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Friday Favorites 10/15/2010

Stone Soup's Links for the Week

Links posted on the Stone Soup Facebook page during the week.

Letter of the Week Blend Ladders

Printable Blend Ladders, from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Blending the sounds of a consonant and a vowel is the first step to reading words. What are your favorite sites (or resources) for teaching phonics?

A. Pintura: Art Detective

An online game about art history and art composition. In the game, you play a 1940's noir detective with a degree in art history. A distraught woman asks you to identify the artist who made a painting she found in her grandfather's attic. To do so, you must examine paintings by ...famous artists from Gauguin to Van Gogh. Each example highlights an art concept such as composition, style or subject. The story concludes with an appropriate noirish twist... A. Pintura: Art Detective is worth a look!

Homeschooling the First Year

What goals are appropriate for homeschoolers who are just starting out? In this article from The Homeschool Classroom, author Michelle suggests creating goals that will help define "what homeschooling means" to you. What goals might have been helpful for you during your first year of homeschooling?

Download Learning: Free Interactive Resources

Download Learning.com: Their listing of free COREPlus resources is a collection of free educational software programs that makes it easy to learn all about history, geography, science, fine art, and more. Posted on our page by Leah. Leah said, "Each lesson explains the topic and then provides quick tests to go over the topic." Thanks, Leah!

Art Projects for Kids

In her blog, Art Projects for Kids, art teacher Kathy Barbro posts classroom-tested art projects daily, including the steps to create them. Kathy also offers templates for many of the projects. In addition, she has a site for sewing projects, called Rumpled Quilt Skins.com I feel inspired! What are your favorite sites for "Artistic Inspiration?"

Science Activities for Young Children

Children are naturally curious and have questioning minds. The simple science experiments on the Early Years Experience science pages provide fun activities with Water, Wind, Food and Drink, Sight and Sound, Magnets and Colors. Do you have some favorite activities that have been fun for you and your children?

It's College Fair Time!

Posted by Lee Binz: The Homescholar. "Attending a college fair is a key to finding a college, and I strongly recommend that every homeschooler attends a college fair in Junior Year. I think they are great for freshmen, fabulous for sophomore and seniors, but should be required for Juniors. One of the major tasks of Junior year is to find a college where you want to apply. The first step to finding a college is attending a college fair."

Build Ships in a Bottle!

These nautical activity could be completed with any number of thematic units, Exploration, Ship-Building or Discovering America! To go a long with her Christopher Columbus unit of study, Dana made these Ships in a Bottle, and shared the link for the free printables she created in her blog Noggins and Nonsense. Thanks, Dana!

Skateboarding Printables

For those of you who have skateboarders in your house. These Skateboard Printables from About.com use skateboarding vocabulary to teach skills like alphabetizing and writing a theme paper. Even coloring pages for younger students. Have any of you used off-the-wall subjects to teach "real-life" skills?

Aussie Educator: Home Schooling Page

From the site: Home schooling is a viable, educational alternative which appears popular in other countries, especially the United States, and which seems to be gaining increasing popularity in Australia. Home schooling provides an alternative educational solution for people holding particular beliefs, or having genuine concern about specific circumstances relating to an existing situation. It is most certainly not just a simple and easy solution for any problem that may exist.