Saturday, November 10, 2012
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Free Interactive Game for Learning Temperature
We are learning temperature in first grade math today. Here's a very simple cute interactive online game to reinforce learning.Circumventing Impulse Buying at the Dollar Store
I love the dollar stores, but I always seem to end up with more than I absolutely need, and my daughter comes with me every time, which means she wants things. It all becomes a struggle that I would altogether rather avoid.
So, I tried the Dollar Tree online and got 3.5% off my order by clicking through the Bigcrumbs.com shopping portal.
Sunday, November 04, 2012
DIY Straw Mattress
Click on source link above for directions.
We did this! It is actually very comfortable. I used a thick zippered futon cover purchased on ebay and stuffed it with clean straw. Over top, and underneath the bed sheet, is a homemade bed topper(old quilts sewn together) for extra comfort. It's a heck of a money saver and the straw smells wonderful. I mixed a small amount of boric acid powder into the straw to sanitize and bug proof it.
I've had my straw bed since August. I think the straw should be changed out every so often. I'll probably wait to see how long it lasts before replacing it. I will definitely replace mine when new straw comes back to the garden centers.
The first few weeks the straw did shift around, but shaking and flipping it over every few days solved this problem. Now it stays in place and is great if you like a firmer mattress. It helps my back quite a bit. Ours is on a homemade platform bed which is long pine lumber over three attached large beams...very Modern Rustic/Oriental. The lumber is open spaced, rather than fitted tightly together, for air circulation. We got the supplies at a big box store, so the whole bed was very inexpensive!
Our platform bed looks a bit like this:
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Dutch Bedtime Stories
The Last Radicals:Homeschoolers
"There is exactly one authentically radical social movement of any real significance in the United States, and it is not Occupy, the Tea Party, or the Ron Paul faction. It is homeschoolers, who, by the simple act of instructing their children at home, pose an intellectual, moral, and political challenge to the government-monopoly schools, which are one of our most fundamental institutions and one of our most dysfunctional. Like all radical movements, homeschoolers drive the establishment bats..." Read more here.
All my life I've been told I'm too independent. :)
All my life I've been told I'm too independent. :)
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Free Children's Burgess Bird Book Companion Resources
"I’ve put together a list of resources to complement this fantastic book. This companion document is not affiliated with the Burgess Bird Book for Children, it is simply a handy reference to list related links. I’ve linked to the top bird identification sites and to free coloring pages. I couldn’t resist looking up the Audubon plush birds with sound calls, we have a few in our collection."
See here.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Building Vocabulary: Online Vocabulary Quizzes
I just signed up for Vocabulary.com, a free site that gives you quizzes adjusted to your knowledge levels in a game type style with scores and rounds. If you get an answer wrong it provides the definition and allows you to hear the pronunciation. Vocabulary is taken from major news sources and classic literature. You can click on the source of the example sentences for further reading.
I enjoyed it! I worked one round missing the word "legerdemain". I took Spanish in school, and not French. If I had taken French I'd have recognized this word!
This is a great homeschool resource for building vocabulary.
I enjoyed it! I worked one round missing the word "legerdemain". I took Spanish in school, and not French. If I had taken French I'd have recognized this word!
This is a great homeschool resource for building vocabulary.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Free Lecture: Introduction to Logic
See here by professor, Gerard Casey of University College, Dublin." Professor Casey has been teaching logic and other courses in philosophy for over 30 years."
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Advanced Science Opportunities: Citizen Astronomers
According to PCmag.com, "The Planet Hunters citizen science website proved its mettle in a big way yesterday with the announcement of its first confirmed planet discovery, which also happens to be the first planet to be found in a quadruple star system.
Citizen Astronomers
The Planet Hunters website, which was launched in December 2010, lets the public search for exoplanets—planets orbiting other stars—in data from NASA’s Kepler planet-search project, which images a star field containing some 160,000 stars, measuring each star’s brightness every half hour. The volunteers look at light curves—graphs showing fluctuations in a star’s brightness over a period of roughly a month—looking for transits, brief dips in a star’s brightness that could indicate the passage of an unseen object, possibly a planet, in front of the star. Public response to this project has been overwhelming; more than 170,000 people have registered at the site."
Citizen Astronomers
The Planet Hunters website, which was launched in December 2010, lets the public search for exoplanets—planets orbiting other stars—in data from NASA’s Kepler planet-search project, which images a star field containing some 160,000 stars, measuring each star’s brightness every half hour. The volunteers look at light curves—graphs showing fluctuations in a star’s brightness over a period of roughly a month—looking for transits, brief dips in a star’s brightness that could indicate the passage of an unseen object, possibly a planet, in front of the star. Public response to this project has been overwhelming; more than 170,000 people have registered at the site."
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