Not Another Homeschool Blog

Unfortunately, one of the sites I have relied on heavily (Hippocampus) to provide my kids with free, high quality education is has lost it's contract with NROC  but I have found a couple new sites for you to try.  Keep in mind that most of my picks are for high school students, as that is hardest to find, and that you need to check these out thoroughly. My kids no longer try out these sites as they are in college, so I rely on reviews, poking around, and a couple hours of trial access. 10.   MIT Open Courseware  is a great way to challenge advanced students who aren't quite ready for the college classroom environment.  Most specifically, I recommend the Audio  Video Lecture based courses  as they are easier to follow. 9.   Spanish Hour has helped a couple of young people I know with this very important foreign language. You can start with the basic free membership, and then move to Premium membership for the extra tools later. It helps to prep...

This program is usually $39.95 a school year, but this summer it is free. " At TenMarks, we believe in student achievement. When students work on TenMarks, they have access to hints and video lessons on EVERY problem, so if they can't recall something, or didn't quite get the topic when it was covered in class, they can quickly review the content, and move forward. Immediate support improves motivation and builds confidence, and our data shows that it does wonders for student outcomes." I suggest you try it.  It seems like a perfect balance between two of my favorites, Khan Academy and ALEKS.com.

As I showered this morning, I pondered on Maya Angelou's life and what she accomplished. (Yes, I am still stuck on that).   Then I thought on how old I am and what I still want to accomplish and realized that she wasn't much younger than 1 when she wrote her first book.  It dawned on me then to do a timeline of her life to see what age she was at when she made her accomplishments. These ages are approximate, but you get the picture. Thankfully, WSOCTV started the project and I supplemented with the timelines at softschools.com  and a few other websites, and I mostly had to do the math to figure out her age. April 4, 1928 -  born in St. Louis, Missouri. Age 9 raped by mothers boyfriend and becomes mute for a number of years Age 13 Moved to California with mother and brother, when to high school and studied dance and drama at a college program.

As a homeschooler you might think I would say that that the brightest family of kids I know were homeschooled.  I'd love to say that, but it is not true.  Now I know some really bright kids, and I know some families full of bright kids that were homeschooled, but the family with the brightest kids on my radar went to public school. But here's the thing... The parents were completely in charge of their children's education.  The knew what the kids were studying at all times. They sat down with their kids every night and knew what their kids knew and what their kids did not know. And when the kids were done with the school issued work, they assigned them more.  The kids did public school by day, and they "homeschooled" by night. I was privileged to hear one of the children speak in a church graduation celebration. He was already in college and addressed those who were graduating that year. As he told it, he and his siblings least favorite day was the last day of...