These are some of my current favourites:
1. Paper-plate skip counting wheels. I first saw the idea in the Miquon First Grade Diary when Ponytails was in the first grade...so these paper plates are six or seven years old, but still going strong. Very simple--each number has its own plate, with a series of numerals markered around the rim. The 2 plate goes 2, 4, 6, 8, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 0. The 3 plate goes 3, 6, 9, 2, 5, 8, 1, 4, 7, 0. (That's the most complicated one.) The 4 plate goes 4, 8, 2, 6, 0, then again. The 5 plate just has 5's and 0's on it. And so on. Do you see how it works? You count around the plate, and each number you say will have the same final digit as the next numeral on the plate.
2. "Topical" Bible sword drills. [2019: link is broken] My kids particularly like the Animals version. (Warning: some of the words don't match up if you use newer Bible translations.)
3. Beaver Ed's card quiz games, sold at Dollarama. We have the Nature and the Dinosaurs games, and think they're as good as the more expensive versions.
4. This study guide to Tom Sawyer. We don't use a lot of literature study guides, but this one has some helpful ideas.
5. Leslie Laurio's updated Ourselves. (The Common Room family also likes this.)
6. Homemade handwriting sheets. I am using our Barchowsky disk, but you can find other sites to make your own. Who needs workbooks?
7. Index cards--good for all kinds of things. Ponytails and Mr. Fixit are using them along with Christian Kids Explore Chemistry, to keep track of all the elements Ponytails has learned. (They also made Atomic Cookies--see a similar photo at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)
8. Books from the local supermarket's dollar bin--you just never know what's going to show up there. Recently we've found Magic Treehouse notepads, The Courage of Helen Keller, Madeleine L'Engle's The 24 Days Before Christmas, a Mitford book, and several other Scholastic and Troll biographies.
9. The weekly how-to posts at The Common Room.
10. Julie Gilbert's Planned Spontaneity e-book. A different kind of homeschool planner! (The home page is here.)
4 comments:
I'm hosting the carnival of homeschooling this week, this article would be lovely in it, would you submit it?
Thanks,
Christine Guest
Okay! (We're hosting the week after.)
I have to add my favorite:
www.librivox.org
One of the neat things they do is record plays with different readers/actors (some of them really are amateur thespians) for each role. It's lots more fun than reading a play, or you listen and follow along. My oldest daughter recently enjoyed The Importance of Being Earnest (Ambleside year 10) this way.
Oh, wow - the Isaac Asimov books at that Indian site are brilliant. I have never heard of these, and they seem to pick up and modernize many topics where some of the more basic CM material leaves off. Thanks!
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