Learning Lynx: September 2010

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Second Grade (Gifted)

This is the curriculum I designed for my exceptionally (or maybe even profoundly) gifted second grader. It is posted in 2 parts (so google docs could handle it).

12 lessons per day for a year:

Second Grade Part 1: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_155gqms2sd3
Second Grade Part 2: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_166dtznmxhb

This draws from material from 3rd grade up to college level, so it might not be appropriate for every 7 year old!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Saturday, September 25, 2010

HUGE library of interactives on dozens of topics

http://www.wisc-online.com/ListObjects.aspx

Friday, September 24, 2010

Science Interactives

http://www.gamequarium.org/cgi-bin/search/dirs.cgi?lv=1&ct=Science_Interactives_for_MO_GLEs

Physical Geography Course and ebook

http://www.physicalgeography.net/

This is a course and e-text on physical geography, or the study of the earth.

Experiment Videos

http://www.gamequarium.org/cgi-bin/search/dirs.cgi?st=0&nd=5&ct=SqoolTube_Videos-Science-Experiments&lv=3&newpop=

Biology course

http://www.fi.edu/tfi/units/life/life.html

Inside the Cell

Whole, complete lesson on cells.

http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/insidethecell/index.html

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Habitable Planet: Complete Online Course on Environmental Science

http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/index.html

Cool Stuff Being Made

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cool+stuff+being+made&aq=f

One of the Best Biology/Biodiversity sites I've found

http://www.untamedscience.com/biodiversity

Biology Lessons

http://www.untamedscience.com/lessons

Fun Animals Site

http://switchzoo.com/zoo.htm

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Teaching Memoir Writing

http://web2.jefferson.k12.ky.us/CCG/supp/MS_Memoir.PDF

Online Art Ed from the National Gallery of Art

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

ASL Children's Stories

http://www.signwriting.org/library/children/children.html

International Folktales

http://www.aaronshep.com/stories/folk.html

Folklife Resources for Educators

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/teachers/index.html

Classic Stories (Podcast with archives)

http://thestoryhome.com/

also: http://storynory.com/

Read REAL poetry online

http://www.poemhunter.com/

WOW Math--over 500 free videos of high school math

http://www.wowmath.org/

Free practice standardized tests with answer keys, all grades

For those of us who have students that must pass standardized tests to remain in homeschooling, free tests to use for practice:

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=44&menu_id=793

Interactive online versions are here also.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Go to the Louvre Virtually

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/musee/visite_virtuelle.jsp?bmLocale=en

New Programming Language for Kids

Designed especially for developing computer games, Kodu is a visual language...and supposedly fun and easy to use, although I haven't tried it.

http://fuse.microsoft.com/project/kodu.aspx

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Math Worksheet Site

If you have an online list of skills your child needs to know for math (like from http://www.ixl.com/), you can use that list plus this site to generate entire workbooks worth of practice problems free:

http://themathworksheetsite.com/

Intuitive interface, and practical, nice-looking results.

It will cost you to print the worksheets, so to keep it absolutely free, you can have your child work on a glass-screened computer monitor, figuring the problems right on the screen with a dry-erase marker.

Complete Math by INew

http://www.inew.com/php/guest.php

You can access the site as a guest user for free. To use some of the features (like student tracking) you do have to pay.

Week-by-week math courses K-12 and Algebra 1

http://mathlearnnc.sharpschool.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=4507283&pageId=4993281

Choose the level you want and then scroll down to the "Week-By-Week Essentials".

Online Math Resources, including a section for gifted kids

http://www.homeschoolmath.net/online/

GREAT portal to math sites.

Math Practice Problems (1-8 grades) covering the whole curriculum

http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/practice.html

Free Math Course Materials

http://www.homeschoolmath.net/curriculum_reviews/curriculum_materials.php

COMPLETE K-10 Math Courses

I've been searching for something like this. It includes workbooks, lesson plans, interactives, videos, and printables. All free.

K is called R (for Reception) because this is a UK programme.

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Schoolhouse TV

AWESOME new sight. Not only is it visibly beautiful, it's easy to use and full of fun, educational video clips with more solid, reliable content than user-submitted sites like Teacher Tube.

http://www.tvschoolhouse.com/

Go see. They tell me it's brand new, so they'll be adding more content as soon as they can.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

History of Technology

http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/tp/timeline.htm
http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventors/a/Famous_Inventor.htm
http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/FamousInvention.htm

Sunday, September 12, 2010

sites to help a child learn to read in addition to Starfall.com

This site uses a Montessori approach: http://www.learntoreadfree.com

Hooked on Phonics videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/HookedOnPhonicsTV#p/u

http://www.foniks.org/

http://www.softschools.com/language_arts/phonics/

http://www.funfonix.com/games/

http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html

http://www.donpotter.net/ed.htm

http://www.abcfastphonics.com/

http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.asp

Vocabulary in multiple languages

http://montessorihome.com/readingcards/common.shtml

Learn to Read Hebrew

http://www.beverlyhillschabad.com/reading-hebrew/pages/title-page.htm

(Click "Enter" to start. It's bold and large, but easy to miss in the middle of the page somehow....perhaps because you read the text below it before you are supposed to click it?)

Free online foreign language courses

This site links to courses in over 115 languages, plus many other resources for learning languages for free. Igbo anyone?

http://www.word2word.com/course.html

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Math Curriculum Option

http://www.smartkiddies.co.nz/

This is K-6 ( I think, it's a New Zealand program, so years 1-7, levels 1-3?).

The full program is only accessible if you pay for it (boo!), but you can access 2 lessons per day free. It is limited when its free (lets you create an account, but doesn't track your students...).

Still, if you're looking for complete online math, free, this is an option, albeit a limited one. It includes games, video lessons, interactives, and printables.

Friday, September 10, 2010

the Kindergarten Curriculum I'm using this year

This is the Kindergarten curriculum I'm using for my gifted 5 yo this year:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_151f8h562g5

Film, music, and pop media history Time Machine

http://yttm.tv/v/1921

This is really fun. Click a year and go at it!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Math Teacher Online

TenMarks.com is a fee-based online math program for grades 3-10. They do have a significant free resource though:

http://teacher.tenmarks.com/search-home

Sign up as a teacher (free and easy) and you have access to well over a thousand online math videos, similar to Khan Academy in that you have a virtual whiteboard on screen rather than a real live teacher, but the real live teacher does narrate and write on the screen as you go.

You can access the videos here, too: http://www.youtube.com/user/TenMarksInstructor, but the advantage of using the Teacher.Tenmarks site is they have a nice interface that lets you choose topics by grade level or by topic.

If your student needs help understanding a concept, you need someone else to teach it (this happens to all of us homeschoolers sometimes!), or you're a DIY curriculum person, this could be a really valuable resource for you.