourself and others will respect you. Judge others by what you know of yourself. Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. It does not matter how slowly you go...

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Grammar Practice Sheets: Plurals, Endings, Past Tense Verbs

I made a couple of sheets so my older kids can review how to add endings (such as -ed, -ly, -s, -es and so forth). We reviewed when to double the final consonant and some of the irregular verbs.  I also included the answers (but they are not shown in the picture below). There’s nothing fancy about these sheets, but they’re free to download if your kids need some review:...

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Chinese Brush Painting Lesson

Today was the type of day when everything pulled together beautifully!  I set up paper and paints on the kitchen table and had all our books assembled to talk about Chinese brush painting, read from our novel and read from our Chinese history book. The kids ate it all up! We started with a lovely picture book called Brush of the Gods.It was a legend from about 762AD about a...

Our Top 5 Most Popular Science Posts 0

Our Top 5 Most Popular Science Posts

I thought you might be interested in some of my most popular science posts… The links will take you right to that post. We did a lot of hands-on science activities with these units. Those posts will link to some of our science activities. We will be moving to homeschoolden.com and all our printables will be moving there. Number 5 The Three Types of Rocks– Our Activities and a Free...

Nature Scavenger Hunt Free Printable 0

Nature Scavenger Hunt Free Download

Are you looking for free Nature Scavenger Hunt printables? We have several fun options!  Every spring, as the weather gets nicer and nicer we spend more and more time outdoors. We’ve been doing this scavenger hunt for years. I know we’re not alone because this printable has gotten well over 50,000 downloads since I first made it years ago!! We found a lot of cool critters that very first year we did...

Ancient China Worksheets 5

Ancient China Packet

We have been studying Ancient China this semester.  We are using  The Story of Ancient China (affiliate link) (see more about that below) as our spine, but also have read selections from the  Story of the World (affiliate link) and the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. This is the packet that I made to go along with some of our readings. These are now included in our 100+ page Ancient China Unit. Recently,...

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Celebrate Earth Day with These Activities

  The celebration of Earth Day began over 40 years ago. It is a day to celebrate our planet and think about how we can help our environment. Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency was established not long after that first Earth Day in 1970? The Clean Air Act also passed that same year. Now Earth Day is celebrated in more than 175 countries by an estimated 500...