Reflections From An Eclectic Homeschooling Mama of 8

GREAT SITES FOR EDUCATIONAL TOYS AND GAMES Current mood: breezy I have come across some very good sites that offer extremely fun games for children and adults alike. When we are not formally schooling our children, we encourage a lot of play.Your family will have so much fun playing that TV watching will be seldom to none. www.lakeshorelearning.com (free catalog)I LOVE THIS STORE!!! They built one near my home and it has been history ever since. They also have free craft day every Saturday from 11am-3pm www. mindware. com - brainy toys for children of all ages (free catalog)If you have young ones I highly recommend The Foundation of Mathematics pattern play blocks:) www. lauritoys. com - We order from them all the time. They offer lots of lace ups and puzzles.(My children are playing with a few items in our homeschooling albumgreat early learning toys and durable! (free catalog) Toys to grow on www. ttgo. com lots of toys for imaginative/ dramatic play (free catalog) www. education

During our homeschooling journey, we have accumulated a lot of books. through out the years I have learned how to work with a strict budget designate funds for our homeschool. Here is a lest of some of the things we have done to build our library. **If you don't have the money of space for lots of books, the best resource is the FREE LIBRARY** 1.Purchase by current subject or study matter. .. When we are gathering materials for a certain subject we also look for relevant literature that we can read to the children and they can in turn read themselves. You may also want to purchase an encyclopedia set for leisure or research. 2.Buy Used. I purchased AFrican Ceremonies which is sold on amazon.com for $94 used for $15. The book was in great condition and I got it for a little more than half the price. Some books and DVDs can be costly, but don't be afraid to shop around for a cheaper price. 3. There's Nothing Wrong With a Good Garage Sale:) You would be surprised at how many p

Creating you own curriculum is not for everyone, but if you are looking for something new that the boxed curriculums are not offering, than this is a fun alternative. It takes some time, and inginuity to create your own curriculum, but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and what some may call an inconvenience. When creating your own curriculum, you can changes things around quite easily. If you find a resource that you like better than the one you are currently using,it can be esily implemented as opposed to having to conform to the order of a boxed curriculum. Here is an example of how I have created a Cross curriulum for my daughter that works. First we pick out the literature selections for the quarter. Our goal is to finish up to 6 books per quarter. Her vocabulary and spelling lessons are incorporated into the literature. By looking up the unknown words she encounters in her literature, she builds her vocabulary. shen then looks up the words in the dictionary and write

Check out www.planetcdrom.com for your educational software needs.They are very reasonable. I have checked the prices of some of the software they sell on other sites and you can't beat the prices. Most of the software is free and all you pay is the shipping per software. I have ordered 12 cd's to date over the past year and I am very satisfied with the product, and shipping time. Order... S&D is: 1 item $6.49 per item 2-5 items $5.99 per item 6 or more $5.49 per item I look at it as the shipping price is the cost of the software. I highly recommend Zane Publishing Series for 3 grade and up(depends on your childs level of understanding)they carry many subjects such as,art, geography, science, music, literature and many other subjects. *They have African American software titled: Zane: Afr Amer His: A Cultural Heritage (African American History) Zane: Struggle for Equal Rights (African American History) Zane: Struggle for Freedom (African American History) Zane: Leading Bl

Through the past few years of our homeschool journey, we have learned alot about our children and ourselves. I've learned that when you provide it, they will come. My children are quite independent and they do not like to ask me for small things all the time so I have created their own leveled space. We have drawers at their level containing puzzles, blocks, paper, writing utensils etc. They have free unlimited access to all these things. They also know that they are responsible for the clean up and maintenance of it all and so far we have been smooth sailing I find my children wanting to do more and read more because they have the ability to grab what they want at any given time. It's truly a blessed victory to me to see children wanting to be creative rather than sit around and watch TV. Some people feel like they shouldn't cater to their children in such a way, but to me that is what having children is all about....creating that space and providing the resources needed f

There are a lot of cool subjects that aren't introduced to younger children until they are in about 2nd grade & up and we don't share these nuggets with the little ones because we simply don't feel they are ready to comprehend yet. I'll tell you from experience that they can understand a lot more than what we give them credit for. In order for me to incorporate all my children in a certain subject that would be considered "over their heads", I implement Unit Studies. For example we are working on the Hydrologic Cycle (water cycle) right now to date. We begin the lesson by reading "The Water Cycle(Watts Library". While I am reading this book to my oldest, the younger ones are listening and coloring pictures I drew pertaining to different forms of precipitaion. Once I am done reading a chapter of the book, we have a moment of reflection, going over new vocabulary words and explaining how those terms affects nature and the weather. I even go to th