We are so fortunate to have so much immediately available to us in our homeschool day.  The internet is full of wonderful websites and opportunities for our children to learn and practice their skills.  But it can be so intimidating to try and find that needle in a haystack; choices are endless and not always appropriate.  I rely often on suggestions from fellow homeschoolers and teachers who have led me to good sites to check out for our learning.

Here are some places we have enjoyed over the last couple of years, categorized by subject:

Art

Deep Space Sparkle – This site is jam-packed with wonderful project ideas that are well-organized, varied in difficulty level, and unique.  Some are for purchase but many are free.

Made by Joel – I love this guy’s creativity and simple style.  I have used many of his printables and taken inspiration from other projects, adjusting them to fit our family.

Harmony Art Mom – This blog has so much to enjoy!  Barb hosts Sketch Tuesday, with an art prompt and display of readers’ artwork through a photo slide show.  There are artist and composer studies, art projects and lots of printables and great resources.

Creativity Portal – This site has many articles, resources, links and projects in multiple categories.  Not all are visual art, you can find creative writing prompts here too.

Science

Handbook of Nature Study – A wonderful Charlotte Mason style site for nature study.  Includes projects, resources, and printables, as well as a ton of beautifully organized information.

Ology – A part of theAmericanMuseum of Natural History, this site has a dozen or so science branches/topics to study, including genetics, zoology, and astronomy.  Very interactive and interesting, though it has an evolutionary bent.  Pick and choose what you study based on your family’s desires and convictions.

eNature – This great site has virtual field guides as well as articles, links and pictures.

Nature Detectives – I love this site for outdoor exploration.  There are sections for each season with very unique ideas, printables, activities and games, all aimed at getting kids to get out of the house and enjoy nature.

Math

20 things to do with a hundred chart – I have used so many of these ideas to help my kids practice different concepts with a hundred chart.

Khan Academy – You can find videos for tons of different math concepts at this site.  Sometimes our kids just need someone else to explain it to them.

Sheppard Software – Dozens of great games here to practice all sorts of concepts in various levels.

Create a graph – A very nice site for kids to explore as they make graphs from data they have collected.

Cool Math 4 Kids – My kids love to play around here.  The games are varied and fun, and aren’t all of the typical geometry or facts practice ilk.  Try Rotate and Roll for some addictive enjoyment.  (My husband played this game obsessively until he was able to complete all the levels, then proceeded to race my son on dueling laptops!)

Language Arts

One Word – A very simple concept laid out in a clean and simple way.  Write (type) for one minute on their one word prompt.  Then submit your entry.

Pictures for writing prompts – A great collection of 50 fun and interesting pictures to use as writing prompts.

Grammar Blast – A host of middle school games to learn and review grammar.  Organized in 6th, 7th and 8th grade categories.

Sheppard Software – Tons of online games here to practice all sorts of language arts concepts.

History

This day in History – Children can see, and record (in a calendar journal, for example), what happened in history on each day.

BBC – My children and I explored theIndusValley activities for a couple of hours one day and they were completely enthralled with our adventure online.  Great information and interactive play here!

Growth of a nation movie – Someone led me to this great video of howAmerica spread to include all it is today.  Good geography and history lesson in a 10 minute video.

Birmingham museum for kids – Explore ancient history and resources here in this well-developed and visually-pleasing website.

What are some of your favorite sites for learning?

Christine Hiester is a Christian, homeschooling mom to three boys and a girl, ranging in age from 10 to 3 years old. She is a musician by trade, eclectic in homeschool style, and continues to grow and learn along with her children in this journey of life and discipleship at home. Visit her blog at Fruit in Season.

Not long ago, we completed a study of Charles Dickens. As a teen, I was not a fan of Dickens; I found his work far too long and even more boring than it was lengthy. Consequently, I wanted to introduce him to the kids differently than I met him while in high school. We took the time to learn Dickens’ writing style courtesy of Invitation to the Classics. After reading Tale of Two Cities, (which the kids said had nothing to do with all those Disney-like spinoffs they have seen), we actually looked forward to delving into more of his work. Besides, I have not yet seen the day when the kids turned down the chance to watch television for school (smile). First, we watched “Great Expectations,” then “David Copperfield.” What I loved most was hearing all of their conversation, first with one another, then with me, regarding their thoughts on the stories, and on Dickens. It was the rare Socratic dialogue that is a homeschool parent’s dream.

Often as homeschooling parents, we play hit-and-miss with our older children and having transformational discussions about what they are learning. Schools focus on exams as a test of comprehension, and for many of us, we transfer this same approach into our homeschools. As a college instructor, I spend numerous hours helping adult learners move past the memorization required for most exams, and instead engage in Socratic dialogue. Over the years, I have helped my high schoolers get a jump on this same dialogue using exercises that deepen their understanding and help them think more critically about their history and literature studies. Most of these ideas require little planning to implement, and the educational bang for the buck, so to speak, is well worth the effort.

Probing for Prior Knowledge
Believe it or not, what sometimes stymies a child from learning about a subject might be what he thinks he already knows. As an example, following the classical cycle of study, a student will see the same periods of history on three different occasions. By the rhetoric stage, a brief moment spent learning what the child knows can help in at least two ways:

1) Any misconceptions can be clarified.
2) As an educator, you use your time wisely.

Discuss with your child that you are going to study _______, and that before you jump off into an extended lesson plan, you want to see what he already knows. His response does not have to be a paragraph or a report; a simple listing of facts will suffice. As an example, if you ask “What were the major accomplishments of Leonardo da Vinci?” and your child can list most major achievements of his life, your time might be better spent elsewhere. You might even be delighted to find that your child loved a particular area of history enough to dig out new information without your lesson plans. There is a caveat here: be sure that you understand what answer you are looking for before evaluating whether your student is competent. Note that there is a distinction between what your child knows and what you taught; the child will repeat the former, not the latter.

Learning Matrix
A learning matrix is a simple grid that can be modified to gather a number of facts regarding any study. It takes light preparation to think about how a layout for the grid, in a fairly objective snapshot, what a student understands.

To help your student with higher order thinking skills, this table can be modified such that a student lists pros and cons or a categorization of facts. Also, remember when you shopped for that appliance and used a comparative list to help you make a decision? Do not discount this same type of listing to allow your child to fill in the blanks. This is not geared toward a Socratic dialogue, but as a methodology to seal in facts from which your child can build deeper insights.

Major Civil War Battles

One-Minute Paper
The one-minute paper can be a dream for a reluctant writer, but it also gets a student to think about what he/she has read, and to summarize it in a matter of a few words what was the primary idea. From the parent’s perspective, only one question sparks the written discussion: what was the most important thing you learned about ____________? A related, or possibly an alternative question, might be what important question remains unanswered? An expansion on the one-minute paper, if you are considering it for more regular use, might be the commonplace book, in which the student collects these same types of insights on a more regular basis. We use commonplace books extensively in our home as an extension of our notebooking, and I can see very quickly where the kids are in their command of a given topic.

Word Journal
The Word Journal has two products that can be used for further analysis:

1) a single word, from the student’s perspective, that summarizes the text
2) a paragraph or two explaining the choice of that particular word

The student is, in essence, giving an abstract of the text. This is obviously best used on shorter excerpts or texts. Also, if the book generates an apathetic response, you can always help your student along by offering a choice of words rather than letting the student belittle the assignment. One of our children, as an example, loves the adjective ‘interesting.’ In reading through an analysis, why a book is “interesting” is well-defined, but I am also looking for expanded vocabulary, so I constantly steer our child away from this description. Also, consider a picture—worth one thousand words—to replace the one word approach. Then, an artistic child can explain the choice of the picture.

Bear in mind that, even after incorporating one or more of these exercises into your lesson plans, a student’s response to the question, “What’d you think of that book?” might be, “Eh, it was alright.” [Groan]. However, seeds are planted, and whether it is immediately obvious or not, you are facilitating thinking skills, which will serve your child in the long run much more than passing a test of memorization.

Belinda Bullard is a wife and homeschooling mother of three, Belinda is an author and the owner of A Blessed Heritage Educational Resources, a literature-based historycurriculum featuring African-American presence in history, as well as the contributions of other races to American history. A chemical engineer by formal education, she also serves as adjunct faculty for college distance learning programs. Belinda blogs at Simply Belinda and Chronicles of a Blessed Heritage.

Like many, we homeschool at the dining table. Every day I’m amazed at the speed with which it is covered—books, papers, folders, colored pencils, and sometimes a bowl or a cup is squeezed in there, too. Worse, I’ve seen a kid fill one spot up with books and papers and then sit at a fresh spot for lunch, leaving one of my preschoolers to set a bowl on top of the older kid’s pile of books.

We’ve had nights that we just ate in the floor picnic style rather than try to excavate the dining table. We’ve had disastrous coffee spills and cheerio-encrusted Latin pages. I only confess this because I know you know what I’m talking about.

The table gets that bad with only two students, but this year, my three-year-old and four-year-old have started wanting to “do school,” too. They lug their workbooks and bags of pencils over to my desk, and with round, sweet eyes, they ask if I’ll help. They obliviously pile their things on top of the bigs’ papers some days; other days they just cry out, “There’s nowhere for me to sit!” And then they get stuck, repeating this cry until a spot is cleared.

Last weekend, I had an idea. I marked off the amount of space each child could have for their work and gave them a piece of paper the same size to decorate and label. John drew inventions on his placemat; Grace illustrated the events of The Iliad on hers. Abby and Caedmon colored their names with dots and stripes.

We put the four pieces of decorated paper on the table and covered the whole table with a thick piece of clear plastic I’d bought at the fabric store for that purpose years before. Now they could see at a glance if they were taking up too much space.

So far…honestly, it hasn’t helped at all. But I think that the training will go more smoothly with the visual reminder. I think drawing boundaries will help them to see—in the long run—the importance of keeping their stuff picked up and the finite limits of the square footage available at one dining table.

Aubrey Lively is a homeschooling mama with a loud one-room classroom filled with four children, aged ten to two. She likes a Saturday morning with her husband and his guitar, a good cup of coffee, and a fresh sheet of paper. She has a BA in Literature and a MEd in Teaching, but more importantly, she thinks outside the box. (She believes the box is a conspiracy.) Visit Aubrey online at http://aubreylively.blogspot.com.

Daughter #2 is a highly tactile learner just like her father. She learns best when there are things to touch and feel, when she can move her body (she is also a musical learner but that is for another post). We first became aware of this while trying to teach her math. She just couldn’t grasp math concepts when taught the same way as her older sister (mainly through reading from a textbook). She was frustrated, I was frustrated! I feel badly about the first year or two of schooling her. I kept trying and trying to teach her the same way that my oldest (and myself) learn the best. Of course, it didn’t work very well. She learned things but it took a lot longer. School was not enjoyable for her.

It was during this hard time that I really started studying about different learning styles/multiple intelligences. I came to realize that in order for my daughter to come to love learning again I needed to adjust my teaching. For instance, I searched until I found a math program that was geared towards tactile learners (Math U See). The manipulatives, though simple, were extremely successful in helping her to ‘see’ the concepts. It was amazing the difference just a few weeks with the program made for her!

Here are some things I’ve learned about tactile learners.

• They usually excel in one or more sports or have very good coordination.
• They like to MOVE: fidgeting or tapping are not uncommon, especially when they have to sit for a long period of time.
• They just “have” to touch something they have just seen.
• They enjoy getting their hands messy – finger painting, working with clay, glue, etc.
• They love to take things apart and put them back together again.
• They have a dramatic way of expressing themselves.

Ways kinesthetic/tactile learners learn best:

• competitive and cooperative games
• physical awareness and relaxation exercises
• all hands-on activities
• creative movement, mime
• hands-on thinking
• communicating with body language/ hand signals
• tactile materials and experiences
• field trips
• crafts
• cooking, gardening, and other “messy” activities
• manipulatives
• virtual reality software
• physical education activities
• body answers

Now that my daughter is older and taking independent study classes through a High School correspondence program she has learned various other ways to help her study so she can be prepared for college where most courses are taught through lecture, not ideal for tactile learners.

To memorize facts, she paces or walks around while reciting to herself or using flashcards or notes. She’ll also close her eyes and write the information in the air or on a surface with her finger. She’ll try to picture and hear the words in her head. Later when she needs to recall the information for a test she is able to close her eyes and ‘see’ what she wrote.

When she begins reading a a new chapter in a textbook, she takes a whole-to-part approach. This means she first scans the pictures, then reads headings, then reads the first and last paragraphs and tries to get a feel for the content before reading the entire thing through.

She likes to study lying on her stomach or back, sitting in a comfortable lounge chair or on cushions or a bean bag but certainly not at a desk!

She takes frequent breaks. She will study for about 20-25 minutes than take a 3-5 minute break.

She takes a plethora of notes! Writing helps her to not fidget so much and to concentrate on what is being said. She will rewrite her notes several times to help her study and retain information.

There are also other ways she studies but those fall under the musical learner which will be discussed in another post.

Other posts in this series: 

Learning Styles: The Basics
Learning Styes: The Basics Part II, Multiple Intelligences
Linguistic, Read, Write, Learners

Montserrat Wadsworth is completely devoted to her wonderful husband, Joseph, and their eight children (seven girls and one boy!). They live on a 4,000 acre alfalfa farm nestled in a small Northern Nevada valley. They’ve been homeschooling for 11+ years. Montserrat enjoys, photography, cooking, crafting, chocolate, and sloppy goodnight kisses. She strives to live each day as God would have her do following Mary’s biblical supplication, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:38) You can find her at her blog Chocolate On My Cranium.

I always think of January as the school year’s second “back to school.” Having two or three weeks off for Christmas break creates time for me to reflect on what’s working in our schoolroom and routine — and what’s not. It allows me to reorder supplies on which we’re running low, and come up with resources to help fill gaps within the curriculum that I discover during the first “semester.”

Those last few weeks in December and the first week or two in January is also a time I renew a lot of my commitments, make extended plans, and determine to get more organized….in homeschooling as well as in other areas. I begin to pull from resources I love as a homeschooling parents — things I wonder how I’d do without — realizing how blessed I am to have them at my disposal.

So here are my homeschooling essentials, in no certain order. Maybe there’s something in this list you have never considered or have never heard about — or maybe many of you can read this list and just nod in absolute agreement. Either way, here you go: Ten homeschooling helps I couldn’t go without:

My scanner
Our scanner isn’t fancy or state-of-the-art. It simply scans photos and documents — and doubles, for me, as a copy machine. (I scan documents and reproducible worksheets, transform them to PDFs, and email them to myself for printing.)

My personal laminating machine
I found this little gem on Amazon last year as one of their daily deals. For just a handful of dollars I can now custom make my own flash cards, write on/wipe off charts and worksheets, and preserve important papers or artwork for safekeeping.

Online support
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run to my favorite online homeschooling forum, The Homeschool Lounge, with a question or dilemma. Whether it’s about read-aloud book suggestions, curriculum confusion, or something pertaining to motivating and inspiring my kids, the helpful homeschooling parents on this site always have words of encouragement and sound advice to share. They have also given me a ton of helpful links and online resources to check out that I probably would not have found on my own. Field trip ideas, creative writing prompts, and even how to handle criticism — it’s all here. It helps me not feel so alone in my endeavors!

Rainbow Resource
It’s a nifty, all-inclusive website offering the best prices I’ve found on lots of curriculums, art supplies, books, educational aids, even toys. Their customer service is stellar — they’ve let me call and add on items to my order that I’d forgotten a day earlier — and their catalog is exhaustive. (You can shop online or request a free catalog by mail.)

Streaming ETV
Our state has its own streaming website for ETV (educational television) programs for all grade levels. Through our homeschool organization, I have a membership that allows us to watch as many videos and listen to as many audiobooks as we choose at no extra cost. We can watch full episodes of Reading Rainbow, Time Warp Trio, NOVA, and much more. Check with your local state’s ETV programming headquarters to see if something similar is available for your home classroom!

Pinterest
Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a visual way to collect and organize ideas from the web. And it’s awesome. You can “pin” things yourself to remember later, as well as browse pins on other folks’ boards. You can follow other people’s boards, too, so if you find someone who really knows their homeschooling/crafting/teaching links, grab on and keep up with them. Here’s my homeschooling classroom inspiration board and my educational activities and experiments board to give you an idea of what’s out there. I cannot remember life without Pinterest! *wink*

Audiobooks and e-books
We’ve used free audiobooks for downtime and e-books on the iPad and other devices to help build vocabulary, increase reading comprehension, and just entertain. The possibilities are endless! I love bringing multimedia into the classroom in such a rich way. The best part? It’s portable — we can learn anywhere, anytime!

Our local homeschool co-op
We joined one this past year and we’re slowly getting involved. As the kids get older I am seeing visions of how incredibly valuable this will be to us. Other parents are experts at other things — and they volunteer to teach other families’ kids once a week. There are also fun field trips planned, targeted group outings and adventures, charity volunteer opportunities, and seminars — not to mention accountability — all for a low yearly fee.

YouTube
Yes, this site can be scary. But use it the right way, with proper adult supervision and accurate search terms, and it can be a wealth of helpful multimedia for the classroom! We use it to learn songs to teach us the books of the Bible. We use it to look up videos about cultural festivals in other countries. We use it to bring life science alive. Our son uses it to find videos made by other kids who build and demonstrate new projects with his favorite educational toy, Snap Circuits. We use it to supplement nearly all subjects.

Full-backing and support from family and friends
No one can go it alone. I’m so grateful for a supportive husband who applauds my efforts and even helps me teach the topics I’m weak in on his day off. I have parents and in-laws who see the results of our homeschooling and are convinced we’re doing the right thing for our family. I have friends who are jumping in alongside us every single year — and it’s inspiring and edifying. I know many don’t have the luxury of having such strong support — and I know that what I am experiencing isn’t the norm…but I’m grateful that it’s my reality…and pray it can be for everyone else who feels called down this educational path.

What are your homeschooling essentials?

Meg Wilson is a devoted wife to her husband, Ken, of 10 years, and mom and homeschooling teacher to her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. When she’s not writing or creating something, Meg loves to cook for, host and entertain friends and family. She also enjoys reading, the outdoors, eclectic music, yoga, and studying history. You can read all about her adventures (and misadventures) at her blog, Muses of Megret and read her product reviews at Electric City Academy.

What does acquisition of a rich vocabulary have to do with science? Sometimes I just can’t resist the cross-curricular.

The truth is, when science vocabulary moves beyond the rote realm, our children not only attain long-term retention, but they often stumble upon a larger lesson.

Looking back, there are a plethora of words in my memory’s jar-of-wonderful-words-acquired-way-back-when. Yes, I was the student who devoured all those Latin terms and, to this day, smile at the silly sounds that ring from those long ago memorized lists.

• From botany, photosynthesis.
• From marine biology, Echinodermata and Coelenterata.
• From chemistry, stoichiometry.
• And, from physiology, mitochondria captured my imagination.

So began the New Year’s lesson.

Movie night.

My boys scanned our expansive old-school DVD collection and decided on a movie called Between the Folds, which lead to a question, “What does an origami artist and a theoretical scientist have in common?” Fact is, this film takes us to the intersection of math and science and art and invites us to linger.

After the movie, the real fun began, which translates to this mom ruminating for hours the potential lessons. And this is how a lesson took shape, easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Think paper.

If we are being honest most of us hold pretty low expectations for a single sheet of paper: scribble, scribe, crumple, and toss. But this film hyperbolically demonstrates the magnitude of paper’s underutilization. Truth is the singular act of folding paper taps into the paper’s latent potential. Work even a single fold and the sheet of paper and, voila, the paper will never be the same.

2. Think mitochondria.

First, review the facts… Mitochondria, located in the cytoplasm, are little energy factories within the cell. These amazing organelles enable respiration allowing the cell to move, divide, and, most intriguing, to insure each cell’s unique purpose. Mitochondria can have different shapes depending on the cell type. Because they contain their own DNA, ribosomes, and can produce their own protein, mitochondria are only partially dependant upon the host cell.

At the end of my little review I lingered at the intersection of art and science. Mitochondria possess a double membrane, an outer, which is smooth, and an inner, which possesses many folds called cristae that exponentially increase membrane surface area. Mitochondria are folds!

All living cells have mitochondria. But it is amazing to consider that typical animal cells have up to 2000 mitochondria… in each cell!

Folds give mitochondria their unique potential; enable the organelle to be highly productive. Cristae take batches of sugar and oxygen and produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate)—cell food. Folds, likewise reveal the unique potential of paper.

Science and art are uniquely connected. Leonardo himself reminds us, “All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”

3. Think individuality.

This film provided a terrific analogy. I would begin the lesson something like this, “So think mitochondria, think origami. If paper has hidden potential that is realized with a bit of concentrated effort. Can you imagine the potential that you have been endowed with?” To illustrate, I provided paper and instructions fold a hyperbolic parabola. The folding was accomplished but not much discussion. Can you say, “Anticlimactic?”

Then, a couple days later, my oldest son came back with an archival answer to my question.

As you can see, the answer looks suspiciously like a Christmas ornament, but it’s not. And I am quite sure the answer is much more than art. This miniature hyperbolic parabola painstakingly folded by my son and tucked into a glass sphere decorated with a spray of silver paint is language, inspiration, translation, and transposition.

“Mom, I wanted to make something to remind me what potential behind glass is like.”

But his response is so much more. Taylor took everything he gleaned from this film, from our scientific exploration of mitochondria, and globed it to haiku. This is visual poetry at its best.

Watch the film and I think you will see what I mean.

Ultimately I think mitochondria is one of those words that will stick. But more than retention of a scientific term, I think my boys devoured an analogy.

So next movie night, think cross-curricular!

Kimberly has been a homeschool mom for 16 years and is an advocate for reform in education. Her book, Habits of Being: Artifacts from the Classroom Guild, is a collection of snapshots from this experience woven to a philosophy of education. She is a founding partner of Blackbird & Company Educational Press, which develops and publishes innovative literature, writing, and poetry curriculum, plus collectivebanter.com, an online opportunity for young writers, visual artists, and musicians to compete and publish their work. She is also a regular contributor to fourandtwenty.typepad.com. Her writing and visual art students have received numerous awards including regional and national recognition by the Scholastic Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and have been published in online and in-print journals. Long ago the California resident, mother of four, received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biological psychology and fine art, graduate training in clinical art therapy, and more recently earned her MFA in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles.

With the increasing amount of free resources found online, the ability to homeschool has become more affordable for many. Below is a list of 15 websites featuring free science resources. The list includes games, printables, activities, quizzes, videos, and even a complete science curriculum!

Apples4theTeacher.com Find free elementary science activities, printables, and interactive online games.

BrainPOP Science Showcases animated, engaging, curriculum-based content, much of which is completely free!

Education.com Find free science activities, games, and much more.

Easy Fun School Science Science-based lessons and activities for various ages.

EIA Energy Kids Access energy related games, activities, lesson plans and more!

Fact Monster Great kid-friendly site with all kinds of facts, games, quizzes, etc. for many different subjects.

Hooked on Science Download and print free science worksheets and lesson plans.

MSNucleus Curriculum Access a free K-12 integrating science, math, and technology curriculum.

Quiz Tree Free online quizzes and games for subjects including science, math, reading, foreign language, geography, history, spelling, music and more.

Sheppards Software Hundreds of free of educational games, activities, and articles for many different subjects.

Think Zone Print free science & math posters and charts.

TLSbooks.com Print free science worksheets.

Today in Science History Find scientific events from any day throughout history plus lots more!

U.S. Fire Administration for Kids Lesson plans for basic fire safety.

Yucky Discovery Science website sponsored by Discovery Kids.

Jennifer is a happily married, Christian, homeschooling mama of five little ones (ages 7,5,5,3,3). Yes, two sets of twins! She has a BA degree in Mathematics and holds a masters degree in Education. A former high school math teacher, she now uses all her education to teach her own kids! In her “spare” time she enjoys scrap-booking, though blogging seems to be taking its place. She currently has five blogs. Mama Jenn is her main blog. Education Cubes features customizable learning blocks. The Homeschool Resource List is a collection of free online resources. The “Brown Like Me” Book Review showcases books featuring “brown” characters. The Living Math Book List is a collection of living math books.

Over our Christmas break, I began a mass war-on-clutter/organize-my-life project. I’m not one to make “new year’s” resolutions, but it seems like the holidays are a time of year I end up pondering what has been going well, and what changes I ought to make in the fresh new year. This year, the two words at the top of my list are simplify and de-clutter.

“Stuff” is not bad. Of course we should never value things above people, but when kept in it’s place, I see nothing wrong with enjoying and appreciating the things we have. I really like my house. I enjoy the way I’ve decorated to make it feel both comfortable and pretty. I am absolutely tickled about my new KitchenAid mixer in a delightfully pretty retro blue color. Our schoolroom has oodles of bookshelves — and books — and that makes me smile. It’s all good, and I’m very blessed.

However, I’ve been thinking that the more stuff I have, the more I’m tied to it. For instance, the bigger the house, the longer it takes to clean; the more clothes I have, the bigger my laundry pile gets. So I spent the last weeks of 2011 cleaning out and organizing closets, giving away bags and bags and bags of things I like but don’t need from my kitchen and elsewhere around the house, and re-evaluating nearly every thing I own. As I did so, this quote kept coming to mind:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” — William Morris

If things didn’t pass the test for usefulness, or if they weren’t beautiful enough to bring me some joy, they are now out the door. Gone.

This applies to more than just things. In this clean-out process, I found toddler spoons in the back of the pantry, and came across photos from just a few years ago where my baby still looks like so little. Now, she’s eleven, and looking much more like a young lady. Where did the time go? How is my baby that old already? Time is short, and I’m not willing to waste any more of it!

Even more important than de-cluttering and simplifying the things in my home, I’m wanting to do the same with my life and with our homeschool. Lately, I haven’t left time for the truly fun, live-this-life, memory-making things. Nature study, for instance. The nature studies we did in our first few years of homeschooling are some of our happiest memories, and they were days I knew my daughter learned much in a way that made a permanent impression on her. She made a personal connection with things in the world God created, and we shared those memories together. Some of the art projects we did together rank pretty high up there on our happy-memory list, too. And we spent much more time reading aloud together. We still do these things now, but not as often as we used to. I want that to change. I believe these sorts of opportunities to be both useful and beautiful, but other things have “cluttered up” our homeschool days. I don’t like that.

So this year, this month, this week, and this day, I’ll be working on de-cluttering my life of the things that distract me or draw my attention away from where it should be. I’ll let you know how it goes…

(And by the way, happy new year!)

Jamie is a wife, homemaker, home educating mama, adoption advocate, and professional photographer. Her blended family includes three kids: one by birth, one by marriage, and one adopted as a teen. She tries never to venture too far from a steaming hot cup of tea. Visit with her at See Jamie Blog!

A winter nature walk might seem like a boring (or cold) idea, but don’t be fooled – God’s creation, though less active this time of year, is still ready to excite you!

Of course, snow is an obvious topic of study, but since not everyone receives snow in the winter, I’d like to offer some other fun ideas. January, with its bare trees, dead plants and dull colored landscape, is perfect for discovering treasures that are hidden other times of the year. When most of the flora disappears, it’s way easier to find and observe things like rocks, erosion, tree shapes and details, and plants that don’t die or sleep during the winter.

If it’s really cold and you’d rather not venture outside, set up a nature observatory window. You might choose to place feeders outside the window so birds and other creatures will be close for easy observation and sketching in a nature journal or identifying in a field guide. Winter is also a good time for observing clouds and weather systems as you sit on the warm and cozy side of the window.

On not-so-cold days, one of our favorite winter walks is what we call a “detective walk” as we search for evidence of animals. Even though many animals may have migrated or are hibernating, January is still a great time to look for signs that they have been there. Without as many hiding places and the lack of color variation in the landscape, it’s not hard at all to find animal tracks, feathers, fur, scat, food litter, burrows, and old nests.

Appropriate for all ages and requiring no prep, a detective walk is a simple way to break up the monotony of mid-winter homeschooling days. Grab a blank notebook and pencil for each child (and parent) and head outdoors for some fresh air, a little exercise and a lot of science-related fun. Each person is to be on the hunt for as many signs of animals as possible. When animal evidence is found, note or draw it in the notebook. (If you find a burrow, don’t ever attempt to stick your hand or anything else in it!)

Upon returning home, everyone can compare notes over a cup of hot cocoa. Discuss the evidence and which animals you believe have been in the area. Do you think the animals are currently active, or do you think the evidence was left from previous seasons? A lively discussion is sure to ensue! Fun, productive, educational family time can’t be beat!

The NaturExplorers series offers several topics that are perfect for winter nature/science studies: Snow and Ice, Coping with the Cold, Constant Conifers, Beautiful Birds and Animal Signs. There’s also a new winter-themed study just for preschool and kindergarten students called Nature by the Season!

Cindy West is an eclectically Charlotte Mason mom of three who loves learning alongside her children. You can find her blogging at Our Journey Westward and find her nature study curriculum at Shining Dawn Books.

When children begin learning a second language at birth, they have the capacity to learn them without getting confused — because, as the brain develops, so does the ability to separate one language from another.

Why learning a second language? There are many reasons but I think that in such a global environment now, you never know what you might need. Will a second language interfere your children’s English ability? Studies have shown ,and experience has supported, that learning another language enhances a child’s English ability. Children can learn much about English by learning the structure of other languages. Everyday vocabulary also helps children learn the meaning of new words in English.

This time we will learn 3 new colors: gray, black and white in Spanish

My goals for this lesson:

• To introduce new colors gray, black and white in Spanish
• To sort colors in a mat
• To relate colors in their oral and written form

I introduce Tacky, the penguin puppet and told my kids lot of funny things about him. It seems to be a very funny penguin. He is very friendly, too. He loves playing with snow and swimming in the cold sea.. And guess what? He is also learning Spanish!

Tacky told us he learned 3 new colors in Spanish:

• Gris / Gray*
• Negro / Black
• Blanco / White

We played “Tacky says”- our version of Simon says- and we had to look for gray, black and white things around us. If we found something of that color, we named it in Spanish. We gathered some of the objects and then sorted them by color. We also brainstormed more things white, black and gray.

*Note the British spelling of Grey

To practice and consolidate the new colors I made this filefolder for you. Teachable moments are there waiting for you! Happy teaching!  You can download the printables here.

Analia Capurro is the designer and owner of Ingles360.net® and the author of all the educational resources sold in her website. After 20 years of teaching children she found that the only way children love learning is if teachers love learning and teaching, too. Promoting a learning environment where laugh, fun and friendship and companionship are as important as any language structure, are the things she had in mind while designed her bilingual resources.