Practical Homeschooling » kindergarten

Free Printable Islamic Coloring Pages

Laura — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:20:22 +0000

If you’re looking for resources to teach your children about and Islam (we are nearing the end of the holy month of Ramadan), I have a page on Squidoo full of coloring pages on numerous topics in the religion of Islam.

For Islamic coloring pages, click here.

100 Great Books To Read Together

Laura — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 06:02:16 +0000

Studies have shown that when children are exposed to reading from as early an age as possible, they establish an essential foundation for their future literacy. I have fond memories as a child, of my mother reading to me before bedtime. I had a large library of books from Dr. Seuss, Golden books, etc. that adorned the bookshelves on my wall.

Our local library, Edmonton Public Library, developed a wonderful booklet titled 100 Great Books To Read Together.This small booklet distributed for free at all chapters of the Edmonton Public Library system is a beautiful list of 100 great books you can read with your child at different stages of his or her development.

This booklet is available as a free download from the library’s website, and I have also made it available here on Practical Homeschooling. Please feel free to download and use this list with your children as a resource for great books to read together. EPL has many other resources for preschoolers and young babies available on its website.

Download Booklet Here

Which of these books have you read with your children?

Lesson Pathways: Free Online Curriculum

Laura — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:58:02 +0000

If you’re looking for a free online curriculum for your K-5 child, look no further than Lesson Pathways. The people who set up this site did an excellent job to not only provide quality information, but the site looks great!

To access the content of the site, you must register for a free account. Once signed on, you can register each child to whom you want to assign some work to; this allows you to later check off work as it has been completed.

Each 36-week unit is called a Guided Journey. Once a subject, is selected, you can then select which grade level you wish to assign your child. You can chose from Science, History, Reading and Phonics, Math, Language Arts, Life Skills, and Travel & Field Trips.

A Guided Journey is then divided into individual Pathways, which is a one-week cluster focusing around a specific objective (such as addition facts in grade-1 math, or volcanoes in grade-3 science).

These Pathways are further separated into Stepping Stones, which are individual tasks or resources for 5 days of learning.

Looking to Watch Docs Online?

Laura — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:33:32 +0000

Are you constantly seeking out resources online for your children to watch instead of every day television? There is a reletively inexpensive way to watch anything you want. The girls and I just finished watching a National Geographic episode about the Universe and it still has my girls asking questions.

First of all, you need to have access to a site that hosts large files such as Megavideo. Megavideo is a site that hosts 3-rd party videos (like YouTube) but isn’t designed to be accessed directly. It CAN be free, but if you want the full benefits it has to offer, you need to pay for the subscription. They charge $9.95/month, or $19.95 for 3 months unlimited use.

I don’t have a TV and as such, I believe the low cost is more than worth it as I can view/let my children view specific programming without worrying about undesirable scenes or commercials.

Now that we have a source for watching the documentaries we’d like to see, we need to actually be able to find them. Megavideo does not list it’s own files for the most part. You need a secondary website to do this. TV Shack and Surf the Channel are (as far as I’ve been able to find), the best sites for finding documentary listings. Many hours have been spent in enjoyment of surfind their docs and listening to fascinating lectures.

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Awesome Hello Kitty Pages

Laura — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:12:35 +0000

For all the Hello Kitty fans out there, I’ve found a few gorgeous resources for colouring and activity pages.

Hello Kitty Coloring Pages is a blog that posts high-quality colouring and activity pages.

ColoringBook.info also has a good collection of Hello Kitty pages.