Frugal Homeschooler: Free Educational Dvd's

Sometimes homeschooling frugally just means keeping your ear to the ground. Opportunities can just crop up that you need to seize! I stumbled across some educational dvds on some of my homeschool yahoo groups and thought I would share!

Nasa and the American Museum of Natural History are offering a free dvd and educator's guide! It is called Journey to the Stars and they say it is available for both teachers and parents. As a homeschooler I am filing as a teacher.

The History Channel has a new series called America: the Story of Us going right now. I know many people who are dvr'ing it but don't bother (unless you want to see it now;). They are offering it on a free dvd! You have to request it before July 1, 2010 and they won't send it until August.

For both of them you just fill out a form!

Frugal Homeschooler: The Ear

The joy of homeschooling is that you are in the driver's seat. So you can choose to study what ever you want. You know each family has little games and such you play? Well, I always do the "I am going to eat you up" thing. So I told NerdPie that I wasn't going to eat her ears because she needed them to hold up her glasses but I was going to eat NerdBug's. She said she was sure he needed them but when I asked why (the hole would still be in there to his ear;) she wanted to know too. Thus inspired our morning of ear study!

First we started by reading an article together from Kids Health. It layed out all the parts of the ear and what their jobs are. It was presented well and the kids really liked it.

Then we did a little bit of seat work. For the older 2 kids I went to Enchanted Learning. They had a diagram with blank lines and a list of parts. Each part had a definition to go with the name and then the kids had to place them on the diagram. Enchanted Learning does have the diagrams available perfectly formatted for printing but you have to be a paid member for those. These were the free versions;). There was also an answer key so I didn't have to figure it out.

Then for the younger 2 I went to Edupics for a simple picture of an ear for them to color. While it may not have furthered their real knowledge of the ear, it did work on their hand eye coordination. Look how nicely the Nerdling stayed in the lines!

There you have a simple morning of free learning just because someone asked a question!

Frugal Homeschooler: Science

The Exploratorium has put up a great site based on the science of cooking! It has eggs, pickling, and all kinds of food on it. They look at all the components and reactions. It even has activities and recipes. Go check it out! Who says science has to be pricey or hard?

Reading and Learning While Little

Recently I have been part of a few discussions about how hard it is to find non-fiction books for young readers. I can say here in the NerdFamily house it has always been a challenge. With our oldest we struggle with a child who can read quite well for his age but at the same time the non-fiction books at that level contain such advanced data that it is hard for him to really comprehend the information. With NerdPie she wants to learn real information but is still really developing her reading ability. Then we have our 4 year old. He can't read but he loves to be read to. I want to encourage him to understand what I am reading so I don't want books that are to hard. With all of these kids it would be a shame to lose this sponge like time.

At my local library I have found a few different series that we have used. Typically what happens is that I find 1 in a series, like it, and then request every other book they put out. So in order to help others, in a way I wish someone would have helped me, here are a few series that I have found. I am not going to really talk about math because I have already posted a bit about some good options here and here.

History:

Spirit of America, Our People Series

Time for Kids Series (they have great history and science)

Headlines from History Series

Science:

Our Galaxy and Beyond Series

Let's Read and Find Out! Series

So there are just a few. What do you use with your early elementary school kids?

Frugal Homeschooler: Science

Once again I am out there looking for ways to homeschool on the cheap and this time I am sharing great science websites.

First up is MSNucleus. They have complete, free science curriculum for K-12. You can use the units as is or, like I do, canabilize them to use specific resources for specific points. Next is The Gorilla Foundation. You can get information on gorillas, got to the kids club or see KoKo the gorilla sign. This is very useful to me this year as we are doing 10 animal units. The third sight is a cool Nasa weather sight, SciJinks. They have activities in 4 areas: fun, People, Weather Technology and How & Why.

You can't forget the hands on science experiments with the TWINKIES Project. They have all kinds of cool experiments that teach real science principles. The last site for today is Extreme Science. They have facts and info on areas of science. I am sure that we will be spending loads of time here.

There are just a few of the science site the web has to offer. If you have any that you like, please share. As always remember homeschooling doesn't have to be hard or expensive!(Yes, I am trying to develop a tagline;)

Why I Sneez, Shiver, Hiccup, and Yawn

This was a good book on reflexes that we read aloud over the weekends. The kids loved the illustrations and activities included in the back. It was a simply put book that explained why you have physical reactions to some things. It could have been an independent read except for just a few words. I like that they included real phrases such as plantar reflex yet keep it simple enough for kids to grasp. I would recommend this book!

Gravity is a Mystery

I was picking up some books at the library a couple of weeks ago and Gravity Is a Mystery grabbed my attention. This isn't a planned area of study for the NerdBug but hey, I love science and it looked fun. Now I am in love;). This book has the perfect balance of child friendly wording, illustrations and touching on actual full concepts. For example it gave the actual formula for Universal Gravitation, the actual explanation of the formula and then had a child like explanation. The more advanced explanation is separate from the "book" so you can avoid it if you would like. The illustrations are colorful and helpful to concept understanding. What is really cool is that Branley has written a variety of other books. So he may become the NerdFamily's favorite author!

Jumping Kangaroos and Red Foxes

So today I am reviewing 2 animal books that are both by Michelle Levine. The NerdBug (1st grade) read Jumping Kangaroos to his siblings and myself today. They all loved it! It had the right combination of easy words and words that needed to be sounded(like marsupials and pouch). This can also be said of another of Levine's books, Red Foxes. The information in both books is great. It has great individual facts that can mesh to a more complex development but also stand alone as facts. That is great for my 6 and 4 year old because it seems that the individual facts are what they glom onto at this age (as is fitting in the classical model;). I will be looking for more books by this author for my kids to read so I highly recommend it!

Ants

We have had another great science book. The kids and I just finished reading Ants (Early Bird Nature Books) and they loved it. It starts with a list of words to look out for and later defines them in the glossary. We used the list as a built in list of review questions. It does have some difficult and unfamiliar words (such as thorax and larva) so while most words are simple enough for a first grader, I would have them read it close so you can help with those words. We just read is aloud with the 6, 4, and 2 year old. It has great pictures and diagrams. We will be requesting the rest of the books in this series from the library.

Sloths: A Carolrhoda Nature Watch Book

In doing science we have recently checked out a book on sloths simply called Sloths (Nature Watch) by Melissa Stewart. This book was horrible. To kick off our unit on an animal I read a 1 page summary on them and then we get an additional book. Well, this book took each little fact and made pages on it, pages I said. Now I am not saying they enriched the material on it or went further in detail. They simply took 1 fact and drug out the wording to take a page. So first strike it wasted words. Second strike is it bored you to death doing it. The we get to decide to embark upon the ice age and evolution. On the whole I strongly disliked this book and will not be using it when my other kids do sloths in the future.

Nature's Children: Armadillos

I checked out Armadillos(Nature's Children series) for a unit in Science for my 1st grader and my preschooler and I loved it. It is 48 pages (including the index) so it is substantial enough to have a good reading time. It has many sections that elaborate on specific points that were briefly mentioned in the The Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia (Kingfisher First Reference) chapter. My first grader could read many of the words but still needed some guidance but it is not real juvenile so one could use it probably in higher grades also. This is a book I will use again with other children.