[Photo by Betsssssy.]
Tom DeRosa of I Want to Teach Forever told me that he would love to have homeschool teachers or unschoolers contribute to his 52 Weeks, 52 Teachers Project. Just write a short response to the question:
Continue reading Calling Homeschoolers: Teaching Advice Wanted
My homeschool co-op classes had a lot of fun creating this April calendar to hand out at our end-of-semester party on Friday. It’s not as easy to read as a traditional calendar — it is more like a puzzle. The expression in each square simplifies to that day’s date, so families can treat each day like a mini-review quiz: “Do you remember how to calculate this?”
Download your own copy:
If you’ve been wanting to start your own math club, you will find plenty of helpful ideas here:
Check out my May Math Calendar post for more ideas about how to use these puzzles.
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Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!
“April Math Calendar” copyright © 2009 by Denise Gaskins.
No, it’s not math, but it looks like a great way to kick-start Princess Kitten’s long-neglected blog. She sat down at the computer and browsed the links to other kids’ posts for over an hour last night, occasionally laughing out loud. Then she opened her Dashboard and started to type a response to the green assignment.
I’ll have to let her know there’s a new post up today. Check it out:
Maybe I can even get her to send something in to the next Homeschool Kids Blog Carnival. It’s worth a try…
Unfortunately, Homeschool Kids Write has disappeared from the web. The Wayback Machine link gives a taste of what the site was like, but It’s just not the same without the Mr. Linky connections to all the children’s writings.
Kitten did three of the writing assignments. And not only did she enter the Homeschool Kids Blog Carnival, she even hosted one edition!
My baby is growing up…
[Photo by ♥Sage (resting… finally!).]
Browsing the Internet, I came across a slideshow called 101 Free Learning Tools, which explores “the idea that there is at least one excellent free learning tool (or site) for every learning problem, need or issue.”
Of course, many of these sites I already knew, at least by reputation. But there are plenty of interesting places that were new to me.
Pre-algebra students stand at the threshold of adventure. Behind them lie the rocky plains of school arithmetic. Ahead, the trail winds into a murky, tangled woods and disappears in the shadows. Who knows what monsters might live in a place like that?
Actress and math maven Danica McKellar has traveled through the pre-algebra jungle and beyond, up the slopes to higher math. She survived the journey, and now, on the heels of her bestselling book for math-phobic middle schoolers, she has written Kiss My Math to guide uncertain students along their way.
Unlike the case with most Hollywood movies, this sequel is an improvement.
We’ve all heard the saying, Don’t judge a book by its cover, but I did it anyway. Well, not by the cover, exactly — I also flipped through the table of contents and read the short introduction. And I said to myself, “I don’t talk like this. I don’t let my kids talk like this. Why should I want to read a book that talks like this? I’ll leave it to the public school kids, who are surely used to worse.”
Okay, I admit it: I’m a bit of a prude. And it caused me to miss out on a good book. But now Danica McKellar‘s second book is out, and the first one has been released in paperback. A friendly PR lady emailed to offer me a couple of review copies, so I gave Math Doesn’t Suck a second chance.
I’m so glad I did.
Photo by ninjapoodles.
As if I didn’t have enough things to do, I have started a new blog: Frugal Homeschooling, [It’s still there, but no new posts since Sept. 2008. I was stretched too thin, trying to do two blogs.] inspired by the popularity of my math resource page. For months, I have been wanting to write a similar page about homeschooling, but it always seemed like too big a chore even to get started.
On the new blog, however, I can enter links one post at a time — check out the latest Frugal posts in the sidebar widget, just under my Popular Posts list. Bit by bit, I hope it will grow into a helpful resource list for homeschoolers.
Two blog posts that brightened a stormy afternoon:
New Element
At The Common Room.Severe Weather Testing Protocols
At Fractions speak louder than nerds…
Photo by Arbron.
This week only, [When I checked the link in April 2011, this was still free!] CurrClick (which carries the Math Mammoth workbook series) is offering Quotations from Shakespeare’s Plays as a free download. This ebook offers copywork tips from Charlotte Mason and about 30 pages of passages from Macbeth, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, etc.
And if you are planning a study of the Bard, you won’t want to miss the following always-free Internet resources.
Photo by ninjapoodles.
Do you and your students have trouble keeping track of those pesky English/American measurements? Here is a great visual showing the relationship between common volumes:
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 