Blogs I Enjoy and Visit, Resources I Find Helpful

Homeschool Blogs I Enjoy
Pink and Green Mama
The Homeschool Classroom
Simple Homeschool
Homeschool Creations I Love My 5 Kids 
Harvest Moon By Hand
Lizards and Ladybugs
Dynamic 2 Moms -- They share some fabulous lapbook pages on units such as the rainforest, carnivorous plants,  the Vikings and more.
Bravewriter Blog -- I've really been enjoying the thoughtful posts about homeschooling and writing. I love the idea of Freewrite Friday.
Homeschool Bits -- This amazing Mom has some wonderful resources available for sale through Currclick (we ordered her sunflower lapbook/unit and the incredible human body copywork/unit study. Here is the free sample--40 pages!--of the human body copywork/unit. Her prices are amazing--50cents to a dollar for many of her items.  She also offers some free things on her blog. I found the link to a wonderful pollinators poster you can order free on her blog! 
Useful Homeschool Websites


Great Resources and Printables (mostly free):


Homeschool Share-- Whether you are creating a lapbook, starting a new unit, or studying great children's literature through Five in a Row, this is an invaluable resource for homeschoolers. 

Confessions of a Homeschooler-- Erica is always sharing great material from preschool and kindergarten printables (see her ABCs and 123s tab, for example)  to menus and giveaways.

File Folder Fun -- free file folder games for preschool through 3rd grade. There are games for the young ones on colors, number recognition, phonics, and get more complex in the older grades (skip counting, fractions, multiplication, history, science, language arts (punctuation, for example) and more.

1+1+1-- She offers wonderful preschool packs, Montessori printables, lapbooks and much more.

Homeschool Creations  -- A huge variety of preschool printables such as the alphabet, preschool math and more.

2 Teaching Mommies -- Has a HUGE selection of preschool packs on a wide variety of topics. Their units includes animals, places, seasonal activities, the community, summer, All About Me and more.

Dynamic 2 Moms -- This is a great site for homeschoolers in elementary school. They offer lots of free lapbook, notebook and unit studies materials.  Topics include Ancient Civilizations, Daniel Boone, the Rainforest, Lewis and Clark, Westward Expansion, Carnivorous Plants, Toads and much more!

Donna Young  homeschool planners, calendars, chore lists, attendance sheets and more

The Homeschool Classroom -- A general homeschooling website with many different contributors. Lots of great resources and info.


 Math:
Timez Attack -- This just has to go first in the list because this online game is so amazing!  It's a program for learning, review times tables from 2-12. The graphics are impressive. There's a free version and a paid version.     
Mathwire.com -- has wonderful, hands-on math activities to bring math to life. You can look up any number of themes (children's books, holidays, animals, and on and on). Go browsing if you have the time! 
Kids Count 1234--Looking for great math games, printables and ideas for your kindergartner or 1st grader?  Be sure to check out the material shared by Shari. Look down the list and click on Math Centers and Games.
Math Tub Fun--This collection of one teacher's math tub ideas is really terrific.
Mental Math and more -- A new website I heard about for grades K-5.  Need to look through this more!
Stop the Clock -- These games are great for practicing time (to the hour, half hour, minute, etc.). These games are geared at grades 1 through 5.
Cool Math -- Online Math Games
Ghost Blasters -- Math, Addition Game

Math Mammoth: Free 5th Grade Math Worksheets rounding, addition to 4,5,6 digits
Grade 6 Math Lessons--videos you can watch with your 6th grader math student on perimeter, fractions, angles, prime numbers and more.

Science
Middle School Chemistry Curriculum -- free to download.  I've looked through it and it looks great.
education.com -- has lots of great science experiments to do with your elementary student.
Steve Spangler Science--A fantastic resource for your young scientist who loves to do hands-on science.

Language Arts:

Scott Foresman Grammar and Writing Handbook: Grades 1 thru 5, grammar and writing exercises that you can download for free.

Guide to Grammar and Writing Free curriculum sponsored by Capital Community College

Purdue Online Writing Lab

Spelling: This is a great post at scholastic by a teacher, Beth Newingham. She has a detailed overview of her year long spelling/word study program here or here. She has her own classroom website here.


Early Learning:
Toddler (age 2):
Tot Trays--Looking for activities to keep your 2 year old busy and engaged? Check out these great ideas, called Tot Trays put together with things you have around the house.
1+1+1--Photostream of ideas to do with your toddler.
Preschooler (age 3-5)

Phonics:

Carls Corner -- Cherry Carl's website -- great for phonics, word families and very beginning readers. I liked the various partner puzzles (k--it, p--it). Here's an example from her "it family" pack (page 15) -- I blogged about it here.

Kelly's Kindergarten -- Lots of letter and sight word games (my daughter loved the princess sight word matching).

Picture word sets of word families (ay, ill, ap, ot, eat, ice and so forth) that go along with nursery rhymes.

File Folder Game for 2-letter words - File Folder Fun

Free Phonics Worksheets -- From learning letters through long vowels,  diphthongs and more.

General Preschool:
http://kidssoup.com/ (a member-fee required but I love, love this website and their printables. I use it two or three times a week.)
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/

Childcare Land: Lots of free printables on numbers, two-letter sight words, patterns, days of the week/month and more. 
Wonderful theme ideas: http://www.hummingbirded.com/. 
Little Giraffes A great kindergarten resource.
communication4all click on early learning. This website has letters and numbers in many different themes (dinosaurs, pirates, the circus, etc.)
sparklebox - This website has letters, numbers, playdough cards and much more. Useful resource for preschool themed activities.
abcand123 a learning coop where people share their ideas about teaching the alphabet, math, science, geography and more.
Confessions of a Homeschooler -- Erica has a number of curriculums she has put together such as Letter of the Week, Pre-K4, Expedition Earth and more. She has wonderful, useful posts and great giveaways.
1+1+1 -- She has so many great printables including Montessori cards, Preschool Packs and more.

2 Teaching Mommies -- Has a wonderful collection of preschool units.
Stories:
Story Nory -- Timeless stories read by Natasha. We download them and listen to them in the car. There are fairy tales, Greek Myths and much much more. The kids love these so much, we often wind up listening to the end of the story even after we arrive home!
Storyline Online--Children's stories read by famous actors. 
Five in a Row -- This is a curriculum you can use with your preschooler, but I have used their book list to read some wonderful, quality literature with my children.

Art and Music Websites:
http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/ This art teacher shares many of the fabulous lessons she has done with her elementary students -- K through 6th grade. The ideas are truly terrific and I have done many, many of her projects with my kids.
Deep Space Sparkle--This is another art teacher who shares some of the art lessons she has done with her students.
Confessions of a Homeschooler has a free art curriculum
Dali's Moustache - Another art teacher and her class projects.
The crafty crow always has wonderful arts and crafts projects which you can search through to add to a themed unit.
Music Games -- Susan Paradis's website which shares wonderful games for playing with children who are learning the basic notes, rhythms and music notation and more.
Another great music resource with games is Layton Music. I especially like the Rhythm Flashcards and  composer cards and posters.
Kididdles -- you'll find the lyrics to most any children's song you can think of here. 



Teacher's Blogs I Enjoy:

Kindergarten:
First Grade:




Used Curriculum and Saving Money:

homeschoolclassifieds.com - I've had wonderful experiences buying used curriculum through homeschool classifieds

homeschool buyer's coop -- You can save quite a bit of money on various subscriptions. You can also create a homeschool ID for free via this website.

Currclick -- There are lots of freebies and this is a great website to find resources for unit studies and more. 

Surviving a Teacher's Salary--I've heard great things about this blog.  Crystal is the wife of a teacher and started this blog to help those who are trying to survive on one salary. Since this applies to many homeschool families as well, this is a good site to check out. She blogs about lots of deals and hosts lots of giveaways.

Freely Educate



Montessori Websites:
Living Montessori Now -- This website has a wonderful collection of how parents are instituting Montessori inspired activities in their homes.

Montessori Materials -- Lots of free resources. I especially love and use the paper purple beads for place value work in math (see "Bead Materials ones and tens, beads: hundreds and thousands. See my post about using these materials here.

Montessori for Everyone--Offers free downloads each month--sorting cards such as the seasons, where things come from, animal tracks and more.
Montessori Mom -- This wonderful website has an extensive list of various Montessori resources.
My Montessori Journey--This is where I first learned about Montessori. I loved all the ideas she shared. She is now a homeschooling Mom, but her website is still up and full of wonderful ideas.

Leptir -- A fantastic website for seeing how Montessori is implemented in the classroom. Natasa, a teacher in Croatia shares her amazing lessons with us. Her blog is in English and Croatian.
Montessori World--This has a lot of great pictures for learning about Montessori activities to do with your 3-4 year olds.
For a long time I used these Montessori 6-9 teaching albums while preparing science and geography lessons.
Leann at Montessori Tidbits has made a lot of Montessori cards that she offers free on her website.
For teaching the Montessori Great Lessons I went to these two sources: Miss Barbara and Moteaco
Austin Montessori: Reading List for Upper Elementary, Upper Elementary Reading List, Early Elementary Reading List, Upper Elementary Homework List -- a great list for homeschoolers to look through now and then.
Fossil Facts and Finds: This website was created by Montessori educators. It covers the Clock of Eras, Geologic Time, and offers really good earth science lesson plans.
Homemade Montessori: Nonliving, Living Cards; The Five Kingdom Sorting Cards
Free Montessori Cards: clouds, phases of the moon, volcanoes, continents and more) ETC Press, Free Downloads Section
Montessori Printshop -- You'll find most any Montessori card set you need at a reasonable price here.  Available for immediate download. They offer freebies fairly regularly.
Pictures of the Montessori Prepared Environment-Montessori by Hand -- a photostream by Meg at Sew Liberated
Seattle Montessori -- This is a short-lived, but useful blog showing upper elementary Montessori in action.

We Don't Need No Education -- A homeschool blog with elementary age kids who use a lot of Montessori materials in their daily work.


German:

Flashcards -- Lots of pages of words in the foreign language of your choice.
Make foreign language writing worksheets: select "custom animals worksheets"
cartoon words with blanks
--  More or less the same as the link above, but another way to get
there. This is where I was able to print out the page like in the photo
on the right hand side.


And for those of you just learning German -- here's another AMAZING resource... Little German readers over
at carlscorner -- by Cherry Carl. They have cute graphics and simple
sentences -- perfect for young, beginning German learners!!
Another resource I have used with the kids is this old German reader: "My Very First German Book."
This link should work, but if not you can try here instead. It's a bit quaint, but it really worked well with the kids and we'll pick it back up again this fall.
Don't forget to check out You Tube for little learning videos such as
German: Farm Animals by Germanpod101


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