Bible Based Phonics Curriculum

This is a wonderful freebie for those of you beginning to introduce your little ones to phonics. These units are designed to cover the beginning vowels sounds while using the Bible to teach them. Check out Phonics by the book here. I would encourage you not to judge a book by its cover but go ahead and download one and take a good look at it before deciding (it is free after all). She does do a nice job of putting the material together well and has a great outline included on how to use the books.

This is a work in progress and there are currently 11 books are up. You will be brought to the Teachers pay Teachers website and if you don’t have an account you will be required to create a Free account before you can download the materials. It is free but account creation is required.

Bible Curriculum – For K-12

I have discovered a little gem for Bible curriculum. It is a through the Bible program designed to go through the Bible in three years. The author of the blog Thinking Kids has designed the Bible Road trip curriculum. The curriculum has been designed in such a way that it can be utilized for any school age child. Children of all age ranges are covered in the same lessons-you just tailor to the ages of your children. She encourages the children to think and The curriculum itself is free but you will probably want to buy a few books to utilize it the best possible way. Check out Bible road trip here. And I suggest that you use the index she has set up, so you can follow in order fairly easily. For the books of History section that she has done, she also has note booking pages included. From what I can gather from the website, she will continue to work on adding the other note booking pages as she has time. It is a wonderful work in progress and I would encourage you to check it out to see if it is something your family can use.

Beginning to Read

Teaching your child to read can be a daunting task. One may wonder, am I doing it right? Will my child(ren) grow up to be good readers? Is the curriculum I am using the best one for my child? Fortunately, there is not just one way to teach your child to read. And more than likely if you are reading with your child nearly every day and you are using a curriculum of some sort, your child will learn to read. Now, we still want to prove the best education we can and help our children to be the best readers they can be. Right?

I have found an online beginning reading program. It is free to use, however it is all online. Reading this way may be cumbersome for some but may work well for others. Check out Harriette Taylor Treadwell’s curriculum at the Baldwin project. Her curriculum is from the early 1900′s and covers grades 1-3. The stories that are used in this curriculum have a character trait or moral point. These stories will allow your child to develop not only their reading skills but also their thinking skills.

There is a teacher’s manual included and I would strongly recommend that you begin there so you understand how to go about implementing the curriculum. There are two different ways to teach reading presented in the manual.

If you wish to purchase an e-copy of the book, you can do so and have it downloaded to either your kindle or other reading device as they have both kindle and e-pub formats available.

Head on over to the Baldwin Online Children’s literature project to check out this and many other children’s books.

e-reader girl

This is a blog dedicated to delivering free e-books to your inbox everyday. They post books for kindle and nook. There are books for you and for your children. The e-mails deliver quality free books and the links in the post takes you directly to the website for purchase. They usually start with a few books for adults and then there are a few for younger readers.  All the books are reviewed and have either a christian or educational basis. Check them out at e-readergirl.com.

Blogs I enjoy

There are a few blogs that I truly enjoy reading and following personally. I am listing them here for you to review. Some are related to home school but most are not. I hope that you are able to find a new blog to follow that will help you as a person, wife, mother, homeschooler or whatever other role you find yourself in. I will not be listing a lot of blogs here as my goal is to only follow a few that I personally find helpful to me.

Hands Free Mama

This blog is about a mother who has chosen to go hands free. She explains why she has decided to go “hands free” in a world full of cell phones, tablets and computers that keep our hands and minds focused on them instead of focusing fully on the life that is going on right in front of us. As a parent I find her challenge a good reminder of what is truly important. The author of the blog is very honest about her story and struggles. If you struggle with being fully present with your kids or at other events then I would challenge you to give this blog a read. She posts one or twice a month so it won’t be clogging your inbox with updates.

The Mom Initiative

This is a Christian based website and that sends out weekly e-mails of encouragement. Their mission statement is Mothers on a Mission to Mentor other Mothers. The e-mails they send out are truly helpful and their goal is to help women find and foster mentoring relationships as illustrated in the Bible in Titus chapter 2.

Testing

Some states require that you administer tests at specific intervals along the way. In some states you must test your children every few years and report that they met the minimal requirements.  For some of you, you may want to test periodically just to see how your students are doing. Perhaps you want to make sure that your children are on target for their grade. Whatever the reason for administering the test there are free resources out there to help you. Now please keep in mind that the sites listed below are for your personal use only and will not meet state requirements for testing. These are for your use if you want to get some practice in before doing a mandated test or to gauge where your child is at.

New York has previous years exams along with the answers on their website. Click through to the year you are interested in and you will find the test, directions and key. They do list by subject so you can choose which ones you are interested in. Click here.

Texas has also provided some of their previous years tests and answers keys. Check out their website here.

Other states that also have previous testing materials online include: Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada and Oregon. Just click on the state name and it will take you to the respective website.

For low cost testing that may meet your states requirements (you must verify with your state what your laws and requirements are) you can check out Christian Liberty Press’ CAT test. They offer an online version for $25 and you generally have results in an hour or so.

If you know your state’s website that has previous tests listed and want it added just leave a comment below.

And what tests do you use to chart your student’s progress?

Bible Based Homeschooling Blog

This blog is for those who are interested in having a Biblically based home school curriculum. The author provides link to resources that are free or budget friendly.  If you sign up for the emails you will get one e-mail a day. There are new resources posted daily. There is a great but short outline of how she home schools with the Bible as the center of their home school curriculum in the FAQ’s section. Check out Bible Based Homeschooling here.