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Inspiring To Learn is the home of Homeschooling On A Dime!

You are invited to search away for your entire homeschool needs list right here. There are hundreds of textbooks, worksheets, crafts, printables, databases, games, ideas, methods, unit studies, lapbooks, literature, ebooks and plenty more. Every subject, even Bible.

Nothing out there on the net can compare to this wonderful resource and it's right here. I've spent years and years and untold hours compiling this site.
IT'S ALL FREE.

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History - Timeline, Worksheets, Puppets, Copywork and More

This is one of my most popular posts! I get hits on it almost every day!
PLEASE leave a comment to say that you stopped by.

Did you know that I have 100's and 100's of FREE stuff for homeschool families here?
See the HOME PAGE:
INSPIRING TO LEARN



History - Timeline, Worksheets, Puppets, Copywork and More

Neat little website with history printables, science, charts, puppets, copywork, dictation, lapbooks and plenty more. Go check it out!

GuestHollow

Guest Hollow - history, worksheets

GuestHollow - printables Lots here!

Let me know what you think!

Free fun Science Curriculum


A GREAT FIND!

An engaging, colorful, life science program for your elementary school aged children. Curriculum appears to be "secular".
This 36 week program is written in a style that will certainly engage children. There are lots of little jokes and zany photos with comic book style captions, and the tone is informal and down-to-earth.

The curriculum is designed to be taught 3 days a week. The first day is spent reading an interesting passage about a topic and completing an associated worksheet, which could include a crossword puzzle or matching definitions, etc. The remaining two days are spent on activities and experiments. There are a number of science fair type projects scheduled for the year. In fact, your child would complete about 10 of them, which would certainly lead to a lot of exposure to and comfort with the scientific method.

The Life Science 36 week program is free, the others years are available for a small cost.

http://www.eequalsmcq.com/classicsciinfo.htm

Free: Life During WWII - Victory Garden Project



This is one of my most popular posts! I get hits on it almost every day!
PLEASE leave a comment to say that you stopped by.

Did you know that I have 100's and 100's of FREE stuff for homeschool families here?
See the HOME PAGE:
INSPIRING TO LEARN


Free "Life During WWII" Lesson Plans, Science, Social Studies, Gardening




THE VICTORY GARDEN PROJECT
(from the National WWII Museum)

"In order to make The Classroom Victory Garden Project accessible to all teachers, it has been broken down into different time-frames. If you would just like to spend a class period introducing your students to life during WWII, you can use our “one class period” lesson plan. If you have more time to devote to gardening and community during crises, there are many lesson plans provided. From science to social studies, gardening and learning about the war years opens up all sorts of ways for your students to learn many subjects."

Classroom Victory Garden


Thematic Pathfinders - search engine for students

"Why start with a search engine, when you can find a pathfinder to fit your needs at 42eXplore? When learning something new, it's nice to have more than one resource to explore. This web project provides "four to eXplore" for each topic. On each page you'll find definitions, activities, the 4 good starting points, and many more links and resources for the thematic topic.

We now have over 200 themes in this topic archive! We frequently update projects in our Topic Index as well as each of the subject areas above. Go to What's New? to learn about recent changes."

http://www.42explore.com

LessonPathways - over 900 resources

Lesson Pathways

According to LessonPathways, they have "over 900 weekly topic units containing the BEST free educational resources found on the web. And don't forget to use our handy Planning Tool!"

It is secular and geared toward the average government school family, but you may find some very usable materials. Swing by and check it out.

http://www.lessonpathways.com/

FREE educational software programs

 


COREPlus is an exciting collection of FREE educational software programs that makes it easy to learn all about history, geography, science, fine art, and more.


DownloadLearning


Winter Scene Shoebox Craft and writer's workshop

 


Winter Scene Shoebox Craft and writer's workshop


Students will love creating their own winter scenes and stories.


First, they make a winter scene in a shoebox. Then, they can use the free templates (under “To Create a Book”) for a story web, draft, and finished book explaining their winter scene.


 


Winter Scene Shoebox Craft & writer's workshop

Kings & Queens unit study

KINGS & QUEENS unit


European culture dominated the Middle Ages. We think of Medieval England when we think of the Middle Ages--and that is mostly what is covered in this Funschool Unit. While the practices were varied from place to place, the Middle Ages--as a whole--is characterized by a specific set of values and institutions that reflect the three dominant influences that have come before: Roman, Christian, and Barbarian. This unit is predominantly intended to introduce you and your child to the High Middle Ages in a fun, hands-on way that will peak their interest in further study.


HISTORY UNIT Kings & Queens

Books of the Bible Lapbook and Game

 


This one is really neat!


 

Books of the Bible Lapbook and Game

 

This is a file folder game or lapbook game to learn the books of the Bible. It includes 84 Bible trivia questions (easy and medium levels) and blank cards to make your own questions. Availble to download and assemble.

 


 

 

Free biblical creation science videos

 


 


Here is a large online library of biblical creation science and history videos. These are all free! What a wonderful gift!


"Educational documentaries may be the best witnessing tool available to combat evolution indoctrination. People have become more accustomed to multimedia education than any other type, and new and exciting creation science programs are becoming available each year."



http://www.nwcreation.net/videos/index.html




 


 


 

Teaching to your child's strengths

Teaching To Your Child's Strengths


by Kajsa Huckaba



You will spend a ton of money and everyone in your home will be frustrated until you learn specifically what makes your children each tick. Maximize your student's learning and time spent learning by teaching to their personality and strengths.



If you do not know what those are, spend some time in prayer regarding each one of your children. Ask the Lord to reveal these things to you and for you to have your eyes open to see them.



Keep a notebook for you of each child and make notes, revelations and relevant scriptures that will help you better understand your child's learning styles, strengths and weaknesses and character issues.



If your child really likes to hear audio CDs of history but hates to read it, write that down when you notice it. Where are the character strengths and weaknesses. You may be surprised! If your child is creative, how is she or he creative? With creating music melodies or rhythm? With planning out how a project should lay or color usage? Think outside the box and pay attention. Soon a picture will start to form of all your child's strengths and loves. In the same way, watch what your child loathes or struggles with and jot it down. This will help you to see where the weaknesses are and hopefully you will pray and ask the Lord how to strengthen those areas. He is always faithful!



Important to note, when you see a strength, be sure to share that with your child to encourage them! And if you see even a small improvement in an area of weakness, be sure to mention it and give praise to them! Record these improvements! With younger children, you may want to make some kind of award or medal that you made to give out periodically. Take their picture wearing it!





Timelines for history

Timelines For History

by Kajsa Huckaba


One of the coolest things you can take advantage of as a homeschooler is using timeline. It can be added to every year or a fresh one made. If you add to it every year, it becomes this wonderful living history project that will both cement learning and inspire learning. Discoveries/landmarks in science and family history are great additions to any time line.



Each student could have their own timeline or the whole family might share one. The benefit of each student having one is that your children may be studying different time periods and if they are making their own timeline figures it will be entirely their own creation, instead of a shared project. Each student's timeline would be a cool keepsake, too.



The whole family may decide to have one! It is possible to have a family time line and each student to have their own. What ever your family decides, it will be a project you all will benefit from and enjoy.



Styles of timelines can be mounted to the wall like a hallway, a folding accordian style, or as pages in a binder that you flip through. The binder style is more difficult to grasp the layout as it is not laid out in a linear fashion. If you want to use butcher paper, keep in mind that it may roll up on the edges. There is always the option to laminate it before you add the time line figures and that may help with the rolling edges. Another option is to tape pages together end to end on the back (with strong tape such as packing tape). You may opt for cardstock for a more sturdy project, which I recommend. The heavier, the better. The benefits of this page to page style is that it can be added to if need be on the end, can be folded, can be mounted on the wall, and is small enough to go into a folder or on a shelf.



Your student may create their own artwork for timeline figures, do no art and just write what happened when or use premade artwork for it. Many families enjoy the Homeschool In The Woods products for premade figures and you can reproduce them to save big money. Then all your figures "match" if that is important or you have a child who is not comfortable with their craft skills. I have included some links for free or nearly free timeline figures here below.





http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ClassicalEducation4Me/9726/





http://www.squidoo.com/homeschooltimelines





http://www.abookintime.com/timelines.html





http://isaiah5413.blogspot.com/2007/01/free-or-almost-free-time-line-figures.html





http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=296481



(A topic thread here gives an address to a yahoogroup with 850+ members that share timeline help. I am a member myself.)





http://www.angelfire.com/or/mtdewbydo/timelines.html





http://www.biblioplan.net/timeline.htm





http://www.phillipmartin.info/clipart/socialsciences_ancientcivilizations.htm







37 Weeks of American History

 


This is a new site that offers up a complete homeschool curriculum, "People of America".
This is a 37-week schedule of scripted American History lessons, geared to kids ages 6-8, and includes units focusing on Native Americans, European Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans & Asian American History. It's a very large site. These are interesting, easy-to-use lessons for primary students. Check it out and see if this is a resource you can use in your homeschool.


http://www.prontolessons.com/



 

Tired of art messes?

 


 


Does a big mess keep you from doing art projects? Here is an idea I came up with recently as I am beginning to implement the "Workbox System" into my home.


You can make up a workbox (plastic tote) for a particular kind of craft or art method.
Like watercolor painting, coloring in colorbooks, stencils, scrapbooking, lapbooking, etc.



One craft per workbox.



If you do this then all the supplies needed for that activity are there. Make sure the scissors, glue sticks, colored pencils or whatever are all in there- whatever is required to that art activity! The child just goes to retrieve the workbox and will not need to search for this and that! The bonus is that it makes it really easy to clean up and put away too!