Homeschool Money Saver: Make Your Own Notebooks

Frugal Homeschooling: Making your own books, notebooks, and notepads is easy! Here are some ideas and links to easy notebook making projects that are fun for the kids as well. It's a fun "getting back into homeschooling" project to start your school year off in a fun way that will encourage reluctant writers. I started doing this because I love office supplies! Letting me anywhere near an Office Depot or Staples is a dangerous where my bank account is concerned. Geekling has inherited this trait, he loves notebooks, Post It notes, index cards, and Sharpies. So to save money, make Geekling want to write and so we can have custom notebooks and notepads for different purposes, we've started making our own!

Safe YouTube for Kids

YouTube is a great tool for letting your child explore their interests or just have fun for a bit, but it can quickly lead to wildly inappropriate content. Free Kido'z TV Is a Kid-Friendly Online Video Aggregator that presents kid safe videos so your kids can explore without bad language or sexual content. The link above is to the Lifehacker article that explains more, here's the direct link to the site. It is compatible with Chrome, Firefox, and Android Phones. I love new internet safety tools!

Here is the direct link to Kido'z TV, here is the direct link to the Kido'z browser, which is a safe internet browser for kids. We use this when I need to make dinner or my focus will be elsewhere so the Geekling can explore the internet independently without worry.

Homeschool Field Trips Hampton Roads, Tidewater, Virginia Beach Area

Image via Wikipedia

Virginia Beach, VA "Not Back to School Celebration"

Looking for fun Field Trips for homeschoolers in Virginia Beach and the Hampton Roads area? I'm posting our list of planned Field Trips and Homeschool activities now that I've finally finished my Notice of Intent and Curriculum Description. We are using interest led learning to an extent, but I'll provide materials that lead us to topics connected to our upcoming Field Trips. I wanted to share some of the fun Field Trips and Learning Opportunities available in the Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, Washington DC, Colonial Williamsburg, and Northeast North Carolina areas that we'll be doing once the tourists are gone. Links after the jump...

Fun Free Civics and Social Studies Learning! iCivics

Image via WikipediaSupreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has founded iCivics. Free games and learning resources to teach your children how our government and political process works. It is important that we teach our children to become good citizens and understand the rights and responsibilities of being an American.


iCivics includes free Civics Curriculum Outlines, state specific resources, free printables, and more. They even a game that will help them understand the budget, which would be a great companion to current events. This is an online curriculum, but it offers plenty of real world engagement. Help your homeschooler learn about persuasive writing, the branches of government, the Billl of Rights and what protections each Amendment offers, and more.

Raise an engaged, educated, and involved citizen who understands what being an American means, give iCivics a try today!

Cool Science and Nature Project: Carnivorous Plant Eats Bird

Image by t.abroudj via FlickrIgnite your child's imagination with this weird science article from the BBC! "Truth is stranger than fiction" articles are great discussion and story starters, inspiration for art projects, and a fun way to get your child interested in science! Here are some ideas for a unit study or homeschool notebooking or lapbooking project on "Weird and Wonderful Nature."

Creating Your Own Curriculum: Inspiration For Learning Without Tears

This article about what they thought the future would be like in 1901 is great inspiration for fun homeschool projects that incorporate history, language arts, math, science, social studies, reading, writing, culture, and technology. I've blogged my process in "lesson planning" and creating a Unit Study, Unschooling, or Project Based Learning Homeschooling "curriculum" so you can more easily understand or explain how kids learn without a formal curriculum. If you are just getting started in homeschooling, think about interests, books, movies, or hobbies you have that would be a fun place to start in creating a lesson plan, unit study, or idea list to incorporate it into your day to day learning. This is a good way to try "unschooling" as well. See how many creative learning opportunities you can provide through your child's interests! So if you like Unit Studies, Project Based Learning, Waldorf, Montessori, or just want to inspire your unschooled child to do some fun writing and arts and crafts, read on!

Free Language Arts Resources

I've been struggling to find good Language Arts resources, so here are some ideas for cobbling together your own! Here are the links I've used in putting together my curriculum and tools I use often. I decided to create my own 2nd Grade Language Arts curriculum that includes some 1st grade resources (writing) and some skills typically used in 2nd - 4th grade. I haven't found anything I feel would work for us "out of the box" and I wanted to use a more literature based, Great Books approach anyway.