middleschool

100 BEST Hands-on Free Native American Resources

November 13, 2014 | 12 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today I have a round up of 100 free Native American resources. Too, you’ll love my page Native American Unit Study for Kids Who Love Hands-on Learning.

We are fascinated with learning about so many different regions of the Native Americans as well as their proud past, fascinating hands-on activities, and understanding their language.

I have divided this page by learning category to make it easier for you to locate the kind of activity you are looking to do.

100 BEST Hands-on Free Native American Resources

Check out my round up and I hope a few of these ideas spark a creative touch for you when it comes to learning about Native Americans.

Native American Arts, Crafts, and Activities

There’s no doubt that much of the focus on doing a Native American unit study should be hands-on activities. This round up of arts, crafts, and activities covers a bit for each age.

Paper Satchel
Storytelling with Stones
Tiny bow and “Safe”Arrow
Make Authentic Arrows
Cornhusk Doll, Pinch Pot, Early American Weaving
Make Indian Paper Beaded Necklace
Edible Mini Indian Corn
Recycled Turtle Shell Rattle
5 Activities for Native American History

Also, you’ll love these other unit studies to go with this study of the Native Americans. The NaturExplorers science series are for multiple ages and gives you several topics to choose from. We loved the the fruits and nuts.

In addition, you’ll love these books about Native Americans. Some are about the Trail of Tears and a few others we loved.

Books About Native Americans

Books About the Trail of Tears

Furthermore incorporating a living books approach to geography by Beautiful Feet brings learning about this time period alive.

You’ll love this learning Geography through Literature approach when learning about Native Americans.

Furthermore, adding a few clip art sources and some coloring pages allows you to add these resources for a unit study or just as enrichment in your study.

Clip Art about Native Americans

Pic of Native Americans

Clip Art, Etc.

Native American Coloring Pages

Native American coloring pages for adults

Native American Dioramas

A Fun Cradleboard Craft
Teepee Indian Village Diorama

Then have you seen this unit study at Home School in the Woods?

This unit study that would compliment the Native American unit and it is a Colonial Unit Study and Lapbook over at Home School in the Woods which is one our favorite hands-on history programs.

Native American Lapbooks

Iroquois Lapbook
Plains Indians

Too, I have included some lesson plans below in case you want to study another topic or use it for a jumping off point.

Native American Lesson Plans

HOW TO EASILY BRING HISTORY ALIVE

Also, coloring is an easy way to bring any subject alive. You may love history coloring pages.

Here is what the 10 page download contains.

I put a few key words to explain each picture on the page. This way you can use the coloring pages as title pages too.

Page 3: Native American on horseback,
4: Lewis and Clark Trek,
5: Lewis and Clark and The Piegan,
6: Lewis and Clark Exploring Rivers,
7: The Plains Indians,
8: Pioneer Life,
9: Moving West, 10: Westward Ho,
11: Settlers, and
12: Fur Trappers and Mountainmen

Grab your fun copy below!

0. Westward Expansion History Fun 10 Coloring Pages
$1.75 Add to cart

Science, Sign Language, Folks Tales, & MORE!

Venn Diagram Illustration – Colonist and Native Americans
Native American Folktales
Native American Cinderella
The WampanoagTribe
Native American Sign Language

Native American Printables for Kids

Native Americans Recipes

Native American Recipes
Ojibwe Fry Bread Recipe

Cherokee Garden Pan Bread

Teacher’s Guides For Studying Native Americans

Native American Pottery Making Methods 3-12
We Have A Story To Tell Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region Grades 9-12

Native American Unit Studies

Native Americans by Region
Native American Cherokee and Shawnee
Free Native American Unit Study
Native American Unit Study

You Tube, Media, Interactive

What do you think? I think I will keep adding to this growing list as I discover new gems for studying about Native Americans.

This blog hop is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutual beneficial projects. Click the image below to visit all the other blog articles from the homeschool moms of the iHomeschool Network.

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Treasure the Moments of Homeschooling Testosterone Armed Teen Boys

October 25, 2014 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I don’t want to sound cliché, but I treasure the moments of homeschooling testosterone armed teen boys. Thinking back when all the boys were real young, my sis came over to my house one day with her girls, which are about the same age as my boys. We were not only discussing how to homeschool boys, but also how we could join forces to homeschool our kids together.

How to Easily Homeschool Boys

When we looked up, my boys were outside in the yard with tree branches fighting and her girls were inside coloring pages, inside the lines no doubt.

(Boys to …………..

I didn’t speak out loud what I thought of her girls, but she did later about my boys.

She discussed with me about putting my boys on medication and I silently thought she had beaten the life out of her girls to the point they had no personality or energy either one.

I didn’t really speak out too because deep down I had a nagging fear that something might actually be wrong with my boys.

We both had our first glimpse of the opposite gender of which neither one of us had any experience handling. Fast forward many years later, I never put my boys on medication because I knew as the mom that they were boys.
What does that mean? It means they learn differently than girls when they are young and it means more noticeable differences happen in the teen years.

Much of my work in disciplining my sons did come when they were younger because I was trying to teach them to sit still when they really needed to wiggle.
When my sis and I would meet together, I would be the one with my hands full as my time was spent beating my boys, mmmm, I meant settling fights and prodding the boys to complete their work.

As my sons have morphed into the teen years, my work as mentor has not stopped. It has required more finesse, patience and respect of the fact that they are born with an inward need to exercise authority even over me and a some lot of days that set my not so laid back personality in a frenzy.
Because homeschooling is not just an adventure for my boys, but a journey in learning year by year for me too, I want to share a few things that worked and did not work for me as I homeschool teen boys.

……. Men)

1). Embrace the differences. As my middle son, Mr. Awesome approaches completing his high school years, his relationship with me is different than Mr. Senior 2013. Unlike Mr. Senior 2013, Mr. Awesome wants very clear cut guidelines as to what is expected of him in high school for each year. So I changed the way I prepared his high school curriculum without giving up some of what his father and I required of him in high school.

For example, with Mr. Senior 2013, we planned his high school together each year. With Mr. Awesome, I planned for two years and he is taking an online school for the next two years.

I still have some classes we do together like geography and some history, but he wanted an outside source. I admit I was a bit disappointed, but then I have to remember that I have hopefully modeled the art of reasonableness and more importantly considered his needs and differences in high school.

Some things have not been different than Mr. Senior 2013 like my middles son’s need to also question my decision making ability now.

Mr. Senior 2013 and I had many head butting sessions, which only ended with me physically and mentally exhausted. Having gone through the rooster syndrome with my oldest son, I was a bit more equipped this time with Mr. Awesome.

Blessing and Challenges of Homeschooling Teen Boys

Instead of taking his questioning my authority as a personal assault, I realized his need to start exercising his thinking ability to make good decisions. If he does not start learning when and how to question decisions now, then how will he be able to make good decisions on his own and then to care for a family later?

Understanding this has helped me a bit more to have patience when I am questioned about every school subject. It is on the job training for the preparation of the challenges of manhood.

2.) Figure Head of Male Authority a Need. I sympathize with those single moms, but even they can provide a positive male role model. It may be their father, uncle or other close friend or family member. Men just have an unspoken word among themselves when it comes to male bonding time.

It is not that a single mom cannot homeschool a testosterone packing teen, but it sure makes her job easier to have a male figure to turn to.

In all my worry, both of my sons lapped up the influence by my husband and his time as he models the kind of men I want my sons to become.

Too, my husband is able to help my sons to accept the fact that as mom, they need to learn how to accept my authority.

Applying this to homeschooling has not always been easy, but I try to do my part in always listening to what each of my sons have to say no matter how trivial it may seem.

Admitting that I too make mistakes and want them to learn to make capable decisions independent of a woman (though always listening to sound advice by either a man or woman) has always been a good stepping stone to them completing assignments or subjects that my husband and I have planned for them.

This goes back to appreciating the fact that they are a different gender and their need to exercise domination and independence is such an intrinsic part of homeschooling each day.

It is hard to separate the parenting from homeschooling during the teen years.

3.) Create A World Separate From Yours. Again I noticed the slight differences between my teen boys when it comes to having other teen friends and have had to adjust to their needs. Mr. Senior 2013 was more content with just a few friends though he still needed a sphere of friends outside of our family.

Mr. Awesome on the other hand has a stronger need for more socialization with teens. He has a more-the-merrier attitude when it comes to other teens and even other people.

Creating opportunities for both my sons to interact with both teen boys and girls has been some of the hardest work on my part beyond academics.

Our homeschool co-op, church activities, fun sports and group field trips just for teens have been some of my best life saving tips to fill my boys need for the right kind of association.

Coming up in more articles about how to homeschool teen boys, I will be sharing specific curriculum that clicked better for us and more specifics as to how boys learn.

Your turn. Have you hit a brick wall when homeschooling your tween or teen boy? What tips work for you?

Hugs and love ya,

Want to brush up on some more tips for homeschooling teens?

Guiding Older Children

Homeschooling Middle School Doesn’t Always Mean Middle Way

Homeschool Writing Program for Middle and High School

Homeschool High School Readiness?

Homeschool Writing Program For Middle and High School Students

August 8, 2014 | 8 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I often hear that the fun in school stops at the middle and high school grades, but I have not found that to be true. Being selective in our choices for homeschool writing programs has been one way that we have avoided middle and high school monotony. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school and how to homeschool high school page for more fun tips.

So when I heard about Fortuigence, which is an online writing course, I was thrilled to try it.

However, knowing that I will be moving in just a few weeks though, I invited Jasmine as a guest blogger from Ponder the Path to review Fortuigence/Writing Rock Star for us, because I just didn’t want to pass up the opportunity for you to know about this wonderful homeschool writing program.

Before you read her helpful review below though, I wanted to let you know what makes a curriculum wonderful to me.

Homeschool Writing Program

(Jasmine was given a free copy of Essay Rock Star. She was compensated for her time. Her opinions and my opinions are our own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind, because it does not mean any company will get a rave review. However, if I accept a review it’s because I am excited to tell you about the curriculum. This post also contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosures here.)

As I homeschool longer I get more vocal about avoiding companies that invade the homeschooling market because we are a large educational niche for some companies

Not all, but a lot of companies are not really bringing any real value or help to our children or to us as the teachers.

Neither do they understand the paramount role parents have as teachers. So I try to actively seek out companies like Writing Rockstars whose students are mostly all homeschoolers, value our role as educator and create their products specifically to suit our needs.

I think you’ll see what I mean when you read Jasmine’s review.

Homeschool Writing Program For Middle and High School Students

What do GMO’s, (genetically modified organisms) rock stars, and mind maps have in common?

All three were part of a recent homeschool writing curriculum my daughter worked on this summer! Maddie will be entering the 7th grade this fall and had never done any formal writing before.

When the opportunity came up for her to try Essay Rock Star she was excited to take her first online course.

Choosing an Online Writing Course

After choosing one of the four Essay Rock Star classes, Maddie was signed up with her own account.

This may not seem like a big deal to most, but to a 12 year old girl this was a big deal.

She was able to log in to her class on her own and receive emails directly from Ms. I, as her teacher is affectionately called.

I decided it would be best if Maddie took the Essay Rock Star: Expository Essay class.

In this class, Maddie learned to write an essay that explained a specific subject or topic.

Maddie had heard me talk about GMO’s before and knew basically what they were. She wanted to find out more about them and thought that they would make an interesting topic for her essay.

Other Essay Rock Star classes include: The Personal Statement, The Persuasive Essay and The Textual Analysis.

Working Through the Essay Rock Star Writing Lessons

When Maddie first started the course, I sat down with her and walked her through the “classroom”. We went over how to work through the class, where to turn in assignments, and how to complete the lessons.

Each of the 7 lessons has a video for the student to watch.

In the video, Ms. I walks the student through each step in the writing process. After watching the video, the student then reads through the lesson or can choose to listen to the audio version (great for different types of learners!).

There are several learning aids included in each lesson that the student can either save or print out and put in a notebook. These items are great to keep on hand for future student writing assignments.

Some of the ones that we thought were particularly helpful were: “How to Write a Strong Introduction and Conclusion” and the “Revision Checklist”.

After watching the video, reading the lesson, and printing or saving any of the extra learning tools, Maddie would work through each step of the writing process.

For instance, one of the first steps is the brainstorming process.

Ms. I shared a great tool for brainstorming called mind mapping. She shared a link to Bubbl.us which is an online software tool that allows you to create pictorial mind maps and save them as images.

This was one of the funnest parts for Maddie, as she could visually see how her ideas fit together.

And the software allows you to move ideas around and create or delete ideas as needed.

You can get very detailed with your mind map, or just create the main points for your essay. We will definitely continue to use this tool in our writing assignments.

Personalized Writing Lessons

One thing that stuck out to me as Maddie went through the writing process, was the willingness of Ms. I to work with her students right where they were and teach them in a personalized way.

For instance, Maddie had decided to write her paper on GMO’s.

She did some research for her essay. Because she had outside sources she had used for the information in her essay, Ms. I showed her how to cite her sources at the end of the paper.

This was not in the original lesson, but was taught when it was needed.

Maddie learned so much in the process of the course and it offered me a break in teaching.

It also gave Maddie a different learning perspective.

She enjoyed the independence of learning on her own and receiving feedback for each lesson.

Writing Program for Middle and High School

She now has the knowledge to work through each step and complete an expository essay on her own.

I look forward to seeing her build on the foundational skills she learned in this writing class. This has been a rewarding experience and has helped her enjoy learning to write!

You’ll also love these other tips:

Product Name: Essay Rock Star: Expository Essay. In this course, students learn to write an expository essay. The expository essay is the most common essay form that is often assigned in high school, college, and in the workplace. The purpose of an expository essay is to explain or inform an audience objectively about a specific subject.

Website: Fortuigence.Com

Type of Product: Individual essay courses and a longer course with multiple essays. Each essay takes approximately 4 weeks to complete. The courses are a combination of pdf and video content. Ms. I provides personalized feedback throughout the process! I like the fact too that your child can receive high school credit even during the middle grades.

Age: Middle School to High School, but can be used by an advanced writer. The 1:1 tips also makes it a great curriculum for writers who dread the process.

Air Force wife, homeschooling mom, herbalist in training, quilter, soapmaker, all around homesteader…yup, that about sums it up! You can find Jasmine at Ponder the Path.

Homeschooling Middle School Doesn’t Always Mean Middle Way

June 28, 2014 | 9 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Arriving at the middle school years can be a time of mixed emotions for both mom and child. But homeschooling middle school doesn’t always mean middle way in our journey. It is only natural though that middle school weigh heavy on the mind because it is a midpoint. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

3 Smart Strategies to Middle School Homeschool

Having gone through these grades twice now with my oldest sons, there are several things that helps me to stay grounded.

It’s about discovering your child’s individuality.

Curriculum will come and go, but this is the time to focus on who your child will become. It was hard for me to look at my boys then to picture the men they will become but it happens.

Middle grades are a time for discovering the strengths and weaknesses of your child’s character. Middle school kids want to know how they fit in the world and they need time to explore a whole host of activities. Whether you think they are behind or ahead in academics has nothing to do with their changing emotional and social needs.

Self-discovery may come through field trips, attending classes without other siblings, or even volunteering for community service projects. It may even come through an activity they enjoy doing alone. Bottom line is that it is about discovering who they are and how they will contribute to this world.

I think it is one of the hardest times to homeschool too. Because the kids are feeling the tug of adulthood but don’t have the skills like driving or the experience at planning to fulfill them, it is very discouraging at times.

It requires extra work on our part because it requires extra time. Add in the time demands of a toddler or younger siblings to a middle schooler’s unique needs and it can be quite stressful.

Finding another homeschool mom you can trade off with in driving your child to his classes, hosting a co-op on a subject your child likes with only one other family at your house and driving them to classes every other week are things I have done to feed their need for adventure and discovery.

During those grades I have also found that my sons were ahead in subjects and lagged behind in others.

With both of my older sons, it has never meant either that we were exactly middle way in our journey or in academics.

Re-evaluate the academics.

This is the time too that I have to switch from my teacher hat to supervisor hat. Like us, our middle school kids want the same freedom to pursue subjects that interests them. Without giving up the parental guidance, we need to throttle back the control.

It’s important for them to understand that though they have more input in their academics now, it doesn’t mean that you are willing to negotiate the core subjects.

You have to be willing though to let them try a new math program (approved by you of course) or writing program. Negotiating how they approach core subjects, times about when they do them or where they do them shows you are willing to let go of control.

Many times I gave my sons a couple of choices in curriculum that I had weeded through at some of the conventions. Some of the programs were ahead in some subjects, on target in others and a few for lower grades.

My oldest son was very decisive at that age about which math and writing program he wanted to stick with. My second son, not so much. So I made the choice for my second son and he was completely fine with it.

The point I am making is that both of my sons had a choice about academics because I wanted to show my willingness to be reasonable as this journey eventually becomes their education.

Too, some kids are very advanced in middle grades and are already capable of doing high school level work. I always let me sons move ahead where needed and simmer on other subjects as they needed to.

Letting go of the best homeschool approach – your approach.

Ouch, this next suggestion of being willing to let go of a homeschool approach that you have followed for many years is a touchy one.

However, being willing to switch your homeschool method or approach that has been working for you as the teacher is crucial to surviving middle school. Try to avoid micromanaging your children because it stifles any efforts for self-independence. Clear accountability works better and is of more value because in real life, that is when they are adults, nobody runs behind us to remind us. We learn by reaping the benefits or consequences of bad decisions.

I’m right there with you too because this is kind of scary for us as moms when we have been use to taking all control for their education up to this time. I had to learn differently too because my sons now learned differently. If you want your children to be independent learners then your method of teaching has to follow what works best for them.

When I started homeschooling and my children were young, the classical approach to homeschooling fit my idea of what my husband and I thought homeschooling should look like. It still does in many ways.

Along the way though I learned that I didn’t have to be so dogmatic about it but that I could embrace many strengths from each homeschool approach.

Having boys and knowing they learn best by hands-on allows me to mostly choose resources that fit our unit study method.

I have not given up any of my homeschool goals but have partnered with my sons in embracing their homeschool approach that becomes more clear during the middle school grades.

I have found that the middle school years are an exciting time as my sons emerge. It is a good place to be if you stay flexible and realize that the many different approaches to homeschooling exist because we have many different types of learners. Embrace it, don’t run from it. And change for goodness sake if you need to because it will mean the difference between making the most of middle school or having a collision midway.

I will be sharing some resources in upcoming posts that worked good for us too during the middle school grades.

Are you willing to let go of the middle school struggle and seize these exciting years?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature DIY Homeschool Organizing With Duct Tape

50 Keep Me Homeschooling Activities During the Long Cold Winter Days

November 23, 2013 | 6 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have 50 winter activities for homeschooling. Grab more ideas on my page winter season unit study.

Hoping to have a few activities to pull of out my bag when the kids are bored and the days are long and cold, I rounded up some activities to keep us learning.