21 Games & Activities to Sneakily Improve Spelling

Looking for some fun ways to help improve your child’s spelling without boring curricula or spelling tests? There are so many fun ways to help improve spelling! Here are a few of our favorites. Make up fun, personalized word searches on sites like Puzzlemaker (it’s free). Add all kinds of words your child will appreciate […]

50+ Magical Ways to Learn Together This Week

Looking for some fun ways to learn with the kiddos? Here are oodles of ways to use fun and games to learn math, history, geography, reading, writing, science and more! Visit a museum in your area that you’ve never been to. Close your eyes, spin the globe, and put your finger down. Look to see […]

50 Fun Ways for Kids to Get Great at Spelling

All five of our homeschooled kids are now great spellers, but they weren’t always great. They learned in different ways that suited them, but in the end they all ended up becoming excellent spellers — without worksheets, drills or a curriculum. How? It was easier than I thought it would be, once they learned in […]

Fun hands on poetry exercises

Poetry Fun: 5 Creative Exercises to Get Kids Writing Poetry (and liking it)

Looking for a fun way to introduce poetry in your homeschool? Also want to sneak spelling, penmanship, vocabulary, antonyms and parts of speech into the play? Here are some creative poetry exercises that will fit the bill. Revised rhymes: Get out a book of nursery rhymes or short poems (try e.e. cummings or Emily Dickinson) […]

Free curricula in every subject for your 3rd grader

Free Curricula in Every Subject for Your 3rd Grader

Continuing in our series of absolutely free curricula in every subject for every grade, here’s a round-up of resources for math, science, history, language arts and more that are absolutely free for third grade. (Note from Alicia:  This post was compiled as part of a series for my homeschooling column at Examiner, which is no […]

Free Curriculum for Homeschooling 7th Grade

Free curricula in every subject for your 7th grader

  Homeschooling in the middle school years doesn’t have to be expensive. There are many outstanding curricula for math, science, history, language arts and more that are absolutely free. Here are some of the best free resources for 7th graders in each subject. Note: This is a tiny fraction of what’s available online for free […]

What is lapbooking and why is it so great for homeschooling?

What is lapbooking and why is it so great for homeschooling?

Have you tried lapbooking in your homeschool yet? This delightful, hands-on activity is a wonderful way to combine crafts with science, history, literature, handwriting, math and more. Lapbooks use file folders as the basis for homemade project books that are laid out in a creative manner and fit in a child’s lap. You can think […]

50 fun household materials to use for poetry, spelling and more

50 fun household materials to use for poetry, spelling and more

Looking for some fun ways to play with spelling, poetry and writing in your homeschool? Make some language arts manipulatives! You can find wonderful materials all around the house, absolutely free, and pick up others at dollar stores or thrift stores for next to nothing. Here are some of our favorites. (Instructions follow for those […]

Oodles of amazing educational uses for plastic eggs

Oodles of amazing educational uses for plastic eggs

After Easter, it’s the perfect time to pick up extra plastic eggs on clearance to use them for all sorts of homeschooling fun — and not just for the preschool set. Most of us have seen the Pinterest pins of Easter eggs being used to learn sight words or letters, but you can use them […]

Free online learning games for every subject

Here are some great ways for the kids to play (and learn) in every subject from right at home today.  These online games are all free and require no special downloads or installations other than basics like Java or Adobe Flash Player in some instances. Math: Zeus’ Petals teaches kids multiplication skills.  The game says:  […]

Lapbooking 101

Designing your own lapbooks

We design our own lapbooks about 90% of the time.  While it can take more time in terms of research and planning, there are many advantages.  The kids learn more doing the research themselves, they feel a greater sense of ownership, it allows for more creativity, it can be tailored to the child’s age and […]

PBS releases new free K-12 app for the iPad

PBS releases new free K-12 app for the iPad

PBS LearningMedia classrooms has announced a great new iPad app for K-12 students that is absolutely free. Designed specifically for students in grades K-12, the app provides access to thousands of resources covering all subject areas, from math and science to English and social studies. The PBS Student app allows kids to watch and learn […]

Wonderful ways to help kids learn the parts of speech

Wonderful ways to help kids learn the parts of speech

There’s no need to make kids suffer through boring worksheets and lesson plans to learn their parts of speech. There are all kinds of fun ways to help them remember the names and functions of each one. Here are a few wonderful ways to help kids learn nouns, verbs, adjectives and more. Mad Libs: These […]

The internet is filled with fabulous educational videos, but finding them can be tricky. Enter WatchKnowLearn, which gathers these videos from the internet and puts them in one organized, searchable place. The site currently offers about 50,000 videos on everything from osmosis to table manners to sign language to the philosophy of numbers. The website, which was launched by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sangler, is designed to offer free access to thousands of education-related videos for students ages 3-18. Sanger describes it as "YouTube meets Wikipedia." What can you find on WatchKnowLearn? Nearly anything! For instance, some of the videos currently available include: A short video about Minnesota from the History Channel Singing the alphabet with Elmo and India Aria A short geography video how Pangea split and the plates moved to form the world we now know. An animation of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" A half hour video teaching about the history and culture of the religious Shaker movement. A vast assortment of math songs Schoolhouse Rock's "How a bill becomes a law" Doing a unit on clouds? A search produces hits in categories like meteorology, earth sciences and clouds, with options such as: Weather & Meteorology : How Do Clouds Form? Cool Clouds Mykie's Lesson Plan 3: Clouds Different Types of Clouds (Time-Lapsed Photography) Cloud Rap New Cloud Type Name Proposed-Asperatus How To Classify Clouds Wow! Amazing Images of Storm Clouds Lesson for Painting Clouds "Going Outside"- Learn Weather and Outside Sign Language Words These are just a few of the results just on page one of the results for clouds -- and there are 116 pages of results! Click here to visit the website and see all of the videos available. You can also set up your own classroom on the site to organize the videos you'd like to use in your homeschool. The search tool allows you to filter by age, and you can browse through subjects and many, many sub-categories to find great content. The site was launched in October of 2009. The contributions have come from National Geographic, NASA, you-tube, eHow, private users and Google Videos, among many other sources. This is a wonderful resource for putting together unit studies, accompanying curricula or just answering questions as they come up.

WatchKnowLearn offers thousands of free educational videos for kids

The internet is filled with fabulous educational videos, but finding them can be tricky. Enter WatchKnowLearn, which gathers these videos from the internet and puts them in one organized, searchable place. The site currently offers about 50,000 videos on everything from osmosis to table manners to sign language to the philosophy of numbers. The website, […]

How to help your child love to write

How to help your child love to write

There are many ways to show kids how fun writing can be. It doesn’t have to be a struggle, and it doesn’t have to involve standard curricula or dry writing assignments. Indeed, kids will become the best writers if they think of writing as fun and open-ended. One great way to help kids love writing […]

Free curricula in every subject for your 3rd grader

Kids can earn free T-shirts and certificates from MENSA for Kids for reading

Here’s a wonderful way to encourage kids to read and to really give them a challenge. Mensa for Kids has developed the Excellence in Reading Award that gives children and teens a certificate of achievement and t-shirt if they successfully read all of the books on their age-appropriate recommended book lists. Kids can even listen […]

18 Magazines that publish art and writing by kids and teens

18 Magazines that publish art and writing by kids and teens

There are more and more magazines that feature writing and art by kids and teens, both online and in print. This is a great way to encourage reluctant writers and to give enthusiastic writers and artists a place to spotlight their creativity. Here are 18 magazines that publish children’s writing and art: Creative Kids magazine […]

Five lessons to take from Charlotte Mason for your homeschool

Many homeschoolers around the world follow Charlotte Mason methods, and it’s easy to understand why.  This British educator approached education through nature and great works, creating an environment that appeals to many parents. Here are five Charlotte Mason philosophies that can enrich any homeschool. Let children learn through “living books.”  Mason advocated teaching with books […]

12 Ways to improve your child's spelling

12 Ways to improve your child’s spelling

Okay, so you crossed that first homeschooling hurdle and your child is reading well. Chances are, spelling is another story — and it will be for at least a couple of years. Although reading and spelling seem to go hand in hand, most children fully grasp reading long before they’re spelling well. This is normal, […]

Free curricula in every subject for your preschooler (it's not what you think)

Free curricula in every subject for your preschooler (it’s not what you think)

I’ve been sharing free curricula for every subject and each grade in this column, and several parents have asked me to share free curricula for preschoolers. I’ve put off doing a preschool list yet for two reasons: If you’re new to homeschooling your kids, it’s more important to find resources for older kids than it […]

New website offers free sight word printables, games, lessons and more

New website offers free sight word printables, games, lessons and more

Here’s a fabulous new resource for parents whose kids are learning to read. Sight Words, a free website sponsored by the Georgia Preschool Association, offers a multitude of tools for parents, teachers and caregivers to help kids learn to read. The site says: Sightwords.com is a comprehensive sequence of teaching activities, techniques, and materials for […]