Archive for the ‘Ebooks’ Category
Taking the fear out of reading
Scary movies, suspenseful novels – we all love a good scare. But sometimes, the pictures in picture books are too scary for children to enjoy reading the book. The wicked stepmother in Snow White can make you shudder, the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz can make you scream.
If you want your children to read these stories, help take the fear out of them. Download the book and offer them just the text. Go chapter by chapter and after each chapter is read, have them draw a picture. By the end you have a fully illustrated version of the story, all drawn by your child. It is a great keepsake, and a great way to make the characters easier to handle!
Sometimes school work can be boring. If a child is not enjoying the subject or is struggling with the lesson it can be hard to teach them.
Theme units are a great way to beat the boredom. Pick a theme your child enjoys and develop it into a lesson plan. Or find a theme unit that already exists and use it. Because theme units encompass cross-curricular activities all geared to that specific theme, your child can get a well-rounded lesson on something they enjoy. It is amazing how keen they will be to do their school work when pirates or princesses are involved!
Home educators have the ability to allow their children to learn each subject at their own pace. There is no need for specific grade levels across the board. Let’s face it, some subjects are harder for us than others and therefore may take more time to learn, or will be learned at a higher or lower level.
Students who struggle in Math may be advanced in English. Or, someone who enjoys Science may excel at it but not do so well in Geography. These variances in learning levels can be taught through unit studies. A unit study takes a topic of study and offers activities and worksheets across the curriculum. Many unit studies incorporate different levels of learning so that it can be used for various grade levels, or learning levels. They also offer a variety of lesson ideas to expand a child’s knowledge on the subject and a chance to study it further on their own.
The trend these days is to go green – reduce, reuse and recycle. This is a great lesson to teach children so that it becomes a habit that they don’t have to think twice about doing. One of the best ways to teach this lesson is by example.
Using green school supplies such as paper made from recyclable materials is one step. Having downloadable workbooks is another. By downloading the ebook you only print the pages you need, the ones suited to the lesson and learning style of the student. This greatly reduces the problem of half finished workbooks and saves how much paper needs to be used!
Although the practice of teaching home-schooled kids can be a joy, tracking down books can be another story entirely. In public schools, the textbooks are often long out-of-date and torn to shreds, but at least they are provided free of charge. It’s not until college that most kids have to start worrying about paying grossly exorbitant prices for books. Home-schoolers have to provide their own study materials from the outset.
Parents of home-schooled kids like to get as much value for their money as possible; that way they can afford more materials for the next semester. Used homeschool books are considerably cheaper than new copies, and they are not defaced and marked up in the fashion of public school hand-me-downs. And since they are become the propety of the student, they don’t need to be turned back in at the end of a semester.
A unit study, or thematic unit offers a comprehensive overview of a specific topic. It provides a variety of activities that cover science, math, language arts, social studies and fine arts. A unit on Vikings for example could contain a mapping activity for geography, a saga lesson for language studies, some math questions about how much a Viking ship can carry and more.
Not only do unit studies provide lessons and worksheets across the curriculum but they can also provide lessons for a variety of learning styles and levels. Unit studies are especially helpful for the reluctant learner because they can be about a topic that is a favorite and will therefore make them more willing to learn!
When it comes time to hunt for home-based learning materials, you can save a trip to a dusty book shop by broadening your horizons. The Internet has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities by providing access to virtually unlimited sources of information. Whereas public schools have a tendency to indoctrinate children with the same old science textbooks and English reading lists, homeschooled kids have other options.
Electronic books, or eBooks, can be purchased online at minimal cost, and they are easily stored in electronic reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s PRS-500. EBooks have been highly touted for their portability; you can fit the equivalent of 500 books in your pocket. These electronic books have revolutionized the publishing industry, and they could soon do the same for textbooks.