Homeschool Hacks

Daily Links You'll Love

THUMBS UP!

(from DarkRoastBlend)

Nonfiction Monday Round-up- Wonderful books to check out from your local library.

Cute Dice Game Ideas- Cabin fever anyone?

75 questions to ask yourself- I love this handy list of questions.

Mini Unit Study in One Amazing Afternoon

Amazing Afternoons is a new service that offers worksheets providing a complete "afternoon" of special activities designed around a favorite children's book or bible story. Targeted to preschoolers, each worksheet includes an introduction to an excellent book and author or information on the bible story, craft idea, creative snack, a hands-on science project, fun math, games, questions to chat about, and places to find even more resources.

The worksheets are offered on a subscription basis and are emailed to you weekly. Check out a worksheet sample here!

I personally love this idea. It's a great way to get preschoolers excited about reading and show them how a book can be a springboard to so much more.

Homeschool Pringles Challenge

I received an email yesterday from a homeschool Mom who is starting up her own annual "Homeschool Pringles Challenge." The challenge? To engineer a mailable package to have the smallest volume and smallest mass that will protect the chip so that it arrives at its destination undamaged.

According to the Mom organizing the challenge, "This challenge has been done with public school students, at colleges of engineering, and many other science/engineering classes. So, I thought WHY NOT with homeschool students." There are no corporate sponsors or affiliations for the program and the prizes are listed as "pending." (Maybe someone reading this wants to donate a prize?)

You can register here by February 10th and your Pringles package must be postmarked by February 26th.

Math, Math Everywhere

Math. It's everywhere. It's important. And there are lots of ways to help your children understand how math works in our lives every single day. As a follow up to Angela's Recipe for Unit Studies, here are some math resources that are outside the "curricula" box.

Books:

1. Stuart J. Murphy's MathStart books: Story books that incorporate math concepts


2. Sir Cumference Math Adventure book series


3. Greg Tang's math books

Web sites and resources:

1. Living Math


2. Unschooling Math


3. Math Baseball


4. Math Playground


5. Math Fact Cafe


6. Cool Math for Kids

And don't forget good old-fashioned board and strategy games, such as Monopoly, Yahtzee, Othello, Mille Bornes, Battleship and Risk. And cooking! And shopping! There's all kinds of math fun going on around us. Just keep your eyes open for the opportunities.

homeschooling, unschooling, math, math help

Multiflyer: Rated COOL By My 8 Year-Old

With a house full of sci-fi fans, it's no wonder the Multiflyer is a big hit around here. Tonight, Mom, Dad and an almost 8-year-old boy huddled around the laptop, saving the solar system from gravitational anomalies while learning multiplication facts.

Multiflyer is an online game that helps your child learn multiplication (and a tiny bit of astronomy, too). Your mission is to deliver the Gravitational Field Stabilizer to all the human outposts in the galaxy. You jump from planet to space station by solving multiplication problems before your fuel runs out.

The game can be played online for free or downloaded to your computer for $4.99. Multiflyer also offeres a minigame, coloring pages and worksheets if you purchase the "extras" package for $3.99. They're running a special for the month of October: the download and the extras for $5.99.

homeschooling, multiplication, space games

Algebra Assistance

If your child is learning algebra, check out Algebra.help.

Students can read the lessons, follow step-by-step calculations, and figure problems with the online worksheets. I remember loving algebra when I was in school and I had a little fun myself playing around with some of the calculations. Algebra.help looks like a good place to supplement your algebra study.