Teaching Tool Tuesday - New Curriculum

Well, we're just coming off two weeks of camp for the kids, and I have a new respect for "school" moms. Having to be up and out the door at a certain time - lunches packed - every day was a huge challenge for us and made me extra glad that it's not our norm. But, it did give me some ideas for making our mornings run more smoothly (most specifically, some advance preparation the evening before).

This week, we are transitioning back into some semblance of a routine and getting the classroom ready to start school next week. Last year, we took the entire summer off and it was way too hard to get started again in the fall. This year, I'm calling December and June (our busiest months) our time off and going year-round other than that.

Having attended the FPEA homeschool convention at the end of May, we are all set with our new curriculum and anxious to dig into all our new goodies. Here's what we have planned for our year:

Right Start Math (Noah & Ava) - We just switched from Singapore, and I'm really excited about this new approach!

Baseball Unit Study (Noah) - For some fun this summer, we're using Amanda Bennett's baseball unit study and a variety of books - along with lots of batting practice, of course. I'll post the complete resource list in the coming weeks.

Inventors & Scientists Unit Study (Noah) - We actually started this one in the spring, but I can see it lasting us through the entire school year. In fact, I held off buying a science curriculum since I think this will occupy most of our time in that area. I'll also post a complete resource list from this one soon; it's comprised of lots of biographies, documentaries and the Thames and Kosmos Milestones in Science kit I found in the Barnes & Noble clearance bin for $20!

Animals Around the World Unit Study (Ava & Noah) - Ava loves animals, so this one will be designed for her but studied by both kids. Starting in the fall, we'll combine science and geography to learn about animals in each part of the world. I'm guessing we'll end up with a lapbook for this, so keep an eye out for that template later in the year. I'll share the complete unit resources when I have them compiled, and I see MANY trips to Animal Kingdom in our future.

Ancient History (Noah & Ava) - I wasn't sure what I wanted to tackle as far as history this year, but some materials on ancient cultures really spoke to me at convention. I'm SO excited about this unit and have most of my materials here or on their way - everything from literature to activity books and science to art. The resource list on this one will be coming VERY soon (although we won't be starting on it until fall).

So that's the core of our curriculum for this year. Both kids will be doing Handwriting Without Tears, and we'll be tying in authentic language arts to everything we do.

Noah will be taking drum lessons and playing baseball; Ava will be taking violin and horseback riding and continuing with ballet and bellydance. And I'm a little overwhelmed now that I'm actually seeing all we have on our plates. But, our theme for the year is FUN, and I intend to keep it that way!!!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - 4th of July Lapbook

Whether you're doing a full unit on Independence Day or just looking to learn a bit more about the history of the holiday, be sure to check out our 4th of July lapbook. I'm still hosting with File Factory (since it's FREE!), but it seems a bit temperamental so if you have any problems with the download, comment here and I can e-mail it to you.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Lift-the-Flap Word Book

This is the next in our new series of book reviews we're doing as part of Teaching Tool Tuesday. My friend Jan from "A Love for Learning" Educational Consulting - who is also a consultant for Usborne and Kane Miller books - will be providing us with the book of our choice each month to review. I'll be sharing my thoughts on how it helped with our homeschooling, and I'll be having the kids contribute when appropriate.

We've always been big fans of Usborne books, and it seems like as the kids get older, there are just more and more unique, interesting titles to choose from. This month, I decided to choose a book for Ava, who has really demonstrated readiness for reading this spring. For additional information on this book or other Usborne and Kane Miller titles, you can visit Jan's online bookstore.

Lift-the-Flap Word Book
by Felicity Brooks

Mom's Review:

First a confession . . . I rarely think to buy books for Ava because, well, I've already child that age and bought tons of books for him so it seems like we should have plenty. But recently, I realized that she may like different types of books - after all, he's a science-y, non-fiction kind of kid and she prefers a good story. She also has a much different learning style and many things that Noah never used - like early reading books - are things she could really benefit from.

In the second half of our school year, she really started to enjoy learning to write letters and sound out words - so when I saw this book, it seemed perfect for her. And besides, what kid doesn't love lift-the-flap books???

This book has quickly become one of her favorites. It's a nice, sturdy board book featuring 10-15 words per page, each related to a different theme such as "On the Farm" or "On the Beach". The flap for each word lifts up to reveal a picture so kids can sound out the word then check to see if they are right. The illustrations are colorful and cheerful and incorporate flaps as well. The flap for each picture lifts up to reveal the written word.

The last two pages of the book show all the words and their corresponding pictures (no flaps on this one). Ava enjoys "reading" this page to see which words she remembers from the book.

The Lift-the-Flap Word Book  has been a wonderful addition to our classroom library, and I would definitely recommend it for any early reader. Even younger kids would enjoy the pictures and lifting the flaps while a parent reads the words.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - The Story of Inventions

Starting today, I'll be reviewing a new book on the first Tuesday of each month for Teaching Tool Tuesday. My friend Jan from "A Love for Learning" Educational Consulting - who is also a consultant for Usborne and Kane Miller books - will be providing us with the book of our choice each month to review. I'll be sharing my thoughts on how it helped with our homeschooling, and I'll be having the kids contribute when appropriate.

We've always been big fans of Usborne books, and it seems like as the kids get older, there are just more and more unique, interesting titles to choose from. Since Noah is really interested in inventions right now, that seemed like a great place to start. For additional information on this book or other Usborne and Kane Miller titles, you can visit Jan's online bookstore.

The Story of Invention
by Anna Claybourne & Adam Larkum

Mom's Review:

When I first saw this title, I thought it sounded like the perfect book to kick off our unit study on inventions - and it was! Noah went through a stage of avid reading where he tore through Magic Tree House books at record speed, but since then his interest has waned a bit. He has a strong preference for non-fiction, and since he's really into inventions right now, this book really helped to rekindle his interest in reading.

It arrived while we were wrapping up our unit studies on money and cars, and I thought we'd put it aside for a few weeks - but Noah had other plans. For at least a week, he carried it with him everywhere, reading it in the car and sharing interesting tidbits with me as we drove along. I loved that it held his interest enough to read it on his own, but I also wanted to sit down and read through it with him so I had a good basis for my review.

Once I did, I could see why he liked it so much. It's organized by topic - communication, medicine, machines, etc. - with each section being only a few pages long. This makes it easy to read a little at a time, which is good because there's quite a lot of detail on each topic. Each section follows the evolution of the invention using general dates, allowing the reader to follow the chronology without being overwhelmed with the dates of each small progression. The colorful illustrations bring the inventions to life and add a good bit of humor, which I know he liked.

The back of the book features a large, one-page timeline that plugs in many of the inventions featured in the content. Being a visual learner, I really appreciated the perspective of seeing the timeline of the inventions in relation to each other. There is also a comprehensive glossary with definitions for many of the words that may be new to young readers.

Overall, I'm thrilled with how this book captured Noah's interest and with the level of information provided. It's definitely been a great introduction to the topic of inventions and has given us many ideas for moving forward with our study.

Kid's Review:

I really liked it. My favorite was the self-cleaning house. It was interesting what they had in the past. The page about the crazy inventions was really funny.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Software Giveaway from Lakeshore Learning

Lakeshore Learning has developed 50 new software titles for interactive whiteboards and computers – and they're celebrating by giving them away for free! Every day through March 30th, 10 people will win. Click here to enter once a day, and even if you don't win, you may end up with a great coupon!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Exploration Education Science Curriculum

Last year at the FPEA convention, I swore that I wouldn't buy a science curriculum. Ten months later, I can't really remember why I said that - considering I have a science-aholic on my hands - but the point is that I did in fact buy one.

When I saw the Exploration Education booth at the convention, their products immediately caught my eye. The elementary physical science kit for grades K-3 consists of four projects to build and use for activities and experiments covering 36 topics. The projects include:

- A car to learn about Force
- A magnetic sailboat to learn about Magnets & Electricity
- A balance scale / ruler to learn about Matter
- A top to learn about Light & Sound

At some point in the fall, Noah got into the kit, built everything and started working his way through the computer-based activities. For spring, we'll be going back one by one so I can get a better for feel for what he's learned.

My initial reaction is that the set is very engaging. I love that there's a project to build for each topic that is used for a series of related lessons. For example, the car from the Force topic is used for experiments and activities for force, gravity, location, energy, speed, machines, wheels, friction, push/pull and motion.

On the downside. I feel that the curriculum is very basic. The computer-based content is simple yet effective, but the workbook doesn't hold his interest at all (the first activity for the "force" lesson was coloring). Honestly, I could see him buzzing through the whole thing in a few days, which is what I think he did. But, I'm using this second go-round to expand on each topic on our own; it's definitely a good introduction to physical science and provides me with a good idea of topics to cover more comprehensively.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Mad About Money Week 4 Curriculum / Lapbook Template

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

Okay, I finally uploaded the Week 4 curriculum and lapbook template for our Mad About Money unit (combined with Weeks 1-3). Sorry to not have pics (I'm too lazy to go take them, but I'll get them up ASAP), but Week 4 focused on Banking Basics. This week's lesson was largely lapbook-based, beginning with a flap book on basic banking terms. Next, the All About Interest minibook walks students through calculating interest earned and payed (at wildly unrealistic rates!) Another minibook diagrams parts of a check and walks the students through filling out their own check. 

Finally, in a really fun shopping activity, the kids each deposited $20 in the Bank of Homeschool, then used their own tiny checkbooks to purchase "items" at four different stores. All the printables for setting up this activity are included in the curriculum for Week 4.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Mad About Money Week 3 Curriculum / Lapbook Now Available

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

I finally had time to upload the Mad About Money Week 3 curriculum and lapbook elements to the blog. As always, you can find them under Curriculum to Share on the right navigation bar. I'm really pleased with how this unit is turning out, and Week 3 wraps up the portion devoted to the history of money. The curriculum covers the history of paper money in our country, as well as the types and quantities of bills produced in the U.S. today. It also covers how bills are made, which brought back nice memories of our trip to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing last year.

For the lapbook, we have a fan book of all the different bills printed in the U.S. today, with space to write in the quantity printed per year and the name of the person whose portrait appears on it. Other elements include an inflation chart that compares the costs of three items in three different years, a "Decoding the Dollar" activity to learn what appears on our dollar bills (and why) and flap book of fun facts about paper money.

As always, I'd love to hear feedback from anyone who uses the curriculum or makes the lapbook!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Mad About Money Week 2 Curriculum / Lapbook Now Available

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

Week 2 of our Mad About Money unit study at co-op was delayed a bit due to my anniversary weekend. We finally covered "Keep the Change" this past week, so I'm sharing the curriculum and lapbook pages on the blog. 

The curriculum includes the history of coins, including the problems with early coins in the United States. It moves on to cover the denominations of modern coins, how they are made and the state quarter program, with experiments on coin flip probability and cleaning pennies.

The corresponding lapbook pages include a Venn diagram comparing the original and current U.S. coins, a map of U.S. Mint locations, details on your state quarter and a "Decoding Coins" activity.

Both the lesson plan and lapbook template for Week 1 are already up on the blog and since I'll be teaching Week 3 on Thursday, look for those soon as well!

As always, I'd love to hear from anyone who uses the curriculum and see pictures of your lapbooks over on the Homeschooling in Heels Facebook page! 

 

Teaching Tool Tuesday - 25% Off at Barnes & Noble for Educator Appreciation Week

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

If you're in "need" of new teaching tools, now's a great time to stock up. Not only has Barnes & Noble added a wonderful new selection of learning games, toys and kits, but in honor of their Educator Appreciation Week, they're upping their education discount to 25%. I was thrilled to find out a few months ago that my FPEA membership qualified me for regular educator discount (normally 20%), and I've used it quite a bit already. 

Our local Barnes & Noble (Altamonte Springs) is also hosting an Educator Appreciation Day on Saturday, October 16th from 12-3pm. Attendees are eligible to win a $500 Barnes & Noble gift card, and six educators will receive bags filled with new and best-selling products from B&N @ School.

Free Lapbook Templates & Curriculum

Don't forget, lapbook templates and curriculum are here for the taking. I always put a lot of effort into our lessons, and it seems wasteful not to share! Here's a glimpse of what's currently available:

New! Week 1 Curriculum & Lapbook Template 

Mad About Money 

New! Complete Lapbook Template

Crazy About Cars

Most Popular!  Lapbook Template 

Human Body

Our First Lapbook! Lapbook Template 

All About Horses

There's also a 4th of July lapbook, but I know there's probably not much interest in that one this time of year! If you search under Lapbooks, you'll be able to see pictures of the completed lapbooks to help you put yours together. As always, I'd love to hear from anyone who uses one to get feedback. Better yet, post your pics on the Homeschooling in Heels Facebook page!

This week, I'll also be digging up some curriculum I put together for a Thanksgiving co-op last year to see if any of that is worth sharing. Hope you find something that will be useful in your learning!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - DK Eyewitness Books

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 


Noah and I have been loving the books from the DK Eyewitness collection lately. They offer a huge array of topics, and Noah enjoys looking through them all to see what he wants to read about next. Our first purchase was the Cars book, and it really captured his interest. Since then, I've checked out the following from the library:

• Presidents
• Invention
• Robots
• Money
• Leonardo & His Times

Recently, I needed to add a little to my Amazon order to qualify for the free shipping (my order was free courtesy of my Swagbucks gift cards!), so I bought the Great Scientists book for our home library. Not only does he love the book, but I love that it comes with a clipart CD - how great for a future lapbooking project!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - First Pictures of our Crazy About Cars Lapbook

Don't forget that the Crazy About Cars Lapbook is available for download from the "Curriculum to Share" sidebar. I'm so thrilled with how ours in turning out! Noah can't wait to finish it because once it's done, we get to move on to building his model fuel cell car. The "stop light" circles on the front aren't part of the template. They were Noah's idea, and we cut them out of the extra file folder parts left over from making the lapbook body.

Here are some pictures of our lapbook. If you decide to make this one, I hope you'll leave me a comment on how it turns out or share some pictures over at the Homeschooling in Heels Facebook page.

 

 

 

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Mad About Money Week 1 Curriculum / Lapbook Now Available!

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday.  


I've definitely never blogged about my own curriculum on Teaching Tool Tuesday, but I'm so excited about how our money unit is turning out that I'm making an exception. Last week, I taught week one of the money unit to our homeschool co-op, and we started the related components of our money lapbook. I've also never done a lapbook in small stages like this, but so far, I'm liking it a lot.

The early parts of the money curriculum are based heavily on The Everything Kids' Money Book and cover the history of money, types of money and some very basic personal finance. We'll dive deeper into personal finance in the later part of the unit (which I'm planning will take all year), using Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace, Jr.

The Week 1 curriculum and lapbook components are now available to download. You'll find them in the right sidebar under "Curriculum to Share". I'd love to hear from anyone planning to do this unit along with us, and as always, I always love to hear comments or suggestions on my lapbook templates! 

 

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Balance Benders

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday.  

This is what my little guy can't get enough of these days - Balance Benders from The Critical Thinking Company. In case you haven't heard me rave about their curriculum before, we love them! Yes, love.

This book is his his favorite of the three we purchased for this year. Here's the description from the company website:

Move over Sudoku, here come Balance Benders™! You can use these books as quick, fun logic problems or as stepping stones to success in algebra. Children develop deductive thinking and pre-algebra skills as they solve balance puzzles that are more fun and addictive than Sudoku puzzles! Children must analyze each balance to identify the clues, and then synthesize the information to solve the puzzle. Try one—and then try to stop!

They're not joking about the "try to stop" part. Noah attempted to complete the entire book in one sitting last week. In fact, every book we've purchased from them, I've actually had to ration so he didn't sit down and complete it in one sitting - although these days I either just let him go to town with it or I use it as an incentive to get other work completed.  

Still not sure whether to call this math or critical thinking in our activity log, but as long as Noah keeps calling it his favorite, I don't really care!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Netflix

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday.  

Oh, I am so lucky my blog is on West Coast time. Because right now it's about 2AM on Wednesday and I still haven't written my Teaching Tool Tuesday piece. Rough day + work deadline = not enough time to blog. Of course, rough day + work deadline + staying up to write a blog post = way too little sleep. But that's okay. I blew my shot at a decent night's sleep hours ago.

Anyway, I'm sure my Netflix membership seems like an odd choice for a teaching tool, but let me explain. My kids love movies (okay, we all love movies), and they learn so much from the educational DVDs we have. But of course, you can only buy so many educational DVDs.

So after a friend told me about all the great movies they check out at the library, I dashed into our local library branch asking where I could find the movies. And they told me "Blockbuster". Turns out that the Seminole Country library system doesn't have movies, although most of our neighboring counties do. Strike two.

When I decided to do an ocean unit for fall, I remembered seeing an IMAX movie advertised at the science center a while back. I looked it up on Amazon to see if it's something I might want to buy, but on a whim, decided to check Netflix as well. Sure enough, they had it!

Deep Sea: IMAX will be arriving this week, just in time for the start of school - and I found a number of other "ocean" movies there, too. Can't wait to spend some time checking out the other documentaries to see what else might work for our homeschool classroom!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace, Jr.

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

We just rolled in from vacation at three o'clock this morning . . . ut;s always hard to see such a wonderful adventure end, but I'm eager to get things rolling for our now-delayed start to school. One of the nice surprises awaiting us when we returned home was our Financial Peace, Jr. kit from Dave Ramsey.

I was clearly not meant to work on the money lapbook on vacation as I'd planned (think forgotten power cords, malfunctioning software, etc.), but we're still going to be diving into our study of money very soon. So I was excited to open up the kit and see exactly what I had to work with.

The core of this package - or at least the part I was most excited about - was the Junior's Adventures boxed set. Each book focuses on a different money-related theme, including spending, saving, giving, work, debt and integrity. To put the information practice, the Teaching Kids About Money kit includes a Commission (his term for Allowance) worksheet, an audio CD, calculator and coin case, a worksheet for saving up to buy a specific item and an envelope system for dividing money for different causes (saving, spending and sharing).

Our money unit will start with the history of money, so it will be a few months before we're ready to break out the Dave Ramsey in the classroom. But from what I can tell, I already like what I see!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - IXL Math Practice Site

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday.

I'm sure I've blogged about them in the past, but we just renewed our annual membership to the IXL math practice site and it reminded me of what a great tool it is. Anything someone brings up the subject of math, I always mention IXL . . . and now that I've found it for 40% off through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, I thought it was worth mentioning again.

Here's an overview of what I like best about the site:

• It is the ultimate in user-friendly; activities are grouped by grade level, then broken down by skill. Within each skill, it lists each activity in order and lets you mouse over each one for a preview of what a problem would look like.

• It's completely self-guided. Follow the sequence, skip around . . . whatever you like. Practice for five minutes or an hour. I love the flexibility to fit a few minutes in on a busy day or practice for a longer period of time to reinforce something we've just learned.

• The reward system is really simple, but for some reason, my kids really dig it. As you progress towards a score of 100 (completion) for each activity, you earn three little ribbons, which are displayed under your score. After completing each activity, it will notify you if you've earned any rewards, which are given for meeting certain criteria for time practiced, skills mastered, questions answered, etc. The "reward" is getting to turn over a piece on the game board to claim a virtual prize. Doesn't seem all that exciting to me, but like I said, the kids LOVE it.

• With membership, they e-mail periodic parent updates detailing how long the kids have practiced and what skills they have been working on. At any time, you can view reports of all their work to date.

Because the kids learn so well from the computer, I've looked into quite a few online learning sites. With its excellent content, user-friendly format and kid-friendly reward system, this is the first paid site I've felt to be worthwhile.

As I mentioned, you can purchase IXL for a discounted price through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, so an annual subscription for one child is $47.40 instead of $79.00. If you're not yet a member of the HSBC, please consider using my referral link or referral code (65626) when you sign up for your free account.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Kreative Komix

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

As I posted last week, I've been looking for ways to liven up language arts this year. So when I first read about Kreative Komix, it looked like a great tool that Noah would love. I've just ordered it, so obviously I can't yet give it a glowing review . . . but it looked so cool that I thought I'd share it in advance.

Kreative Komix is an interactive, multimedia tool that let's kids design and create their own comics. Kids choose the background, scenery, characters and props, then type in the dialog for their story. With the click of a button, they see and hear their stories come to life. What a great way to work on storytelling, sequencing, reading and writing while being creative and having fun!

Available "themes" include Fairy Tale, Science, American History, Dinosaurs and Superhero. It was difficult to narrow it down to one; I was very tempted by the Science but eventually decided to start wtih Fairy Tales since it seemed to lend itself better to dialogue.

I'll definitely be reporting back after we've had a chance to use it, but I definitely have high hopes for this one. If anyone else has tried Kreative Komix, I'd love your feedback!

Looking for free homeschooling resources?

Since it's Teaching Tool Tuesday, I thought it would be a great time to post about a wonderful blog I've been visiting, Free Homeschooling 101. Both the blog and the Facebook page offer great links, broken down by subject, to free homeschooling tools and resources.

Don't let the small number of posts in the index fool you . . . each post shares a number of resources. For example, "Free Geography" shows only one post, but that post contains links to 10 great free resources. Can't wait to check them out, especially the "White House 101" (we're hoping to tour the White House on our DC trip this month) and "50 States and the games at Grammaropolis (Noah will love these!)