Family Life, Holidays, Nature Studies

Making the Most of Your Summer Break

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Making the Most of Your Summer Break: Homeschool Families Share their Best Ideas and Tips (PDF ebook)

We’re bringing back this excellent resource because of numerous requests, and also for the benefit of our many new readers who did not get a copy last year.

Are you thinking about taking a short/medium/long break from homeschooling during the upcoming summer months? Or are you not sure how to juggle your summer plans with your homeschooling? If so, you NEED this collection!

We surveyed over 250 homeschool families to find out their own “summer break” experiences: How long a break they normally take… what they like (and dislike) most about “summer vacation”… their very favorite summertime learning activities… AND their best tips and advice to YOU for keeping the learning going all summer long. The result is this compilation full of practical, “real life” advice that any homeschool family will find both helpful and inspirational. DON’T MISS IT!

To download this PDF ebook, RIGHT CLICK HERE and “save” to your computer. Mac users, hold down the “control” key and click the link, then save to your computer.

Nature Studies

The Bee People

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The Bee People by Margaret Warner Morley (PDF ebook)

Today’s resource is this delightful 1899 “Living Book” about bees, written by the author of “Little Travelers” and “Seed Babies”, volumes which we have featured here in the past. Wonderfully easy to read and highly inviting to young readers, the chapters read almost like a storybook, and include Bees & Flowers, How a Bee Sees & Flies, Honeybees, How and Why Bees make Honey & Honeycombs, Queen Bees, Bee Facts & Fancies, and much more. Includes Questions for Review at the end of the book.

This is a great “Charlotte Mason” style nature study book your kids will love.

To download this PDF ebook, RIGHT CLICK HERE and “save” to your pc. Mac users, press the “control” key then click the above link and save to your mac.

Language Arts, Reading

Steps to Reading

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Katrina Lybbert at Brightly Beaming Resources has created several  study courses for teaching babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers how to recognize sounds, letters and words. Included are a Nursery Curriculum (age 0 – 1), Steps to Reading Program (ages 2 – 7) and a Kindergarten Curriculum (ages 4 – 5). The popular “Letter of the Week” program is a section of the Steps to Reading Program.

These are simple, practical hands-on lesson plans for helping your little ones recognize letters and sounds and learn how to read.

Click here to go to the site!

Math

Everyday Number Stories

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Everyday Number Stories (PDF ebook)

Here’s a wonderful math problem book, filled with with delightful nostalgic illustrations from a long ago, simpler America (which the teacher probably will enjoy even more than the students), along with a host of practical, down-to-earth, and progressively more difficult arithmetic problems.

Very well done… This would be a great supplemental book for just about any elementary math program for students in grades 2-5.

To download this PDF ebook, RIGHT CLICK HERE and “save” to your PC. Mac users, press the “control” key then click the link and save to your mac!

Poetry

A Poem for Today: Little Boy Blue

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LITTLE BOY BLUE

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamed of the pretty toys.
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue.
Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.

– Eugene Field
Poetry

A Poem for Today: If

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IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Nature Studies

Air!

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Air! (PDF ebook)

Today’s resource is this classic introduction to the air of our atmosphere, originally published in 1917. Though a few of the references are dated, this is a delightfully written text with loads of great  information, plus some interesting hands-on activities. Check it out!

Excerpt:

We are usually not conscious of the air around us, but sometimes we realize that the air is heavy, while at other times we feel the bracing effect of the atmosphere. We live in an ocean of air as truly as fish inhabit an ocean of water. If you have ever been at the seashore you know that the ocean is never still for a second; sometimes the waves surge back and forth in angry fury, at other times the waves glide gently in to the shore and the surface is as smooth as glass; but we know that there is perpetual motion of the water even when the ocean is in its gentlest moods. Generally our atmosphere is quiet, and we are utterly unconscious of it; at other times we are painfully aware of it, because of its furious winds. Then again we are oppressed by it because of the vast quantity of vapor which it holds in the form of fog, or mist. The atmosphere around us is as restless and varying as is the water of the sea.

To download this PDF ebook, RIGHT CLICK HERE and “save” to your PC. Mac users, press the “control” key then click the link and save to your mac!

Nature Studies

Children & Flowers II: Favorite Flowers & How to Grow Them

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Children & Flowers Part II: 12 Favorite Flowers for Children

In the second part of our “Children & Flowers” unit study, you’ll be introduced to twelve of the most popular domestic flowers (with beautiful, full color photos), learn about their unique characteristics, and find out how to grow them in YOUR home garden this year!

To download this PDF ebook, RIGHT CLICK HERE then “save link” to your computer. Mac users, press the “control” key, then click the link and save to your mac.

Nature Studies

Children & Flowers I: How Flowers Work

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Children & Flowers Part I: How Flowers Work

In Part One of this two-part unit study on “Children & Flowers”, you’ll discover the amazing anatomy of flowers, how and why they move and grow, how they reproduce, why they attract insects, and all sorts of other fascinating facts. Wonderful, well-written guide for young readers or for read-aloud  listeners!

To download this PDF ebook, RIGHT CLICK HERE then “save link” to your computer. Mac users, press the “control” key, then click the link and save to your mac.