Fun and Effective Home Learning Activities for Every Subject
As a homeschooling parent, you're always looking for new and creative ways to teach your child the basics. Look no longer! Inside this innovative helper, you'll find kid-tested and parent-approved techniques for learning math, science, writing, history, manners, and more that you can easily adapt to your family's homeschooling needs. And even if you don't homeschool, you'll find this book a great teaching tool outside the classroom. You'll discover fun and educational activities for kids ages 3 to 12, including how to:
·Create maps based on favorite stories, such as Treasure Island or The Wizard of Oz
·Make letters out of French fries as an alphabet learning aid
·Explore architecture by building igloos, castles, and bridges with sugar cubes and icing
·Review spelling words by writing them on the sidewalk with chalk
·And many more!
This comprehensive collection of tried-and-true—and generally inexpensive—ideas provides the best-of-the-best homeschooling activities that can be done anywhere, anytime, and by anyone.

The key to successful home education is determining your educational philosophy and linking it to your child’s learning style. Then you can make an informed decision in choosing the right educational curriculum for the child. Homeschool guru Cathy Duffy can help you accomplish these critical tasks, with her top choices from every subject area, approaching everything through a Christian worldview perspective. 

This ambitious reference guide lives up to its name. Practically three inches thick--and we're not talking large print here--it's packed with titles, ordering information, and Web site addresses. From where to send away for a kit to make your own Chilean rain stick to how to order a set of Elizabethan costume paper dolls, the book connects families to a world of learning possibilities. Book titles, short synopses, authors' names, publishers, and years of print make up the bulk of the guide. Classics such as The Cat in the Hat and Curious George share billing with lesser-known titles like Stone Fox, the story of a legendary Indian dog-sled racer. Every entry appears with recommended ages and an icon that shows whether the item is a book, computer disc, or video; an outstretched palm denotes hands-on materials. Most of the resources seem to have been test-driven by the author and her three homeschooled sons. Rebecca Rupp, a former scientist who has been teaching her kids at home for more than 10 years, peppers the guide with anecdotes about her children's experiences in various subject areas, much of it drawn from the family's extensive journals. Along with books, magazines, and kits for reading, math, writing, science, and history, a considerable amount of space is given to computer and television resources, as well as "life skills," a broad category that includes everything from etiquette and carpentry to sewing and sex education. Like a Yellow Pages guide to knowledge, The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook belongs on the shelf of anyone looking for new ways to spark a child's imagination. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

Read about one family's experiences with designing their own learning journey.

Teaching your preschooler at home can be accomplished several ways. There are three options: 1) Purchase a program from one of the preschool curriculum providers, 2) Read to your child from great books, and explore the world together paying attention to what interests your child or 3) Design your own curriculum for free using the internet and the library. Any one of the three options should work fine. But if you prefer a plan laid out in writing and you are on a tight budget, option three is the way to go.

This list is for families using the classical approach to education as outlined in Laura Berquist's independent study program, Mother of Divine Grace (MODG), and in her book Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum (DYOCC). The discussions on this loop primarily revolve around the implementation and use of resources which are recommended in the MODG syllabi and in DYOCC. Additionally, they always welcome conversations about the classical methodology of MODG/DYOCC.

This loop was created for homeschoolers interested in presenting school materials, real books, and/or purchased curriculum in a manner consistent with Classical Education philosophy. Specifically, Classical Education refers to educational models (such as the Trivium) described by Laura Berquist, the Bluedorns, Dorothy Sayers, Doug Wilson, Jessie Wise, Susan Wise Bauer, and others, in which material is presented to children according to their stage of development (i.e., Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric stages). The purpose of this loop is practical in nature: to share resource suggestions, reviews, schedules, ideas, and encouragement, in order to help one another provide Classical Education within the homeschool environment.

This list is for families using the classical approach to education as outlined in Laura Berquist's book Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum (DYOCC).