Homeschool Freebies

 It's time for the annual freebie directory from The Old Schoolhouse magazine.

Excuse my daughter's long legs
in the picture!

I recently received a lot of free science magazines from Natural Inquirer (get the play on words?)  I requested a sample pack and was surprised by the extent of what I received!I requested the middle school selection. Get your free science magazines HERE. Warning: not necessarily a Biblical worldview but still informative information.

Lastly today, my friend shared a new freebie from Nat Geo. It's free, printable, topography maps. You can select where you want in the United states, and it will print 5 PDF pages up for you which includes:  

• Page 1 is an overview map showing the topo in context
• Pages 2 through 5 are the standard USGS topo cut in quarters to fit on standard printers

Find your Nat Geo topography maps HERE

Friday Funny--Geography Awareness Week, Nov. 16-22

Free Printable!! My Country Report

Are you ready for another free printable?!?

Here is a fill-in the blank report for a country. I made it because I thought it would be a great introduction to writing reports about countries.

It's definitely a step above just fill in the blank sheets, because the answers are plugged into an existing report format. It becomes an introduction in the proper format to write a report. The last sentence is an open format allowing the student to include one interesting fact of their own.

It was also a first experience in research. Usually, mija and I look things up together. For this report, I found a couple of website with information about Australia and let her research from those. Previewed sites allowed me to have assurance that she wasn't going to come across unwanted content.

I've also included a key, so you know exactly what each blank needs.

This will regularly be available on my My Printables page.

Let me know what you think!

  

Wonders of the World--History, Geography, Science and more

Back when we did Classical Conversations, mija learned the "7 Wonders of the Ancient World" song which goes like this:

She was almost 5 at time. I know. Adorable! ;-)

Anywho...

I came across this cool site by Google entitled World Wonders Project. Using all that Google map technology, the project takes you to various historical and natural wonders of the world. You can search by location or by theme to find everything from Stonehenge to the Grand Canyon. Google uses it's street view to actually allow you to walk around the area. There are also history information, videos, photos, and more available for each location. 
Here's one of their promotion videos to show you what I mean.

Check it out!

To Bee or not to Bee...various Bees & Bowls I've heard of

There are actually many different bees around. I thought I'd share a few. 

Of course, there is the Scripps National Spelling Bee.--Registration and local bees happening now.

National Bible Bee--During the summer

National Geographic Bee--School bees going on now

National History Bee--Registration going on now.

Numbers Bee--online math tournament

How about some Bowls?

National Science Bowl

National History Bowl

Bible Bowl

Do you know of any Bees or Bowls I've missed? Please share!

Sharing More Educational Websites including 2 Catechism sources

Here are some more sites I recently added to Helpful Homeschool Websites.

New York Philharmonic Kidzone.

Lufthansa-Virtual Pilot -- European Geography

Visual Fractions

The Fabulous Songbook

A-Z Worksheets -- free printable worksheets

Hamfests and Conventions Calendar

Project Wild

Education.com

New City Catechism

A Catechism for Girls and Boys

Have Fun with History

English for Everyone--printable language worksheets

The Education of Missions

A couple of weeks ago, our church had it's missions emphasis week.  It's always a blessing to not only remember and offer special prayers for our missionaries but also to have the opportunity to meet some of them.

What was really cool was how God worked our history into the last Sunday of missions emphasis week!

In history, we were studying the Islamic invasion of Spain.  Long

story short, the Berber muslims came from the Morocco area into Spain across what we now call Gilbraltar.  The became known as the Moors.

Well, our missionary on Sunday was a Berber from Morocco who had accepted Christ.  He ended up in Spain which had once been Islamic and now reaches the lost in Northern Africa!  (I can't tell you his name because it could put his life and ministry in danger.)

Now, not everybody can have missionaries whose appearance prohibit the church doing the usual live-feed during the service, but everyone can include missions as part of their education!

Here's just a few ideas that come to mind:

1. Geography (I know, duh.)  Flags, capitals, etc.
2. Culture--Oh, and don't assume the culture issue.  Sure Spain has a general culture, but I know another missionary that reaches out to the Gypsies.  That's a whole different culture!
3. Language--Learn some basic phrases your missionary would use everyday.
4. Literature--What are some of the fairy tales or classics from the country?

5. Letter writing--Practice letter writing and penmanship skills.
6. Stamp collecting--We once had a missionary to Japan that would always include used stamps in their letters for those who collected.
7. Money--What's the money like there? What's the current excange rate and how does that work?  Why would a family of four serving in Japan proabably need more support than serving in Mexico?
8. Art--Who are some of the famous artists from that country.
9. Music--What's the traditional music? 
10. Holidays--What are some special holidays they celebrate OR what special ways do they celebrate the same holidays you do?
11. Food--We used to arrange prayer dinners at a church we used to attend.  We had food that was from the country we were covering, decorated, and then prayed for our missionaries and the country.
12. Fellowship--Nothing makes praying and learning about missionaries easier than getting to know them.  Invite for dinner or dessert when they are in town.  Get on their regular prayer letter list.
13. Service--In what ways can you minister to them on the field?  Save all the money from not drinking soda pop for a month to donate to a well to be built.  Pass on your homeschool curriculum to a missionary homeschooling on the field.
14. History--It meant a lot more to hear from our missionary when we knew the history of the peoples and countries involved.

15. Mileage/Measurement--Distance they have to travel from one place to another.  Which missionary is the furthest and which the nearest?  Do they use the metric system?  Do some conversions?

16. Architecture--Why are those Roman Roads everywhere?  ;-)

17. Astronomy--This would be really cool if they lived in a different hemisphere.  My missionary friend and their church members in Australia didn't get much out of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 since it wasn't seen there.

18. Seasons--Again, totally different in northern to southern hemispheres.  Why?

Okay, so that's off the top of my head.  What are your ideas?