Ancient Culture Links

For Unit II - China, etc.

Links to lots of Chinese information/websites here.

That Time of Year Again!

Almost time to start school! And since I've spent more time planning out the school year than I have breathing, what better post than a list of books and resources?!? Enjoy!

Educational Philosophy/Introduction
(books to look at first)

John Taylor Gatto – Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. John Gatto has been a teacher for 30 years and is a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year award. This book is not about homeschooling, rather discusses the origins of the educational system and its current status.

Raymond and Dorothy Moore – Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child’s Education. Not “new” exactly, since the Moore’s wrote this in the late 70s, but the research cited has only been further validated with time. This is not a homeschooling book, rather is a book on child development, most specifically, educational development.

Lisa Whelchel – So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling: Fifteen Families Show How You Can Do It. Narratives of family composites show the many ways and many reasons families choose to homeschool.

General Guides

(books for those who have decided to homeschool)

Clay and Sally Clarkson – Educating the Wholehearted Child. The Clarksons discuss the rationale behind homeschooling, give an overview of methods, then develop a schooling method grounded in discipleship. Jam packed with useful tips and practical helps and can be used alongside any curriculum.

Cathy Duffy – 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum. Cathy Duffy provides descriptions of various homeschooling methods, (a rather lopsided) quiz to help identify one’s natural method, and detailed reviews of her 100 favorite curricula. More reviews on her website.

Susan Wise Bauer – The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. Incredibly detailed guide to educating in every subject area from a Classical perspective.

Specific Curriculum/Resources

www.rainbowresource.com Anything and everything educational can be found here. Really. The catalog is the size of a phone book.

www.tapestryofgrace.com Tapestry is a classical multi-age humanities curriculum (students of all ages study the same topics at the same time) covering the subject areas of history (and church history), geography, sociology, literature. It also has a built-in writing program and literature packages are available (using real books, not textbooks, and many primary sources for the upper levels). Would need to supplement with science, math, language arts (for pre/early readers) and any other electives.

www.sonlight.com Sonlight is a literature-based “curriculum in a box.” Purchase a core-ultra package and get all books for all subject areas, teaching guides, etc. They use Explode the Code for reading, and offer several options for math and handwriting.

www.lamplighterpublishing.com Lamplighter is republishing 18^th and 19^th century, out-of-print works for young people. We’re just over halfway through The Hedge of Thorns, which is a very moving story.

www.readamerica.net The website for the publishers of Reading Reflex, a truly fantastic and surprisingly simple reading program.

Noeo Science curriculum. A great compliment to Tapestry.

www.singaporemath.com One of the top math programs both among homeschoolers and in schools.

Whole Heart Online. Website of the Clarksons (authors of Educating the Wholehearted Child).

Winter, Christmas, Advent Activities

A bunch of links at CatholicMom.com (how funny!). Some look great, but I haven't explored them much yet.

A fun link from that list on making old fashioned gum drops! (Refrigerated.)
Recipe: Old Fashioned Gumdrops

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
1 6-oz. package any flavor fruit-flavored gelatin
2 envelopes un-flavored gelatin
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice

Additional granulated sugar for coating

Directions

1. Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute.

2. Spray a 9 x 9-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray.

3. Pour the gelatin mixture into the pan and refrigerate for 3 hours.

4. Cut the set mixture into 1-inch squares and carefully remove them from the pan.

5. Roll the candies in sugar until coated.
Your candies will be sticky. Keep a wet rag handy.

Refrigerate to store.

A link to other projects HERE.

Christmas Cookie recipes HERE.

All sorts of ornaments HERE.

And a recipe for Christmas Ornaments from Salt Dough.
Why link to it when I can copy it here? (I would probably not microwave them. I wonder what the directions for baking are? "Bake at 200 until hard. Huh. Ok, another link that says 250 for 2 hours.)

Oooh, but cool instructions for different kinds of salt dough ornaments, beyond cut-outs! Look HERE.

What you Need

4 Cups of Flour
1 Cup of Salt
1 1/2 Cups of Hot Water
Holiday Cookie Cutters
Decorations, Glitter, Paint, Beads, Etc.

Knead the dough and roll it out to cut out shapes with cookie cutters (just like if you were making sugar cookies). Place them on a microwave safe plate and microwave on high for about 2 minutes. Paint and decorate as desired. Most of all, be creative and have a lot of fun!

An alternate:
Salt Dough for Christmas ornaments

Salt dough ornaments have been made by generations of children, they are so much fun to create, and oh so easy for you to whip up a batch of dough. You can even experiments by adding food coloring to the dough before baking.

1 cup salt
1 1/4 cup water
3 cups flour
drinking straw
cookie cutters
string

Dissolve salt into water, then slowly add flower, stirring until mixed. Knead and roll, then cut out with shaped Christmas cookie cutters. Use a straw to poke a hole in each near the top. Bake at 200 degrees until hard. Add string to hang.

These can be painted with regular paint, and glue adheres well for decorating.

Fall and Thanksgiving Craft Links

I just found this fantastic website with a Freedom Feast program - telling this history of the first Thanksgiving, the constitution, and more. It turns Thanksgiving into a true celebration of American heritage and an educational event! I don't know how my relatives would take to it, so maybe I'll save it for a year when we're on our own. But it is such a good idea!!

Here is the link to Freedom Feast.

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A must-do Thanksgiving craft, a Turkey Hat! And in case the link breaks, here are the instructions:

CRAFT MATERIALS:
	Scissors
	Brown paper bags
	Cardboard (cereal box)
	Glue stick
	Colored construction paper
	2 small white pom-poms
	Black permanent marker
Time needed: Under 1 Hour

1. From the brown paper bags, cut a circle 3 1/2 inches in diameter for the turkey's head. Next, cut a 3-inch-wide band to fit around your child's head.

2. From the cardboard, cut a strip 5 by 1 1/2 inches to use for a neck. Fold it three times accordion style, then glue one end to the back of the paper circle.

3. For a beak, fold yellow construction paper and cut out a small double triangle (1 1/2 inches along the fold). Cut a rounded L from red paper for the turkey's wattle.

4. To create eyes, draw a black circle on each pom-pom with the marker. Glue the eyes, wattle and one side of the beak to the head. Let them dry. Then, glue the loose end of the neck to the center of the headband.

5. Now, wrap the headband around your child's head; mark where the ends overlap, then remove the band and glue the ends. Finally, glue on construction paper feathers and wings.

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A leaf garland. Make two dozen or more leaves and write something for which we give thanks on each as added. Each person should add one each evening.

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Carmel apples! Yummy!
1 1/2 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
6 tbsp. water
Popsicle sticks
8 to 10 apples (McIntoshes work well)

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the brown sugar and water. Stir until it has a smooth consistency. Gently bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 3 minutes, until the pan's sides get steamy and the mixture is thin but somewhat sticky. Remove from heat. Pierce the center of each apple with a Popsicle stick, then swirl in the caramel syrup until coated. Place apples on a greased cookie sheet to harden. Refrigerate for at least 1 to 2 hours. Serves 8 to 10.

What we Did on our Summer Vacation

This will be a running post of summer, things we did, places we went. No big plans for summer since Canada fell through, but we did go to Binder Park Zoo and the local John Ball Zoo (twice). We're a little zooed out.

I'm not going to even try to remember all the books we brought home. We've fallen in love with Rosemary Wells' cute little characters (Little Fish Loves Yoko), and we've gotten a huge lot of others, most of which St. Nick can read on his own. Yikes. That's a little scary!

Just tonight we watched The Miracle Maker (we'll see how long the YouTube works), and Dr. D just ordered a copy for us to keep.

Go Down Moses, Continents and More Unit I links

Great links to the song Go Down Moses:

Wikipedia article here.

Text as it is on the children's CD here.

Full text and midi file here.

Great song on the ten plagues set to the tune of Farmer in the Dell HERE.

Links for Geography study:

World atlas dot come here.

A National Geographic online game here.

Scrollable satellite world map at Wikimapedia here.

Fruit of the Spirit coloring page here.

Physical Education Links

Pretty much the ultimate list of all schools/private websites with info and curriculum: PE Central.

Excellent page with downloadable schedules and (the link will go directly to) a page of online games and activities: Nathan Jyringi's site.

Amazing online resource of lesson plans for individual games/activities: PE lesson plans.