Our Favorite Picture Books about Birds..... and Birdwatching -

Summary: Picture books and resources for birdwatching, preK through middle school.   This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our homeschool, and click here for my disclosure policy.


One of the reasons that we loved homeschooling our 2e daughter was that we could build in nature study, and getting out in nature whenever we wanted...Well, if it was really raining, we just might not want to, lol.  

This post is now located here:

Our Favorite Books for Birds and Bird Watching - And a Simple Unit Study

What do you like to do to build time with nature into your days?  I love reading your comments.  

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the woods...

Betsy

Betsy blogs at BJ's Homeschool , where she writes about high school,  college, and all the fun of homeschooling the early years, too.  As a former OT, and a veteran homeschooler, Betsy also offers homeschool help to families.  

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Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved    .

Homeschool High School American History - Frugal and FREE Curriculum and Resources

Summary:  Homeschool high school American History frugal curriculum and resources that we loved and also some U.S. History videos for FREE.  This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used in our own homeschool and  please see see our disclosure policy 

Are you looking for frugal resources for U S History for your high schooler?  Do you like to put your own course together, or used a prepared curriculum? 

What to Think About When Making your College Choice

 

Summary:  Making the college choice can be a hard one.  Sharing how we did it, as a family.  #homeschoolinghighschool #gettingtocollege

When your teen gets accepted into multiple colleges, it’s time for 

celebration.  Then, of course, it’s also time for major decision 

making.  It can be overwhelming, too. 

Of course, finances are a big part of it. 

Once we had decided which colleges would be affordable to us, then we looked at a number of factors…and that is what I would like to share with you today.

For us, this process all started at the library, where my daughter researched each of her college options again. 

First we considered the size of the colleges...

1.  Big School or Small Campus

The main decision to be made was between a large state college, and a smaller state college, both within commuting distance of our home.  That would save a lot of money, without having to pay for dorm cost at either option.

Both colleges did have a large choice of majors. 

My teen was enticed by the excitement of the larger college, which had an especially good reputation, and a student size of more than 60,000.  

She knew that some of her friends would be going there, and she liked the architecture and the plaza on the gorgeous large campus.

But would that very large campus meet her social needs?

My daughter was used to working in small groups, and did well with those, finding her way, as she has in her high school Youth and Government activities. 

Would that kind of learning occur at the larger state college?

So, together, we researched the two colleges again.  First, we looked at what each college offered for incoming freshmen orientation and more....

2.  Freshman Intro Seminars & Social Environment 

The smaller college offered freshman seminars, where the students 

would work together in small groups. 

My teen has thrived in this kind of environment.  

Small groups, that's just like her Youth and Government!  The seminars would last all year, giving them time to build friendships, and learn together.

The larger college did not have freshmen seminars. 

They did have a first quarter freshman intro class, and nice raft trip for incoming freshmen, as a way to get to know each other.  But after that, most classes occurred in large lecture halls with over 700 students!

Then, we compared the two on the basis of support offered to the students.  When my teen struggled with a subject, what kind of support would the college offer?

3.  Academic Support

This is what we found.....

The larger college did have some tutoring on campus, but was known to have a very competitive academic environment.  

The smaller one had way more tutoring options available, with much more access to the professors.  

The larger one had many more students per professor, and the teens would usually be dealing with TA's instead of their professors.  

At the smaller college, class size was ideal with about 30 students in each class, compared to 100-600 per class.  Both colleges had solid reputations.

We talked about these issues together with my husband at dinner.  

My teen soon realized that having a smaller, more supportive environment was more important to her than the status of going to the larger college.  

Soon a decision was reached.  And I am so happy that she chose the more supportive environment at the smaller college.

So Thursday, we got out the formal papers, and my teen prepared them for mailing.  She accepted the scholarship offer at the smaller college, and sent in her college acceptance papers!

And she was thrilled!  I am so happy for her, excited, relieved to have the decision made, and a little sad at the same time! 

I decided that, since my daughter was going to college, my family needed a road trip, to celebrate!  So, on Saturday, and we all headed out, of course with our cameras!  Nice, family time was just the ticket, especially for my husband and I.

Country roads always calm me. 

Then we hung out at the local county park, and my daughter decided to pose for a picture.

 

Big decisions call for big playground equipment, don't you think?

Have you seen my facebook group called Homeschooling Through High School?  

 Homeschooling Through High School  

Join us!

After helping my homeschooled high schooler get into each of the colleges she applied to, I wrote this guide:

Homeschooling High School with College in Mind - 2nd edition

Paperback is at Amazon $11.99

Subscribe below to hear about price change coming soon!

For more helpful thoughts on making your college choice for homeschoolers from Vicki at 7 Sisters Homeschool, I invite you to click below:

How to Choose a College for Your Homeschool Graduates

High School Essay Writing

Vicki and 7 Sisters Homeschool also offer lots of great choices for the middle school and teens in your home.
                                                               To the left is one of my favorites from them, called Introductory Guide to High School Essay Writing.                                                                                She has lots more online high school curriculum offerings there, too, all written by experienced homeschooling moms who have graduated their teens from their homeschool.  All frugally priced, most year long courses are less than $30.00.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, highschool, 
college, gifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She offers homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

Want to stay in touch?

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Copyright, 2021 All Rights Reserved

Frugal Homeschool Preschool and Kindergarten Curriculum and Resources - Hands-On

Summary:  Homeschooling preschool and kindergarten can be done so easily through playful learning activities.  Here are our favorite preschool and K resources for doing just that.  Frugal or free!  I am a former preschool teacher who came home to homeschool her child. 

Are you looking for hands-on curriculum and resources for your little learners?

How about some that are frugal or free?

As a former preschool teacher, I recommend using playful and hands-on approaches for the preschool, PreK, and Kindergarten. 

I used many of the early academic activities discussed below in my own preschool for many years.  

Here are my favorites for the preschool and the kindergarten years, which are easy to use and are frugal,too.  

Choose from these ideas and activities, with regards to how preschoolers learn, which is in short spurts of learning activities. They have very short attention spans.

What about attention span issues?  

For preschool, we only worked for 15 minutes at a time.  Our focused learning time in kindergarten was about 1/2 hour to an hour at most.  Little ones really don't have more attention span than that on the average.

This level of work in the early years prepared my daughter well for the elementary years.  She is a homeschool grad now, who also graduated college.  

So be encouraged that hands-on learning works!

Let's start with:

• math play, then
• early language arts
• fine motor activities and handwriting
• arts and crafts
• early science
• the fun of easy field trips.

Again, all of these subject areas do not need to be addressed at the same time.  It all depends on the needs of your child.

1.  MATH PLAY

 Preschool/K - Early Math

We didn't use a complete math program, but preferred doing our early math, with our own hands-on activities, card games were great, too.  

Click the link to reach more of my article on early math activities:

 Preschool/K - Early Math...for hands-on learning fun with numbers, sets, etc, and also how to make a Math Manipulatives Kit, without spending any money.  

This post shares how we went about making our kit and learning early math concepts using our manipulatives.  

2.  EARLY LANGUAGE ARTS

There are many ways to introduce the ABC's to your child. We enjoyed introducing the letters of the alphabet with simple ABC crafts projects and a little book called  the Big Book of Alpha Tales.   

Not every homeschool family does phonics but we found that phonics was key to the development of reading skills for our daughter. 

To read about Explode the Code and all about early language arts, phonics and more you will find links and more here -Preschool/K - Early Language Arts.

Next, let's talk about resources for fine motor activities for handwriting....

3.  FINE MOTOR and HANDWRITING

I am a former Occupational Therapist and I share lots of developmentally appropriate handwriting activities on my blog here - Handwriting.  

Playful activities are the best way to get your child ready to write their letters.  

To develop hand coordination and wrist strength for handwriting, we did LOTS of crafts, enjoying sidewalk chalk art, etc.  

Sometimes we tore paper into small pieces to make a design with glue, which helped to strengthen the finger muscles.  

Click here to reach my fine motor article on: Small Muscle Games.

My friend, Penny has Free Fall Cutting Practice activities that you might like, too.

There's always benefit for small muscle development from playing with legos, small blocks, small cars, etc. 

This photo shows one of the special ways to help your child with fine motor skills and grasp.  

Click here for my article on 9 Ways to a Mature Grasp - Games and Fun! 

For frugal ways to teach handwriting, I invite you to click here for my article on Teach Your Kids to Write.  

It has lots of ideas for beginning handwriting, if your little ones are ready for that.  It doesn't matter when your kids learn to write, as they will likely get it when it is the right time for them. 

4.  ARTS AND CRAFT ACTIVITIES

Arts and crafts are, of course, great for developing fine motor skills, but they also are super for learning direction following, attention to task, and let's not forget, creativity.

Coloring, painting, playing with clay were popular at our house.  A favorite was painting with pudding!

My daughter enjoyed drawing, then sometimes she would dictate a few words about her picture, which I would write down for her to copy.  When she chose the words herself, her copywork was very meaningful to her. 

We also had fun making simple books using her own words.  It is so wonderful to watch your child create their own story.  Tips for how to do that is in this link below:

Click here for my article on The Art of Simple Book Making - Your Child is an Author

When your child is making their own very, very simple book and using their own words, they are learning great pre-reading skills at the same time.  

They are learning what words are used for, as they see you copy their words down for them, then later read them back to them.  The thrill of seeing and hearing their own words is something that makes reading real for them.

5.  EARLY SCIENCE FUN

 Early Science - Hands-On!

Early Science can start with exploring one's backyard, through the natural things that your child will do, like picking up leaves, touching them and feeling the texture of them, spotting spider webs, watching birds fly, etc.

My friend, Amy offers a discussion of 3 prepared preschool curriculum that you might like to read about, too.

6.  FIELD TRIPS

Some of our best memories were made when we did simple field trip, like going on a train ride with friends, fishing at a kiddo's fishing hole, or joining other homeschoolers for a park day.

Or heading exploring in our backyard, for insects, worms, even slugs....And of course birds - Our Favorite Books about Birds and Birdwatching.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote the book - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting. 

Want to stay in touch?  

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Copyright @ BJ's Homeschool
Revised 2021
All Rights Reserved