Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Activity, Change, Progress

3. {5 Days of . . . Blogging Series}

Winter Homeschooling – Activities and Free Downloads. 5 Days of Look Alive. Day 4 – Look to Free Unit Studies.

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 4 Look to Free Unit Studies. Free Downloads & Activities @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

If you missed any days, grab them below:

Day 1. Look to the Sea.

5 Days of Look Alive day 1

Day 2. Look to the Sky.

5 Days of Look Alive day 2

Day 3. Look to Pokemon.

5 Days of Look Alive day 3

Moving on along through our series: Look Alive:Winter Homeschooling Ideas & Downloads, Day 4 is Look to Free Unit Studies.

You know how passionate I feel about unit studies.

No, I didn’t start off my homeschool journey with unit studies.

Back when I started homeschooling, I felt that if we did one, then I would be a rogue homeschooler.  Unit studies were for those “other” homeschoolers.

We all fight being a product of a public institution and our approach to homeschooling can change within the same year or if we add a second child to our year.

Maybe that second child proves to have a very different learning style from the first one which is the case a lot of times.

I have found that regardless of the learning styles of each of my sons, we all benefit from unit studies.

The resources I want to share today are from Homeschool Learning Network.

They have several free unit studies. I happen to like unit studies that are more loosely written with more information and less emphasis on grade level.

What I like most about these is that each unit study contains a lot of useful links which helps to flesh out your study on that topic.

Just to let you know though you do have to fill out some personal information to download them instantly. The form asks for your name, address and email. You do not have to give a phone number.

I usually don’t recommend websites like that unless they have some juicy tidbits that are worth downloading.

The units from Homeschool Learning Network are: The Mayflower – Journey to a New Life, Deserts of the World, Understanding Emotions, The Vikings, Planning Your Music Curriculum, Robert Louis Stevenson, Afghanistan and Greek Literature:Homer and Aesop.

Click here for the page and happy downloading.

You know I heart inspirational quotes. Here is one that I am thinking about today when it comes to facing the feat that your present homeschool approach might not be working.

“To live an extraordinary life, you must resist an ordinary approach.”

~Frank McKinney~

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured

Hugs and love ya,

Also check out:

Free 27 Week American History Study Through Lapbooking
Toddler to Teen – 100 Free Unit Studies

Winter Homeschooling – Activities and Free Downloads. 5 Days of Look Alive. Day 3 – Look to Pokemon.

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 3 Look to Pokemon. Free Downloads & Activities @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

If you missed any days, grab them below:

Day 1. Look to the Sea.

5 Days of Look Alive day 1

Day 2. Look to the Sky.

5 Days of Look Alive day 2

Moving on along through our series: Look Alive:Winter Homeschooling Ideas & Downloads, Day 3 is Look to Pokemon or Pokemon like cards, which boys and girls both will find fun.

I agree with this next resource which says that kids know more about Pokemon creatures than they do about real animals.

Take a lesson from what most kids like to do which is play cards and use it for real life learning. Phylo the Trading Card Game  did just that.

It has been a real treasure trove for my boys to say the least and it’s FREE.

5 Days of Look Alive day 3
Phylos 1

Phylo is a website that has free printable trading cards. Here is what it says from the site: an online initiative aimed at creating a Pokemon card type resource but with real creatures on display in full “artistic” wonder. It is a card game that makes use of the wonderful, complex and inspiring things that inform the notion of biodiversity.

Studying and learning science this way is a real keeper. The artwork is so beautiful and the cards are just plain fun.

Phylos 2
Phylos 3

The idea is to print off all you want to and then play a pokemon-like game. Even if you don’t want to print the rules and find out how they assign the game cards a point value, etc., you can still play a real simple matching game.

Phylos 4

The cards make EXCELLENT additions to your lapbook, unit studies or notebooking pages. There are several decks to choose from or like I mentioned you can print off exactly what you want. Click here to see the choices of the decks that you can download and be sure to grab them ALL!

PHylos 5

One of our favorite decks has the cards above in it from the Natural History Museum in London. One of the games suggested to play is about the ecosystem.

Look on the card for the common name, Latin name, food chain, diet and climate and then learn the facts.

Heads up too because you will want to pay attention if any of them teach evolution as there are many cards to go through.

Most of them I appreciate because they give a simple fact along with a point value assigned if you want to let your kids play together. They also give credit to the artist of the picture.

We have just enjoyed printing them off and learning about them.

Hands down this site has been our favorite so far if we had to choose one. Here are some quick links for you in one place.

Home Page

Decks found on this page.

Take a clue from Pokemon and let the cards do the teaching during winter homeschooling blues.

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured

Hugs and love ya,

Winter Homeschooling – Activities and Free Downloads. 5 Days of Look Alive. Day 2 – Look to the Sky.

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 2 Look to the Sky. Free Downloads & Activities @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I love this series, winter homeschooling – ideas and free downloads because it gives us a variety of sweet freebies to choose from when the days are long and cold.

The next thing I look to for inspiration when I want a change is the sky.

5 Days of Look Alive day 2

So today, in Day 2. Look to the Sky, I have some great downloads and ideas for some hands-on fun.

Meteor 1

Scholastic has a nice download that explains how some people get comets and meteors mixed up, so it gives some nice easy explanations. It says to use for grades 3-5. Click here to download it.

If you have a highschooler, check out this lesson plan page Meteor Monitor.

Here is what it says: Student’s measure sporadic meteor activity. In this physics and astronomy lesson plan, students construct a dipole antennae, and build, test and wire a full wave diode rectifier between the dipole antenna and the laptop.

Comet Cookies

Comet Cookies

Then of course no unit study is near complete unless some eating or snacking is involved, both of which we enjoy.

So this next download is extremely helpful too because besides having the fun recipe above, it explains the difference between meteor, meteoroid and meteorite. 

meteor math

This lesson plan even has some Meteor Math.

Click here to download the activities above called Meteor, Meteoroid, Meteorite: What’s the Difference?

Star Gazing Guide
telescope
star biscuit

The next resource I have for you is from the BBC Learning Astronomy resources.

It has a star map for the current year, eclipse guide, a Nasa sun poster, make a telescope craft (middle picture above), a star party pack (star biscuits above) or how to host a star party and how to buy a telescope guide to name just a few.

You want to be  sure to download all of the fun and free freebies.

I love these freebies for learning about the sky.

So I read this quote as I ponder the lessons we can learn from the sky.

Maybe it will spark you to keep looking to the sky to keep your day lively.

By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me.

The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green.

The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

~Thomas Merton~

Grab the rest of the winter homeschooling ideas below!

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured

Hugs and love ya,

 

Winter Homeschooling – Activities and Free Downloads. 5 Days of Look Alive. Day 1- Look to the Sea.

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I actually like winter homeschooling, but I also like change. So when I need inspiration I look to the ocean or sea to inspire me. Did I tell you that I grew up close to the ocean?

Winter Homeschooling – From Humdrum to Humdinger. (well, okay, okay)

I have fond memories of walking on the beach even when the weather was cold, collecting shells and afterwards grabbing a hot cup of southern gumbo. It brings calm to my day when I ponder about it.

Creating this series will allow me to share ideas I rounded up to give us a boost when we sag, while at the same time saving these links and ideas here on the blog for later.

I tend to get a lot of attitude pep in my step this time of the year.

One tip that has saved me several bucks over the years is to determine first if it’s the curriculum, winter homeschooling doldrums, my attitude or all of it when we feel like blah.

Before I make a change, I try new activities, preferably free and see if I can find my rhythm again. I find many times, it is wanting a change during winter homeschooling.

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

But, if you get the blahs during winter homeschooling, maybe you can use some of these links and get wild and savage.

Too, be sure to download everything you like from these sites because links can change and even if you don’t use them until several years down the road, you will have them. The sites I wanted to focus on today are Independence Seaport Museum. and Project Oceanography  and The Mariners’ Museum. All of these sites have multiple packets, free lesson plans or guides to download.

Hands-On Homeschooling

A lot of them with tons of wonderful pictures and printables. I took just a snippet of some of the printables from each site to share with you. Mark these, download and peruse them.

Independence Seaport Museum has teacher packets available for free from grades K – 12.

Download here K to 3 Teacher Packet.
Download here Grades 4 to 6 Teacher Packet.
Download here Grades 6 to 8 Teacher Packet.
Download here Grades 9 to 12 Teacher Packet.

Free Downloads from Independence Seaport Museum @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Free Downloads from Project Oceanography @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Also check out the free online resource How to Identify Sailing Ships on the site. Awesome. You better take your time on this site too. Project Oceanography has about 14 Program Packets on the right side of the page.

Snippets of Free Downloads from the Mariners Museum @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Click on each packet and you will be kept happy sorting through links, lesson plans and downloads. A snippet from The Mariners’ Museum has quite a few projects that are hands-on and in pdf form. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the printable activities.

This is probably my favorite of the three sites because it has such a treasure trove of things that are easy and hands-on.

Ready for winter now.

Oh, wait, four more days of goodies to go. Here they are below!

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured

Hugs and love ya,

Also, look at 50 Keep Me Homeschooling Activities During the Long Cold Winter Days and Winter Season Unit Study.

Homeschool Blogging Basics – Day 5. Payoff

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics.

Day 5 Payoff.

Homeschool Blogging Basics. Day 5. Purpose, Plan, Perfomance, Persistence, Payoff @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Read Day 1. Purpose here, read Day 2. Plan here, read Day 2 1/2. Plan here, read Day 3. Performance here and read Day 4. Persistence here.

Measuring the success of a blog is different for everyone.

Promoting Your Blog to Payoff

Before I discuss that though, I want to share a few more ways to promote your blog that will give you a measure of payoff.

  • Purposeful Linking Up.

Linking up at other (not necessarily larger and will explain in a minute) blogs will keep your blog content out there and is a great way to promote.

Because a blogger took the time to prepare a post and has graciously allowed me to put content on her blog, I am sure to read all the guidelines and put on each blog post where it is linked up at.

When I say purposeful linking up that means I look for blogs in my niche of homeschooling, which means it may or may not have a large audience. My first priority is reach my niche and then my second priority is to join those link ups where my blog posts will be featured on more than one blog.

That is what I mean by the fact that one blog may not necessarily have a large following, but together with the other blogs, it may.

  • Niche Round Ups

Another successful way of promoting traffic to your blog is a round up of posts about your niche.

It takes the work out of the research for your followers and gives them a specific place to find a lot of what they are looking for or want, whether it’s craft, organization or how to teach reading.

Other bloggers love to network, so you don’t need to ask permission to link to them, but using their images can be quite another thing.

I am careful when doing rounds up to read all I can on a blog if she has something specific about her images and respect copyright. Too, sometimes it’s better to have your own image. If in doubt, don’t use the images.

Some bloggers don’t mind you using their images if you ask and generously give you permission, but other bloggers make their livelihood off of their images and will not want you using their images.

If you do use images, use the same standard you want to be treated, which is give attribution or credit where it is due.

It does not make you a powerful blogger when you cannot graciously and generously give respect and credit when it’s due.

  • Powerful content before Page views.

Again, the most important thing you can do to build your blog successfully the first year or two is to focus on powerful content.

What I didn’t do in my first year was to focus on page views, but to focus on my passion. Too, with the powerful Google analytics installed on your blog, you can check insights anytime.

I write my stats down about once a month and move on. They are a good indicator of whether my content was engaging or not, but they also can sidetrack you from payoff.

From Passion to Profession

Like I noted in my post on Day 1. Purpose, profit can’t be your only initial driving force.

You have to be passionate and enthusiastic about what you share because that spirit is contagious.

When you have benefited from some advice or a product and share that genuinely, followers know.

But knowing how to make a blog pay for itself is a must know because then your blog does become a business.

It’s got to be the ultimate payoff when you can do something that you are stoked about each day and that makes a profit.

Look at these ways that have all contributed to making a profit.

  • When my blog reached about 75K to 1ook page views, which was about 4 months, I started selling ad space to sponsors in my niche. Believe me, I didn’t have much time for a learning curve with pricing. I had to learn quick. Can you see why I said on Day 3. Performance that you want to install Google Analytics soon? You can now bargain for ad space with potential sponsors.
  • In addition, after about 5 months, I applied for Google Adsense, which is a way of being paid for ads on my blog. Again, because this is my blog, I can control what type of ads go on my blog. Google Adsense is almost a book unto itself to learn, but it’s easy to apply for and I read minimal information to get it started on my site.
  • Affiliate links are another source of income. Affiliate links means that when somebody clicks on a link that you provide on your blog and buys something you get a percentage of the sell. This does not cost your follower more and most companies are glad to partner with you because it would be a sell they would have not gotten.
  • Writing outside articles. Another source of income is writing articles for other companies.
  • Homeschool or product reviews. Before I was with iHN, I was with another large homeschool review company, which still does not pay its bloggers for their time. Soon after joining them I left because I realized I spent hours on top of hours poring over all the curriculum or a product that a company gave me. I take reviews seriously and my time has to be compensated. Some homeschool companies still do not know how to work with bloggers and feel that giving us just free homeschool curriculum is enough for a review. From the beginning of starting this blog, I refused reviews where I was not compensated for my time. It’s up to us as professional bloggers to tout to sponsors that being paid for time is not being paid off. Do not start your blog off by underestimating your time. Companies need to recognize the power bloggers have to broadcast about their product. Never compromise your standard for a product and your followers will know that you are honest, candid and genuine.
  • Having a product to sell. Something else I provide at an affordable price is a way for my followers to make their own unique 7 Step Homeschool Planner. I was bent on writing a book in my first year of blogging, but realized that I wanted time to mull over my thoughts. What I did right was to provide something (or a product) that my followers wanted, which are planner pages that are unique. Along each 7 steps of building their homeschool planner, my followers can choose from free or paid pages. My free pages too are pages I love and I give my followers my best always. Having a product that can be purchased night or day, year after year is passive income.
  • Brand Ambassador. I am proud to be a brand ambassador for Bright Ideas Press. I value long term relationship and especially get excited about using and promoting products I believe in. Is there a product or curriculum that makes your heart go pitter patter?Then you may make a great brand ambassador for that company, but you have to pitch yourself first.

These are all ways that I have earned income that not only paid my blog expenses my first year, but gave me a profit.

Key to making more than just paying my expenses has been having multiple ways of making money.

When You Should Compromise the Trust of Your Followers

Even though my blog has scooted along to well over 100K page views, I am humbled by the fact that it has only been because of my faithful following.

What I have learned as I now finish up my second year is that the trust of my followers are worth more than any dollar amount any sponsor may pay me.

Making a profit in my first and second year of blogging has been a sweet unexpected surprise. But also, part of a successful payoff for me is being able to stay true to my conviction of being just who I am.

Following guidelines of treating followers how I want to be treated when buying my products, giving the good, bad and ugly of any product I review and sharing candid and genuine posts are ultimate payoffs for me too.

In this 5 Days of Homeschool Blogging turned 6 Days of Homeschool Blogging series, I feel I have barely scratched the surface of blogging, but wanted to give you a starting point to boost your blog.

I have so many more things to share with you that I have learned this past year too like:

  • How to craft a well-laid out post
  • How to take a deeper look at SEO
  • How to design top rated graphics for Pinterest
  • Understanding the analytics of Pinterest
  • How to intentionally promote your content
  • How to brainstorm topics
  • How to choose blog courses that are worth your time
  • How to pitch a company
  • How to find your blogging voice and not lose it
  • How to properly disclose and post legal information
  • How to work with other bloggers
  • How to price your time for sponsors’ reviews
  • How to price ads on your blogs for sponsors

As I plod along, I will be sharing tips on those topics along with answering your questions because now you have the homeschool blogging basics.

Hugs and you know I love ya and threw a lot at you in this 5 day series turn 6 days,

Tina Signature 2015c

I have enjoyed sharing different pictures of my Forever Blog Planner that I created much like my 7 Step Homeschool Planner. I know you would love it too because I help you step by step to choose the pages you want in your blog planner and and the best part is that you receive forever updates. Be sure to download the free printable from the planner set.

Forever Blog Planner Preview @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Also, check out iBlog Pro, Proud to be a Co-Author where you can grab practical tips from homeschool bloggers, like you!
Take your blog to the next level. Grab iBlog Pro and start blogging like a Pro today!