Holidays

Our Favorite Homeschool Ideas for the Holidays

Our Favorite Homeschool Ideas For The Holidays (PDF ebook)

There’s a very good reason we bring this little ebook back each year. Whether you’re ready for it or not, the holiday season is here! And while we can’t control the calendar, we CAN control what the holidays are going to be like in our own households. Now’s the time to plan how to make the next few weeks the best time of the year for your family.

We surveyed over 800 homeschool families and asked them to share their favorite holiday activities and ideas – what worked for them, and what did not. This is a compilation of the very best responses and ideas we received. In this little collection you’ll find dozens of great holiday learning activities plus tips and suggestions for balancing homeschool & family during the hectic holiday season. This is some of the very best “real life” advice on the subject you’ll find ANYWHERE at any price. Don’t miss it!

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

Science

Home Science Experiments

Home Science Experiments!

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri shares the fun of science through this way cool page which contains dozens of fascinating and fun science experiments you can easily do at home. These are tried-and-true kid pleasers, and are all great fun! Check them out and bookmark the site!

CLICK HERE to go to the site

Audio, History, Literature, Living Books

40 G. A. Henty Audiobooks

40 G. A. HENTY AUDIOBOOKS!

George Alfred Henty (8 December 1832 – 16 November 1902), was a prolific English novelist best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His books are still read and enjoyed today and are a terrific way to bring pivotal events from history to life for young readers and listeners. Today, we bring you a link from which you can download all these classic unabridged “living history” Henty audiobooks:

Among Malay Pirates
At Agincourt – White Hoods of Paris
Beric the Briton: A Story of the Roman Invation
By Pike and Dyke
The Cat of Bubastes

Dragon and the Raven: or The Days of King Alfred
In Freedom’s Cause
On the Irrawaddy, a Story of the First Burmese War
One of the 28th – a Tale of Waterloo
Saint George for England
St. Bartholomew’s Eve
Through Russian Snows
Through the Fray
The Tiger of Mysore
True to the Old Flag… AND MANY MORE!

Courtesy of Librivox.org, you can download and enjoy these complete, unabridged audio reading of one of Henty’s best historical adventure novels. These are read by different readers and the quality varies from acceptable to truly excellent (By Pike and Dyke, The Tiger of Mysore).

Our link takes you to the Librivox results page for ALL their G. A. Henty audiobooks. Just click on the titles you wish to download, and you’ll be taken to the individual download page for that book.  You’ll be able to download these audiobooks a chapter at a time, or each complete title all at once. Bookmark the page if you need to come back to it later!

Click here!

Tip: The 64K mp3 versions sound just as good as the 128K mp3 versions — and is half the size. These are huge files, so plan accordingly!

Science

Elementary Life Science

Here’s a complete Elementary level “Life Science” curriculum for younger students by Scot McQuerry (aka Mr. Q), with both student and parent ebooks provided. Very colorful, playfully designed and written — this should be a hit with your littles!

Click here to go to the download page.

Tip: Scroll down the page, the downloads are there!

Arts & Crafts

Tracing Great Art

Here’s a simple, short lesson plan from the terrific Practical Pages website that is full of neat ideas to make great works of art come alive for your kids — by tracing them!

Why would you want to have your student trace some famous artwork? Nadene shares a few ideas:

 

  • Create a reference to a famous work and add it to written biographies and narrations.
  • Apply techniques famous artists use
  • Learn to mix colours, do colour washes and paint in layers with details last
  • Make the art work “your own”
  • Focus on the original for clues and details
  • Use the original for some more contemporary art techniques (like a collage/ a mural/ coasters/place mats/ quilt designs/ build a 3D landscape, etc.)
  • Although many adults consider this just “colouring in”,  I encourage them to give it a try!  It is MUCH more difficult than it seems!

This is a great idea… give it a try.  CLICK HERE to go to the website!

 

Economics

Lessons for the Young Economist

LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG ECONOMIST – Textbook & Teacher’s Guide

Wonder of wonders, this great textbook by Robert P. Murphy, is neither excruciatingly boring nor patronizing to young students. Instead, it is a fascinating and informative text for junior high & up students (we love the chapter on Robinson Crusoe economics), covering both pure economic theory and also how markets work. If you want your students to understand honest-to-goodness conservative, Austrian theory economics, this is the resource you need. Highly recommended!

Mises Institute has both the complete textbook AND the teacher’s guide available in digital format for free (they also have a hard copy book version for sale).

The textbook (in online html format, or .epub format) is available HERE.

The teacher’s guide (in PDF format) is available HERE.

Nature Studies

Nature Study Made Easy

This classic textbook is a lovely, literature-based collection of plant and nature study lessons and activities prepared for 10-12 yr olds, but easily adaptable for younger or older students. It includes Lessons on: how plants grow, seeds, roots, herbs, trees, moss, flowering plants, ferns, mushrooms and more… with lovely poems and readings interspersed throughout.

This is a scanned PDF of the original vintage book, so it is best viewed on a computer.

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.

Arts & Crafts

The Mother Goose Coloring Book

Today’s resource is this lovely collection of vintage illustrated Mother Goose rhymes, taken from various books from the late 1800s & early 1900s.

Great for coloring and for learning or re-visiting these classic childhood rhymes. Enjoy!

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

History

The Underground History of American Education

Here’s a free edition of John Taylor Gotto’s classic book, The Underground History of American Education, as posted on the Lew Rockwell website. It is terrific.

Math

Math in English

Math in English has a large collection of remedial math resources including downloadable/printable worksheets and workbooks, number puzzles, online math games and math videos. There’s a whole series of math practice workbooks for grades 1 through 6, with progressively harder problems in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and more, available in PDF. The clip art they use is pretty lame, but the actual worksheets are just fine.

To go to the website, CLICK HERE!