Keep Your Children Learning all Summer Long

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Michelle

“Rarely has the question been asked: Is our children learning?” ~ George W. Bush

Make Your Child’s Summer Vacation Count

As a homeschooling family we really look forward to summer vacation. By the time summer rolls around we need a break from our homeschooling routine. I get to have some free time to myself, and my kids get to spend time doing the things they love to do.

But with all that free time on their hands they could easily fall into bad habits. Too much television, too many video games, and not enough time spent reinforcing what they’ve learned throughout the school year.

To stop bad habits from setting in we encourage our kids to read books that interest them, write about what they love, use their imaginations, and be physically active – nothing sparks creativity like good old fashioned outdoor play. We also provide our kids with movies that educate as well as entertain – Netflix and PBS are great resources for this. Let’s face it, most kids like to watch television, and in moderation, it can be a great learning tool.

Fun K-12 Educational Freebies for Summer Learning

Learning doesn’t have to be a chore for kids. Make it fun with these free online educational games and resources!

Exploratorium: the museum of science, art, and human perception As a teen I had the pleasure of visiting the Exploratorium for a physics class outing – it was absolutely amazing! Their website offers tons of the coolest educational stuff on the web. Everyone will enjoy learning something new!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Teach your children about our precious oceans and sea life via the Monterey Bay Aquarium website. Lots of videos, activities, and educational stuff for the whole family to enjoy.

National Geographic Education National Geographic’s been “inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888″, and their new education site will certainly make learning about our planet a blast! Explore tons of activities, games, news, and more. Their website is definitely fun for the entire family.

PBS KIDS @PBS ‘s children’s site you’ll find tons of interactive games, printables, and more from your kids’ favorite PBS television shows. My children have learned so much through the years by watching and playing all of the quality shows and games PBS has to offer. If you love PBS, consider making a contribution to them so they can continue to bring us high quality educational programming for the entire family.

Poetry for Kids Get your kids interested in writing and appreciating poetry with the Poetry for Kids website. Lots of activities, word games, podcasts, plus a very cool and useful rhyming dictionary.

Read.gov Find tons of cool reading resources for your children (and yourself) at the the Read.gov website. Browse through book lists, author webcasts, events, and more!

ReadWriteThink Lots of terrific resources, activities, and instructions to get your children interested in learning. My 7-year-old daughter loves their shape poem activity.

San Diego Zoo Your kids (and you too) will love learning about animals, plants, and conservation via the San Diego Zoo website. Lots of games and videos to keep your kids entertained.

How do you keep your children learning throughout the summer? Have a great tip or resource you’d like to share with us? Feel free to leave a comment below, send me a tweet @greenearthbazar , or share your tip with us on facebook. We’d love to hear from you!

Give Your Kids A World-Class Education – For Free!

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Michelle

More than Just the Three Rs…

If you’ve never heard of the Khan Academy, then you’re in for a real educational treat! An educator recently introduced me to this phenomenal free, yes FREE, educational resource for kids K-12, and it is absolutely AMAZING!

There is a HUGE wealth of information available for free, most of which seems to be geared toward older children (though I haven’t yet looked over everything – there’s tons of lessons). Your child has access to all kinds of quality math lessons, like Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, even Calculus. Plus there are Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, History, Physics, and even Financial lessons available for free.

I am completely blown away by the quality and quantity of resources the Khan Academy offers to the public – what a blessing the Khan Academy is for educators, parents, homeschoolers, and kids. Definitely check them out!

Have a great educational resource you’d like to share? Leave a comment below, or send me a tweet @greenearthbazar . I’d love to hear from you.

Homeschooling 101: Free Reading Resources for Your Kids

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Michelle

Reading is Key to Academic Success

It’s true – reading is fundamental. If a child learns to read well they will be able to thrive in other areas of life too. Reading is essential for success in school, and can help fuel a child’s imagination. When a child can read, a child can thrive.

Here are some free learning resources to get your child on the road to reading success.

PBS Kids.org PBS is a wealth of information and fun activities for kids. My children love to watch their shows and play their online games. PBS is such a wonderful, vital resource for people of all ages. I sincerely hope our government doesn’t cut funding for Public Broadcasting – if you love @PBS, then show your support for them by taking action to save them today! See the link in the footer section of Green Earth Bazaar for more details.
Read.gov’s Curious George Campaign This page has a lot of good tips for parents to get their children excited about reading. You can also access a lot of great information from other portions of the Read.gov website. There’s a section for educators and parents, a section for kids, as well as a section for teens and adults. It’s great, and it’s free!
Reading is Fundamental RIF has a terrific activity page loaded with tons of activities to get your kids reading and having fun at the same time. I’m sure you can find some inspiration from their huge list of books and activities. RIF is a wonderful organization with a great mission!

As a personal note, my husband and I have always stressed the importance of early learning. We began reading to our children while they were still in the womb, and have always given them books and magazines to read and play with. We are both avid readers, and our example has helped shape three very eager, very intelligent readers.

A good way to bring reading material into the home is to frequent your local library. Your children will love picking out the books they want to read, plus it’s an inexpensive (if not free) outing. Check out books for free, buy books and magazines from the library, thrift stores, and/or garage sales – the bottom line is to teach your kids that reading is fun!

How do you get your child wild about reading? Leave me a comment below or send me a tweet @greenearthbazar . I’d love to know what you think.

Math: Mulitiplication Tips and Resources for Kids

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Michelle

Math Know-How

For a lot of kids (including my own) the word math is a dirty four-letter word. Rare is the child who begs their parents to let him or her stay up all night and work out math problems – I think those kids must live somewhere in Bizarro World – they certainly don’t live in my house.

In my experience math woes begin to arise right about the time multiplication is introduced. I get a lot of hemming and hawing when it comes to working out those multiplication problems, but with a little patience and some good resources, learning how to multiply can be as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Here are some tips and resources to make learning multiplication fun and easy.

Invest in some multiplication flash cards (I purchased some at Walmart many years ago), or better yet, make them yourself with some index cards or cut up sheets of paper.
Write out multiplication problems on a sheet of paper or dry erase board for your child to practice. I find that my kids prefer to use the dry erase board to work out math problems as opposed to a plain sheet of paper – maybe it’s because they’re working on only a couple of problems at a time and therefore the task seems like less work.
Verbally quiz your children every once in a while by asking them multiplication problems. We do this when we have to wait in the car or in doctors offices – it helps to pass the time, and the kids are learning.
Use worksheets and games to enhance the learning experience. Worksheets are a useful tool for learning multiplication, but it has been my experience that interactive games really do the trick when it comes to learning multiplication facts. My kids love to play games anyway (as most kids do), and for reluctant math learners games are a great way to hide the fact that they’re learning.

Online Multiplication Resources:

Visual Multiplication game: This is a multiplication applet and only goes through 10, but it’s a valuable resource nonetheless.
Multiplication – Times Tables: This chart goes through 12, and is kind of interactive.
Printable Multiplication Tables and Charts: This site has lots of worksheets for printing out.
Timez Attack: My kids love thins game! You can play it online or download the basic version for free. It’s pretty cool.

What about you? Do you have some great tips and tricks for getting your kids to learn multiplication? Feel free to share them below.

Get Creative with Clay

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Michelle

Silly Slugs

My kids have always loved creating with clay. They can stay busy for hours on end punching and rolling those colorful blobs of dough into different shapes and sizes.

You can purchase ready-made clay and play dough from a store, but why spend money on it when you can make it at home with ingredients you probably have on hand in your kitchen pantry already? Homemade clay and play dough is easy to make, and will get kids using their imaginations to create all kinds of wonderful objects like these slugs my oldest daughter S. created.

Please note: These slugs were created with clay that came with school supplies and was not made from scratch. We’re very fortunate to get a lot of clay at the beginning of the school year (shipped to us with our school supplies), which tends to last my kids a very long time.

Here are some recipes for making your own clay and play dough at home. Enjoy!

Do your kids love to create with clay? Feel free to leave a comment below.

It’s DIY Friday! | Fun Educational Resources

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Michelle

TGIF!

Yay, another wonderful Friday! This week with school lurking just around the corner, I thought I would share some great educational resources to get your kiddies ready for another year of learning. These sites are so much fun your kids won’t even notice they’re educational. Enjoy!

San Diego Zoo Animal Bytes: This is a great resource for learning about animals, their habitats, ecosystems, and the importance of conservation. There are games to play, and animals videos too. My kids love this site, and I have to admit, I do too. Those animals are so darn cute!
Molecular Expressions: Exploring the World of Optics and Microscopy: This site is so cool! You don’t have to be a kid or a scientist to appreciate the wonders contained in their site. Their pictures are awesome, wondrous, and just plain neat! My family and I really enjoy their Universe Within gallery – it really makes you feel small.
Test Your Geography Knowledge: Do you know where in Afghanistan Bamyan is? Me neither. You can learn where it is though, with some practice. This is a great resource for learning world geography. I have to admit I do play this on occasion, and then get frustrated when I miss a question. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

I’m Not Crazy, I’m A Homeschooler

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Michelle

I homeschool my three children, and love it. I’m not off my rocker or ready for the funny farm (yet). I began homeschooling in 2000 when my son was four years old, then my only child.

When I began teaching him at home a decade ago (gosh, I’ve just realized I’ve been homeschooling for a decade now…and I’m still standing!) people who new me thought I was crazy. They assumed it would be too much work for me, or that my son would miss out on a lot of social interaction, but I was firm in my belief that it was going to be the best choice for our family.

I must admit, in the beginning it was a little bit overwhelming. Once my son, who will be entering high school next fall, reached kindergarten, I became overly concerned with making sure he was meeting state standards, while at the same time wanting him to have a fun educational experience. Making education fun and challenging was one of the many reasons I had decided to homeschool in the first place. I was still a “new” parent, however, and making sure he was learning all of the same things as other children his age became a constant worry for me.

My perfectionist side started to take over, and I began to spend a lot of my time searching for lessons, making plans, and making sure we were on target for his grade level. Homeschooling began to feel too much like a chore instead of journey. That’s certainly not what I had in mind when I made the decision to educate at home.

By the end of spring, 2001, I knew that I wanted to do something different – I had to, or I would burn out too all too quickly. I wanted to spend less time planning, and more time teaching and having fun with my son, so I began to search for some kind of homeschooling “helper”. I came upon an add for a brand new virtual academy starting up in my area, and thought, “This is it!” I wasted no time in getting information about the school, and immediately signed my son up to begin attending the school that fall. We’ve been with the school (CAVA) ever since. It’s been a wonderful journey both as a family, and as a member of a fantastic virtual school. I’ve been with them since the beginning, and have watched CAVA grown into something big and wonderful.

Finding K12 (you’ve probably see their ads everywhere online) and CAVA (California Virtual Academies) was the best thing I could have done for my children’s education. It has been the lifesaver I was looking for, and has enabled me to teach three children at once without completely losing my mind. The curriculum is challenging, they still have social interaction with other children their age, and most importantly, we get to spend quality time together everyday. Our time together has been priceless, and I know in my heart it will be something my children will benefit from as they grow into adulthood. I can see the benefits already!

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“Tweet” This: Start a Bird Journal | National Wildlife Federation

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Michelle

The National Wildlife Federation has a wonderful page on their website where kids can learn all about making a bird journal. There are also links to pages where kids can learn to make some really cool bird feeders, record their bird sightings online, and learn some really interesting bird facts from Ranger Rick. This is a great opportunity for the whole family to get outside, get some exercise, and enjoy the beauty of nature. This would be a great Earth Day project too!