Homeschool Hotties & Faves

I want to share some homeschool hotties with you today because I can’t really call them my faves because I have been only eye balling some of them.

I call them hotties because right away I liked them.  Some of these hotties are free, others are not, but they are random things. I want to try them out during the summer or pull the trigger on buying some of them.

1.  Holt, Rinehart & Wilson has a neat free geography page that we have been clicking and playing with off/on.  After you go to the site, pick a book. Then when you get it, choose a chapter.  I like it because it has several interactive things per chapter. The boys can click through it and do on their own. We love geography and I like it better when they have something they can use without me. I think this is a great fit for summer learning or to add to our curriculum.

Click here to go there.

2.   Collecting graphic novels is part of an ongoing process when you have boys. When I started teaching Mr. Senior 2013 to read, I thought graphic novels would hamper his ability to create pictures in his mind.  I had read a book on classical learning and thought it would be “bad” for him. I know now, it is just the opposite. When a child, especially a boy is struggling to read, graphic novels beats anything I tried hands down.  Mr. Senior 2013 didn’t struggle, he just enjoyed them. However, when I got to Mr. Awesome I thought he struggled. I know now, he wasn’t ready and it would take a bit more bait to hook him.  By this time, I already had graphic novels and they were a life saver.  I do worry about the messages in comic books. So I found out later about Golden Age DC and Silver Age. These are old comics and the message in these comics is more about doing what is right instead of the politically correct tone books can take nowadays. These books are hardbound and were born in 1938.

Look here at what I mean by Golden Age DC.

I think we are finally getting them this summer after we have tons I went through when I was teaching them all to read. Older comic books keeps reading interest level high for all my boys and not to mention they are just plain fun to read which is what reading should be about.

When a child is struggling to read sometimes it’s because he doesn’t create a movie picture in his mind like other readers naturally do. A comic book helps him to do that. The other nifty thing about comic books is that most all boys want to read them independently instead of having them read to them. This helps them on the road to independent reading.

Though I was careful and still am in looking over their reading material,  I wish I would have known about older comic books earlier. Now you know.

Look here at the Silver Age.

3.  This next hottie is so cool. It’s like going on a field trip without ever leaving your house. I could think of so many ways to use this. It is a secret door and something fun provided by Safe Style UK.  I couldn’t stand the excitement when I found it and we have been clicking and going through the door a lot. Each time you go through the door you are transported to a different place. At the top left side it gives you the address or location of where you were transported. Oh, the things we have talked about. This could be geography or you could use this to start your creative journal writing for the day. We have been traveling all over the place.

Click on the door below to go through and have fun!

The Secret Door is presented by Safestyle UK

Be sure you monitor your kids since this is new and you never know if something fun could go borderline questionable.

4.  Selecting the courses for Mr. Awesome for high school will be slightly different than the ones I chose for Mr. Senior 2013 because he learns differently. Mr. Awesome has a live and let live spirit that I like to foster.   Mr. Senior 2013 was easier to teach because he liked to sit down at the little neat organized desk. Mr. Awesome can learn anywhere, but also loves to choose more out of the box methods. We need both types of learners and leaders in our homeschool community so I never want to crush any learning style.

This next item I think will fit the bill to learn creatively. It is Marie’s Words – Visual Vocabulary for All Ages. I have been drooling over it for a while. You know how much I loved the visual vocabulary that I reviewed for Tiny. This is something that can be used for my big guy and I think really for the whole family.

Here is what it says from Timberdoodle’s site:

550 Vocabulary Words Gleaned From the SAT
Just as a logo is a visual representation of a company, Marie’s Words utilizes colorful illustrations to create a “face” for each of the 550 vocabulary words gleaned from the SAT® test and literature. While some of the illustrations are not immediately apparent, once understood, each drawing will aid in mastering the definitions of these words and is a natural augmentation to your child’s study of word roots.

I think it would be fun to add this to his written vocabulary work and to have it as a great way for all of us to enrich our word usage.

5.  This next app which is FREE,  we are going to download to our dad’s  iPad. My hubby uses the iPad a lot for work, but we get to use it in between which is a lot.

Pocket Penguins

By California Academy of Sciences

From the website:

Description

Warning: Cute alert! Pocket Penguins, streaming in real-time from the California Academy of Sciences, provides an intimate view into our live African penguin exhibit. Watch the birds swim, dive, flirt, nest and relax from any one of three live webcams. Listen in as Academy biologists answer questions from visitors during meal time, daily at 10:30am and 3:00pm PST.

It says it works for iPhone too. So cute, pocket penguins!

Click here to get it.

6. This last thing I been looking at is a free font for those with dyslexia. Though I don’t have any kids that have it, I have helped numerous moms with kids that are dyslexic and moms who are too.  So I have been keeping this to share with you or for you to share with ones that you think may find it helpful. I think it’s time to recognize that dyslexic adults and children alike can learn well and we need accommodate their need to have fonts that help them read better.  My experience is that they are just as smart if not more so in some areas. They just learn creatively.

Here is what it says:

OpenDyslexic is a new open sourced font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles. It is being updated continually and improved based on input from dyslexic users. There are no restrictions on using OpenDyslexic outside of attribution.

Click here to go there.

Grab and share some Homeschool Hotties today.

Hugs and love ya,