Homeschooling-ideas Blog

Get inspired!! Keep up-to-date with wonderful Homeschooling-ideas.

I truly believe the right ideas and creative thinking can spark amazing learning opportunities. As well as showing the newest pages from Homeschooling-ideas.com, my blog has extra links and brilliant ideas you can use.

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The Periodic Table for Kids

A Periodic Table Box is a great way of exploring the periodic table for kids. Collect element examples and add them to your box.

Home School Schedule

Writing your home school schedule can be daunting, but you can create a schedule that works for you and inspires your family.

Autonomous Learning

An example of autonomous learning in action. Louisa shares a typical day of an unschooler.

Thanksgiving for Kids

A wonderful way to demonstrate the meaning of thanksgiving for kids - make a family Thanksgiving Tree.

Homeschooled Kids Carnival

The Second Homeschooled Kids Carnival is up - and there have been some wonderful entries this month.

The children have produced some really interesting posts - from computer games to puppies, book reviews to pictures. They have all obviously worked really hard.

Do encourage your children to take a look at some of these fantastic blogs - I am hoping they will want to submit their own entry next time! Go to this page for details.

Thank you to all the children who submitted this month. Your blogs are great and it was wonderful to host them here.

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Effects of Computer Games

Wondering about the effects of computer games on your child's Homeschool Learning? Read about my experiences.

Halloween Activities and Resources

Halloween slime, and apple head witches - some great halloween activities and resources to help you Homeschool

Homeschool Video

This 'I Will Survive' homeschool video is probably all over the blogosphere by now, but as some of my friends don't read any other blogs except mine (thank you loyal friends!!), this is for you!

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Rainforest Lesson Book Review

Book Review: This fabulous book by Anne Morddel will bring to life your rainforest lesson or unit study. A wonderful resource.

Creative Writing Activities for Kids

Creative Writing Activities for Kids - Get you child writing and thinking with these creative ideas.

Homeschool Anatomy Resources

Are you studying anatomy at the moment? I have found a great site with free online games on muscles and bones!

Anatomy Arcade has games and puzzles including Whack-a-Bone and Brain Jigsaw. It seems aimed at teenagers, but I played with my 10yo with no problems. The games are well designed and you do have to learn the bone or muscle structure to succeed. This would also go well with the Online Human Anatomy program I mention on my free homeschooling resources page.

If you enjoyed this game, then I have more Free Online Educational Games outlined on my site. Perfect for a rainy afternoon!

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Homeschooling Ideas for Fall

It seems that Fall is upon us!! Well - here in the UK it is begining to get cold. I thought it was time to update our tree project.

I thought about using halloween as a theme for the tree this year, but in the end decided I really wanted to try making tie-dyed leaves. We really enjoyed making these. The leaves were easy to make and gave great results.

I guess the halloween theme can wait until next fall!

I would love to see your trees. Let me know what Fall theme you choose.

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Homeschooled Kids Carnival #1

Welcome to the first edition of the Homeschooled Kids Carnival. Thank you to everyone who submitted an entry to get the ball going.

Homeschool Blogs by Kids

Are your homeschooled kids looking for a way to promote their blogs? Try this carnival for homeschool blogs by kids.

Homeschool History Resources

Get inspired! There are so many ways of bringing Homeschool History to life, and I have some fantastic resources to share with you.

Homeschool Success!

Making our THINK bracelets recently got me thinking about goal setting again.

In the New Year we had created a family Vision Board so I went back to check what we had achieved.

Amazingly, quite a few of the items on the board had appeared in our lives. The most noticeable was that my daughter had used a lot of pictures of puppies in her side of board! Now, at the time there was NO WAY we were going down that road! But stuff happens! And here is a picture of my daughter with her puppy!

I smile when I see her playing with, or training the dog. She has learnt the power of dreaming impossible dreams and seeing them come true! Not straight away maybe - but eventually. I think this is a wonderful life lesson and one I hope she carries with her as she grows up.

The vision board is something we will certainly use again. It is a great way of clarifying what we REALLY want from life. And a great way to introduce goal setting for kids, and ensuring homeschool success!

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Homeschool Ideas

More great homeschool ideas - make a THINK or WISH bracelet to help achieve harmony in your homeschooling.

Another Cool Carnival

The 8th Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers is up.

I really enjoyed this one. It has some very interesting posts. You may want to watch 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do video below before visiting Silvia's post on Slingshots!. And check out Shell's great idea.

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Can children teach themselves?

Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

A video of a talk by Sugata has recently been posted on TED - it makes interesting viewing. And proves that children CAN teach themselves.

Fun Homeschooling

I love to have a pile of attractive little blank books around for the children to grab when inspiration strikes. Why not have a fun homeschooling session making your own?

Homemade books can be really special - yet simple and cheap to make. Use them for your journaling/drawing sessions, or carry a few with you when you are on the road for instant entertainment. Leave them blank, or stick in puzzles and story prompts for extra inspiration.

I have added some making instructions and ideas to the site - I hope your special books inspires some special writing!

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Relaxed Homeschooling

Relaxed homeschooling is establishing a lifestyle that naturally leads everyone in the family to learning.

Homeschooling Unit Studies

I have just added a new World War II Unit Study to Homeschooling-ideas.com!

We spent ages looking at World War II - and I still have some ideas to add to the page but wanted to get it up and running for you as quickly as possible. You can find it here.

As usual I began my unit study with a book - in this case 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' by Judith Kerr. We also read 'Wildflower' by Cynthia Kadohata. I would recommend both, but if you are still looking for ideas, I have listed more World War II fiction books on the home school book list page.

I am sure there is loads of stuff you can do with this topic! Do let me know your ideas.
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More Homeschooling Ideas

We have had a little homeschool history fun this week, making our own survival kits.

How is this history? Read about it on my survival kit page. We really had a lot of fun making these, and they have proved useful already!

I would love to hear if you try it - or about any other great homeschooling idea you have!
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Home School Science

I would never have guessed that a power-cut would lead us to another really wonderful learning experience!

After we had such a good time in the dark, during a power-cut, I put together a unit study plan to take a look at electricity! We pretended we had no electricity, and that really focused us on how much we rely on it.

We really enjoyed our home school science studying, and I hope you find it useful.

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Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers

The 7th Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers is up - and it's another good one. Why not go take a look at Homeschooled Twins.

The next carnival is August 25th. If you have a blog, why not submit a post?

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Homeschooling Nature

I have recieved my first submission for the tree project.

Many thanks to Heather for these great pictures of her family tree. I think the idea of a 'back to homeschool' tree is inspired! Can't wait to see next seasons. To hear her story, and see more pictures, why not visit Heather's blog.

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Homeschooling Boys

I think in some ways, you need to be more creative in homeschooling boys. Their need to be constantly on the move can be challenging!

I have started a page to capture creative homeschooling ideas for boys, and kicked it off with a look at making bows and arrows. We managed quite a bit of history with this one, and it got them very interested in the archery at the Olympics.

I would love to hear if you try it - or any other great homeschooling boys ideas you have!
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Homeschool History

I have been busy going through my homeschool History books for you, and have began putting together some recommendations.

So far, I have added a list of World War II fiction books for children. I am putting together a unit study for this, so will let you know when that is available.

I have also added a book recommendation for Robert Opie Scrapbooks. We have several of these and love them, but I wonder if they are too British for you!! Let me know what you think.

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Homeschooling Science and Nature

We have been working on 'The Tree Project' for a couple of years now. Our tree has become part of our family - and helps us keep in touch with the rhythm of the seasons.

The idea of the project is to decorate a large tree-shaped stick or twig each season. You can keep this simple, or go to town! As the season changes I will remind you it is time to re-decorate your tree, and give you some extra ideas of what to use, via this blog.

To read more, and contribute your own ideas and pictures, see the Tree Project page.

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Make Your Own Animation

After much swearing at technology, I have finally managed to get the childrens animated film up on the website!

We had great fun making this. It took quite a long time to decide on the theme, and the story seemed to develop as we went! But we did get to screen it at a Homeschooling get-together, which they loved. They have gone on to make quite a few more animations - using clay and lego people.

You can view their film on the animations page. I hope it inspires you to try it yourself!