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Did you know that Crayola has FREE Subject based lesson plans? I did not, but was so excited to find these! At Crayola.com you can find lesson plans to go along with several subjects such as Science, Math, and history! You can search by subject, grade, etc, and it will return several ideas you can use in your homeschool. Love this!
Don’t forget to check out all the FREE Homeschool Curriculum suggestions on How To Homeschool For Free!
If you are looking for a free and easy to use spelling curriculum you will definitely want to check out this freebie from AAA Spelling! They have a free spelling and vocabulary curriculum by grade for 1st – 8th grade. With each grade you’ll find thirty spelling and vocabulary lists including practice lessons!
***Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!***
If conflicts occur with curriculum it may be a wrong fit for your child’s learning style. Understanding your child’s learning style aids you in teaching effectively and finding the proper materials.
Homeschool Christian presents three basic categories of learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. You will read that most young children are kinesthetic because the visual and auditory skills are underdeveloped. As children get older, you can observe and determine a specific learning style.
Sonlight presents a thorough 33 minute webinar on learning styles. From their website – “Do you and your child clash? Are you concerned about homeschooling because your student is just so different from you? You’re not alone! Each student is different and this can prove challenging to teachers. As a homeschooler, however, you have the unique opportunity to find tools that match your student’s unique learning style.”
Here you will find tips for studying that are specific for 4 categories of learning styles: Kinesthetic, Visual, Audio, and Other Styles. They have a lot of great ideas that you can implement at home to help your children engage in the learning process.
FamilyEducation works to assess your child’s personality so you can use that information to design your homeschool program to suit your child’s strengths. The article is quite detailed and you have to click to continue on to read all 6 sections. It is based on the Myers-Briggs personality typing system, which is widely accepted. “In the Myers-Briggs scheme, there are four basic elements of personality preferences. Each of these preferences is measured on a scale that has two “sides.” Knowing where a person’s tendency resides on each of these scales determines the person’s overall personality type.”
How to Enhance Learning Styles provides a visual to help you understand how to enhance your children’s learning style.
We hope this helps you better understand your children’s learning styles so you can be better equipped to homeschool your child! Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!
Kids Discover Online has tons of interactive lessons, videos and so much more available for students. They do have a monthly cost for unlimited use, BUT you can register for a free account and have access to up to 200 free lessons. That should get you through quite a few weeks if used as a supplement.
They have several options to choose from in science & history – astronomy, historical figures, time periods, etc. Go here to create your free account or click the graphic above.
Also, check out all the FREE online Homeschool resources on How To Homeschool For Free!
***Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!***
Looking for more art instruction for your homeschool? I found these really nice Free Art Lessons online CarlaHonseim.com. It appears that they have live classes and self paced classes. To access the free, self-paced classes you just click on “Free Stuff” at the top of the page and select the class you want and you will be able to access it from there. They have a ton of classes to choose from so you should be able to find something your child is interested in!
Here are some other helpful free resources on the site:
Free 6 Week art Class here
Free Online Tutorials & Drawing assignments
Check out all the FREE Homeschool Art Resources on How To Homeschool For Free
***Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!***
Are you studying Ancient Greece in your homeschool? If so you will definitely want to check out this freebie from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus. These TWO Free Printable Ancient Greece Lapbooks are available to print at anytime. These lapbooks contain mini-books, notebooking pages, and even a pe-k section. Print these Free Ancient Greek Lapbooks here and here.
Check out all the Free History Learning Resources on How To Homeschool For Free!
How many times have I asked myself this question? Too many, probably. It always seemed to pop up for me when reading a news story about a young child dialing 911 in time to save grandma from a stroke or the family home from a fire. I’d hear these stories and immediately feel the panic rise: would my child know what to do in case of a fire? Would she be able to adequately pass information to emergency personnel? Would she panic speaking to a police officer or paramedic?
Heavy questions like these concerned (terrified) me when my kids were young. And that fear would still creep up at times as they got older. As with most things, though, I’ve found the solution to the problem of “what to do” is to practice.
Where to begin? Well, that starts with what children are capable of remembering. Luckily for us safety-minded parents, children can retain quite a lot! As soon as a toddler can remember songs like the ABC’s and Old MacDonald, they are old enough to remember emergency information like phone numbers, parents’ names, and their address. I found that my kids (and myself) could remember things much easier when put to music, so I made our phone number and address into a song that we sang once a day, along with our other preschool favorites. Once something was given a tune, they remembered it so quickly! Turns out that music is incredibly beneficial for young children, and musical experiences in childhood can actually accelerate brain development. (A fascinating study was conducted in 2016 by the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute to this effect and that’s well worth a read!)
Teach your kids about calling 911, and what constitutes an emergency. Talk about when and why it’s important to retreat to a safe distance from the home (see Meeting Place below) to make the call. Make sure they know to go to a neighbor’s home if they do not have a phone to call from. Pretend to be the dispatcher and have them practice answering questions and giving information. Practice makes perfect and the repetition will make the real thing less scary if they ever have to do it for real.
When it comes to creating a home emergency escape plan, keep these three words in mind – Plan, Practice, Repeat! This is not a one-and-done deal, and it is important to practice over and over with your family. We know that repetition is the fastest way to teach young kids. It doesn’t change as they age!
Know at least 2 ways to get out of every room – After every move or when staying somewhere new, we always draw a map of the house, labeling exits, escape routes, and designating a meeting place. The most important thing to do in case of fire is to get OUT. When creating your map, be sure to draw furniture, windows, and doorways. We talked to our kids and mentioned things like “If you were on the couch, what are 2 ways you could get out?” Or saying where the fire is, and asking them which way they should go to get out. Talk with older siblings about bringing younger ones along on their way out of a room. Talk about safe ways to get pets out of the house if they aren’t in the room with you, like leaving doors and windows open as escape routes.
Set a meeting place – Where will your family meet in case of an emergency? This is an important step that families often forget to plan for. My family has dedicated a neighbor’s home to meet in front of. We are very specific about which home it is, making sure it is a safe distance and I make a point to bring it up often as we drive or walk past it.
Have everyone pack an emergency bag – The goal here is not to pack the kitchen sink, just the immediate essentials you would need if you had to run out of the house in the middle of the night: dry, weather-appropriate clothes, comfortable shoes, water bottle, toiletries. Have your kids help pack them and examine them periodically to make sure everything inside is still the appropriate size or season. Make sure kids know where their bags are and practice getting them when you do your drills.
Ready.gov is a great resource for fire safety and preparedness.
I have grouped these storm types together for the sake of being concise, but they are very different. In case of a category 4 or 5 hurricane, the best thing to do is evacuate. As a lifelong gulf coast resident, I can tell you that these storms are big and incredibly destructive, but relatively slow-moving, and usually, there are days of early warning. Take the important things and go stay inland for a few days.
If early evacuation is possible for a tornado, then do it. But these storms can happen so suddenly and despite advancing early detection systems, they can be deadly. The safest precaution is to plan for what to do if you must shelter in place. First, identify the inner-most, structurally sound room of your house; not on an exterior wall and away from windows. Emergency bags for each family member may be too cumbersome in a tight space like a bathroom or closet, but you can make a special storm or shelter in place bag with small snacks and water, flashlights and batteries, and a first aid kit. Identify who’s job it is to retrieve the bag before heading to safety. Practice tornado drills with your kids so that everyone knows what to grab and where to go.
This list is subjective and in no way all-encompassing, There are so many different places and families and scenarios, so I make no claims that this is the best advice for your children. But this is what I’ve taught mine to do in this situation. Think of it as a framework to kickstart the conversation with your family.
Stay still – So often a child’s gut reaction is to go wandering around looking for mommy or daddy. They know they weren’t supposed to get lost, so they try to make up for it by finding you immediately. Make sure they know that as long as they are in a safe place to stay put so you can come back to them. It’s best to stay in the general area out of the way and somewhere that they can safely wait for help.
Ask a Mommy – We’ve taught our kids that the best person to help them is another mom. If they need help, they should scan for a nice lady with kids and ask for help. People with kids are oftentimes the best equipped to comfort a child and get them back to their parents.
Not a uniform – I know some might be raising their eyebrows at the above advice. Shouldn’t kids go to police officers or firemen? Yes…but in most situations, there isn’t a police officer handy. Unless you happen to be in the grocery store at the same time as one, your kid could be stuck searching for a cop for a long time. Uniforms can also be VERY confusing. At amusement parks, the security officers aren’t dressed in familiar police uniforms and it can be hard for a kid to discern which uniforms are genuine and which ones are not. The same goes for traveling overseas. This is why we always tell our kids to look for a mommy if they are lost.
Don’t leave with your helper – Found someone to help? Great. But make sure your kids understand that they shouldn’t leave their safe spot (e.g., the place where they realized they were lost), says Raffi Bilek, a family therapist, lecturer on child safety, and director of the Baltimore Therapy Center. “Not only does it make it more likely that their parent will come back and find them there, but it also reduces the risk of ending up in a secluded area with a safe helper who turns out not to be so safe,” Bilek says. Instead, simply ask your helper to call your adult if your child knows the phone number, or to phone the police if your child can’t remember the number.
Use full names – Teach them to use their full name when speaking to their helper. Give your child permission to yell loudly and repeatedly, “I want my mommy, where is [parent’s full name].” Knowing full names also makes it much easier for your child to be identified, and will give bystanders or local law enforcement a means of locating parents or guardians.
We have a big first aid kit in our house, as well as a mobile one inside of our emergency bag. My husband and I also have a small kit in each of our vehicles. When our kids were small, we pulled out the big kit at least once a month to inventory the contents with the kids. Good kits are available in many places. We keep a kit similar to this one in our cars. I’m sure you’ve noticed the theme, here, but practice makes perfect! Go over first aid protocols with your kids and familiarize them with your kits as often as you can.
These are not light and fluffy topics to cover with your little ones, but equipping them for emergencies might just save their life. And though the subject matter is difficult, the more you go over what to do, the better prepared your child will be. Having a plan and executing it can help alleviate their fear and your anxiety.
***Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!***
Aren’t these so brilliant??!? These will be so handy when teaching the concept of telling time to your students. The free Printable Telling time puzzles come with 24 printable puzzles which cover concepts of telling time to the hour, half hour, and more.
So cute! Click here or the graphic above to get this freebie. Also, don’t forget to check out all the FREE Homeschool Math resources here on How To Homeschool For Free!
***Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!***
Are your students learning about cells? Anatomy? What about botany or the plant life cycle? If so you will definitely want to go check out these Free Printable Science Charts and Worksheets from Superstar Worksheets!
They have printable charts for labeling all kinds of science topics – animal cells, moon phases, human brain, plant cells, and more! You can print out blank charts as well as the answer keys to go with it. Go here to browse their free worksheets!
Check out all the FREE Homeschool Science Resources on How To Homeschool For Free!
***Be sure to join our How To Homeschool For Free Support Group for daily encouragement and more great resources for your homeschooling journey!***
I thought you guys might enjoy this! I think I might just print this out in color and laminate it for the kids. 🙂
