For the past year, one of my most beloved possessions has been my Kindle.  I’ve used it for reading countless novels and public domain classics, like all the novels Jane Austen ever wrote.

Lately, I’ve been finding more and more classic educational materials for ebook readers.  Many of these materials have long been available for reading on your computer.  Project Gutenberg alone has thousands and thousands of public domain books available.  I’ve found, though, that I really dislike reading books on the computer.  Too much time spent staring at the glare of my laptop is sure to send me into a massive migraine!  Plus, it is often difficult to take notes or add highlighting on the computer screen.  Last, but definitely not least, many of the public domain classics are UGLY on the computer.  Usually these are plain text documents, with minimal formatting and ugly fonts.

In the past, I have avoided a few of these issues by printing the documents.  I’ve found, though, that ink and paper costs often eat up any savings you may have had over just purchasing the printed book in the first place.  Not to mention, I’ve found myself swimming in stacks of printouts and unwieldy binders from various sources.

Now that ebook readers are readily available, I foresee a huge spike in the usefulness of all these plain public domain documents. Many of them are available in formats designed for your reader, but even plain text documents can look good on the Kindle.  There may be a few wonky paragraph breaks or alignment issues, but the standard font and spacing that the Kindle uses means that these books basically look and feel just like any other book!  I find this to be an advantage even over reading classics that you purchase from your neighborhood bookstore.  Those public domain classics are often printed in ugly or old fashioned type on cheap paper, with stiff and unwieldy bindings.

With a Kindle, all books are created equal.  Those theoretically-nice-but-unpleasant-to-use plain text online repositories are finally coming into their own.

The homeschooling movement’s love of “living books” means that many homeschoolers appreciate children’s classics.   The lesson plans and curricula that have been developed for homeschoolers reflect that appreciation for children’s literature.  Works by Thornton Burgess, Andrew Lang, Edith Nesbit, and more can be at your fingertips in moments, in a format that you can use and love!

Beyond classic literature, it also turns out that there are many books for parents and educators available in the public domain.  Educators of the 19th and early 20th centuries like Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori wrote books that are popular with many homeschoolers today.

If you’ve been thinking about purchasing an ebook reader but are worried about the cost of getting one, perhaps it would help if you look at it this way:  For $250, you are purchasing a collection of all the greatest adult and children’s classics throughout history. And you get a cool ebook reader thrown into the deal!

I’ve started collecting links to free books that homeschoolers find useful.  Check them out, and then check back often as I add more.  I’m sorting by method or type of resource, as well as curriculum, so that you can find the books that will be most useful to you.

Enjoy!

I wanted to start this semester off by moving on from our medieval overview and into a focus on early American history.  Here’s how we’re accomplishing that:

We are using Unit 3 of Tapestry of Grace’s Year 2 curriculum.  This is an 8 week unit study of colonial American history, a topic which we have never specifically addressed before.  It will probably take us a bit longer than that, since we have several “life” events that will be popping up here and there.  My children like that they get to help schedule what they will be doing each week and when, so for now they are liking it very much!

We will be using it in a more secular manner than it is written, and I started up a Yahoo group for anyone else who wants to discuss the ins and outs of using Tapestry of Grace from a more secular perspective.  Here’s the link for anyone who is interested:  togsecular.

This has been a tough winter, healthwise, so I am happy to be using a program that gives me some direction for planning lessons.  It doesn’t plan out every detail, however, so I can still feed my need to have fun with planning without getting overwhelmed by researching every possible resource on Amazon, which is what I had been doing!

I can commit to this for 8 weeks of instruction, no problem!  And because you purchase the program unit by unit, I can change to something else at any point that it stops working for us or fitting our needs.  I don’t have to feel like I am locked in to something for an entire year, whether it works or not.  I’m really hoping that this is a good match for our unique health AND educational needs.

A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of;- and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and class-books, and when we leave school, the “Little Reading,” and story-books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The above quote was pointed out to me by Michael Clay Thompson in his excellent little book, Classics in the Classroom.  Despite the title of his volume, the advice that MCT gives is inspirational for not just classroom teaching, but for those in any setting who aspire to teach and to learn.

The quote that he uses from Thoreau is undoubtedly thought provoking.  We don’t often acknowledge how advantaged most of us are – In this age of technology and open information, libraries and Amazon, anyone who can read this post can also easily and inexpensively access all the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years.  I personally own a Kindle that allows me free access to all the public domain writings of all the classics that Thoreau would have read, including all of Thoreau’s work, as well.  (Not a bad deal, for a $250 investment.)

But the question is – though most of us have access to all this information for much less than we spend on fast food or cable every year . . . Do we take advantage of our great good luck?

The answer for most of us is either “no” or “not as much as we could”.  Why is that?  Is it because reading the classics takes effort and (shudder) time?  Probably that has something to do with it, although we modern types do sometimes willingly venture to attempt feats of mental challenge.  Witness all the “Brain Age” games for the Nintendos and the wild popularity of Sudoku.  And we’re not totally averse to blowing an hour or two of our precious time on TV or Facebook, either.

Maybe it is because we don’t want to – that we don’t think that these classics contain wisdom relevant to today.  Who wants to waste their limited time and energy studying ancient relics?  In this new millennium, things change so quickly that much of our new information is obsolete before the month is out.  How can works written 100 or 1000 years ago still be of value?

I think that most of us believe the classics are famous because they are part of history.  They are a record of how people once thought, once wrote – at one time, long, long ago.  These droll ancient people who had no idea how the universe worked or how human bodies functioned.  Even those authors who lived a hundred years ago had no conception of the wonders and challenges of the 21st century – computers and nuclear weapons and terrorism and modern appliances.

We understand why classic works would be important to people whose jobs are to study the progress of human thought – history professors and museum curators, for example –  but how can it be that so many well-read individuals from all time periods and all walks of life have had the kind-of-goofy notion that everyone should read these dusty relics?

Are people like Thoreau and Michael Clay Thompson so blinded by their warped elitist egos that they mistakenly try to impose irrelevant “wisdom” on people who are just trying their best to live in the real world?

I’m guessing you’ve guessed that I don’t believe that to be the case.

I haven’t personally read nearly enough yet to qualify as “well read” in the classical sense, but I definitely suspect that Thoreau and MCT are on to something.  Here’s the very simple reason why:  I have never once in my adult life regretted the time that I’ve spent reading something worthwhile. I’ve often regretted the time I spent surfing the internet, or reading silly romances, or watching TV.  I’ve wondered if I shouldn’t have been doing something else with my time.  But I’ve never had regrets after an hour reading Hemingway or Jane Austen or Plato.

The truth is that the classics are still classics not because they are mere historic relics, but because they are the best thoughts and ideas that people have been able to come up with over the past several thousand years.  Think about it – most of the books that come out this year will be long gone within 50 years (or even 10!)  But the classics are classic because they offer brilliant insights into the things that don’t change and that are universal to human experience.

I never read a great book without coming out of it knowing something that I didn’t even know I was missing.

Who knows what else I might be missing?  I’m getting off here to go read . . .

The past few weeks, we have been working on solidifying multiplication facts and strategies.  I designed these multiplication chart templates to use for practice recalling and writing the facts.  You can download them and use for your children, as well.  They are a little more colorful than some of the others I found online!

Multiplication Chart Template Download

This project was created using Serif’s incomparable Digital Scrapbook Artist, and the Happy Day Out Digikit from DaisyTrail.com.

Due to requests for a theme that is a little more boy-friendly, I’ve just added the following chart with a Southwest theme:

Multiplication Chart Template - Southwest

This page was also made in Digital Scrapbook Artist, using the Mexican Wave Digikit from DaisyTrail.com

Today I created a printable money chart activity.  My girls have known how to count money for a couple of years now, but unless they review it often, they tend to forget which coin is which.  Since I wanted to upload the pages here for you to print out, I made two versions – one feminine and one gender neutral.  The chart has spaces for you to arrange coins alongside their names and values.  I’ve included a page of tags with the names and values for you to cut out and print. (And I’ve written the cents two different ways – take your pick!)

I’m always amused a little bit by activities that use the plastic play coins or fake printed coins when teaching money.  I prefer to use the actual coins themselves, whenever it is possible.  I’ve seen some fake coins that cost more than the real ones are worth!  Besides, once you are done, you can use the real coins as real money, something that plastic coins definitely don’t do!  For each copy of this chart, you will need one quarter, one dime, one nickel, and one penny.

My children wanted to be able to put the chart together and keep it for reference when working on money questions.  I wanted them to be able to do it multiple times for review.  So we laminated the chart and then put little bits of Velcro directly on the backs of the tags and coins, as well as on the spaces on the chart.  I think another great way to do this would be to use magnetic tape, but I didn’t have any of that, and I did have lots of Velcro!

Now, the children can assemble the chart and have it available for reference.  Every week or two, I can take the chart apart and let them review the assembly process.  This is a great activity for our workboxes!

Here are the files for your downloading pleasure:

I designed everything with the fantastic, fantabulous new Serif Digital Scrapbook Artist, using the “Melon School” and “Happy Day Out” Digikits from DaisyTrail.com.

At the end of last school year, I started learning about the workbox techniques popularized by Sue Patrick.  Sue is the mom of a special needs child, who adapted some of the educational methods she learned from her child’s therapies to enhance her homeschooling routine.  The method has generated a flurry of interest in homeschool circles, with more than a thousand homeschoolers joining the Workboxes Yahoo Group.

I personally find it fascinating to watch the ways in which a resource like Sue’s book is adapted in turn by so many homeschoolers to fit unique situations of their own.  Then the various adaptations branch off and gather steam of their own.  It is like a little sociology experiment in fast forward, courtesy of the internet

We’ve been using workboxes since spring, and I have to say that I love these little boxes!

I have a rack for each child that stores twelve plastic shoe boxes.  Each “workbox” day, I load the boxes with all the materials that we will need to accomplish our work.  It has been a GREAT structure for the girls, but, perhaps more importantly, it has made me  more organized and effective, as well.  (Which, frankly, is no minor feat – I’m extremely organizational reform-resistant.  Though I dearly love them, most “systems” stick with me about as well as scrambled eggs on a new teflon frying pan.)

Anyway, as I was saying, it turns out that it really isn’t that much more work to put everything into the boxes than it is to fly by the seat of your pants.  When I do “wing it”, though, I’ve noticed that there are several problems that tend to crop up:

1. You have to stop in the middle of your work time to gather supplies for an assignment or project, which gets your children out of their “ready to learn” zone and into “fiddling around waiting and then wandering off to play or bicker with siblings” mode.
2. You forget about some of your materials, and they go the entire year without being used.
3. You don’t forget about some of your materials, but are so focused on getting your basic skills mastered that you rarely get around to actually doing some of the enriching activities that you want to do.  Things like art, music, science, history, and foreign language.
4. Your children don’t know what to expect for the day, and start thinking that school will never end, no matter what they do.
5. Your children DO know what to expect for the day, because you inadvertantly get into a rut – doing the same things over and over, week after week, and both you and the children become bored out of your minds.

Let’s just say that we’ve encountered all of those issues at various points on our homeschooling journey.  For now, workboxes seem to be working better than anything else we’ve tried to combat all of those problems at the same time.

Here’s a little tour of how this approach is working for us:

We start off our day by “clocking in”. No doubt there are some kids who would roll their eyes at this, but mine love it. They just move their name cards to the “Ready to Learn” pocket when we start, and the “Completed” pocket when we are done.

Here’s a look at our box setup.

This is the standard $15 shoe rack from Target, with 12 plastic shoeboxes on each rack. Notice that I’ve attached velcro tabs to three spots on the front of each box. Once I get the boxes full of activities and laid out on the shelves, I attach the appropriate number tag in the center. Then I attach a “Work With Mom” tag if the box contains an activity that I need to help out with. If the activity is a group activity that both girls share, I attach a “Work Together” tag on the right. When they get each box, they know whether they should work independently, along with their sister, or with me one-on-one.

Each box contains all the materials they will need to complete the activity or assignment. Once they have completed the box, the girls put away their materials, remove the tags from the box, and stack up the empty boxes, ready to go for the next day. When they remove the number tag, they move it over to their assignment grid, to signal that they’ve completed that box. My girls are very much “box checker” types (I wonder where they get that from? ), so they love having the visual confirmation of their progress. They can see their shelves emptying out, the stack of empty boxes building up, and their assignment grid filling up with completed items. Fun, fun, fun! (If you are a “certain type”, which we definitely are!)

What do I put in the boxes? Well, I try to make each box contain one simple assignment, and if there are complicated or multi-part assignments, I’ll break them apart and put one section in each box, to keep the boxes moving along at a steady pace. Here’s a sample of what our boxes might have on a given day:

1. Handwriting/Picture Study workbook (and pencil)
2. Page of math review problems (include ruler, dice, or any other tools or manipulatives that may be needed.)
3. Reading Break – 20 minutes of whatever you like (with a timer included)
4. All About Spelling assignment (with card file-box and dry erase marker for whiteboard activities)
5. Sentence Family (with crayons and paper for illustrating the grammar story as I tell it)
6. Math Time (flexible math lesson that I plan out based on what we need to be working on, and usually involving me and a whiteboard, plus manipulatives, but possibly involving baking brownies)
7. Artistic Pursuits (with art materials needed for the lesson)
8. Galore Park Junior Science (British prep school curriculum that we read through together)
9. Kids Guide to the US (US geography kit, with map and stickers for learning about each state)
10. Pianimals (piano practice curriculum)
11. Puertas Abiertas (DVD-based Spanish curriculum)

That’s a pretty heavy day, so on many days we have fewer boxes. We have a variety of subjects and resources that we rotate through based on what day it is, and what we have time for. There might be boxes with math card games, internet lessons, science projects, file folder games, or many other possibilities.

So far the boxes are working out great for us, and I’m looking forward to putting together more posts about them as we move forward.  One lovely thing about “workboxing” is that so many families have generously shared the materials, graphics, forms, and other printouts that they’ve developed for managing this system.  I’ll be adding some of the materials that I’ve put together here so that you can download and use them as well.

This holiday weekend, we began a major architectural endeavor at our house.  No, we aren’t knocking out any walls or building an addition.

We are making bricks.  Lots of bricks.

The Factory - Also known as our kitchen table

The girls have never done anything like this before, so I helped them quite a bit at first.

Claire at the Factory

By the time we hit our seventh batch, they were doing all the measuring, pouring, mixing and molding.  Thank goodness, too, because we aren’t halfway done yet.  Right now my only job is to somehow pry all these cute little bricks out of their molds.  It is sort of like pulling 34 little gray teeth with each batch.

Madeline at the Factory

No, I’m not going to say what we are planning to make until I know if the project will end up in any way resembling our original goal.  I like to keep my options open!