Posts Tagged ‘coloring’

Free Spring Poems w/ Activities!

March 20th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Wednesday, March 20, 2013 and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

DLTK:  Spring Poetry

Age Range: 4-11 (approximately, with parental supervision)

Spring has sprung! The return of longer and warmer days, and the rebirth of flora and fauna has inspired poets for ages. This website offers a selection of over 35 poems about spring by a variety of authors including Mother Goose, A.A. Milne, William Wordsworth, and Robert Frost. Each poem is accompanied by an audio recording so you can hear the poem being read aloud.  And every poem has a free printable activity page to go with it.

When you get to the site, you’ll see a menu of poem titles and a couple of featured poems including:

  • Daffodowndilly by A.A. Milne
  • Little Seeds by Else Holmelund Minarik
  • A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost

Simply click on a title of interest and a new page opens with the poem printed out. Below the poem, you’ll see a box that says, “Play.” Click on it to hear the poem being recited.  You’ll also find a sample of the activity sheet to the right of the poem. You can print out the full sheet in color, or print it in black and white and use it as a coloring page.

BONUS!  The first day of spring is called the vernal equinox— when day and night are each approximately 12 hours long. Did you know that the word equinox is derived from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night), meaning “equal night”?  To learn more, watch National Geographic’s scientific video explanation of the equinox here:  http://www.homefires.com/click?equinox

 

Free Virtual Farm for Kids!

March 19th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Tuesday, March 19, 2013 and time for Science at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Kids Farm

Age Range: All (Designed for kids in PreK and Elementary grades, but fun for everyone with parental supervision.)

Call the kids over to the computer and enjoy a free virtual trip to a farm where you will not only see photographs of many farm animals and wild animals – but you will be able to hear the sounds they make as well!

Learn about what grows on the farm (from cherries to hay) and find out all about the various equipment that is used on a farm. Meet the ranch hands at Red Bluff Ranch in Colorado, the sponsor of this low-tech, user-friendly website.

When you get to the site, click on the red letters “click here to get started.” That will take you to a screen that asks “Where do you want to go?” You have a choice of viewing:

  • Farm Animals
  • Wild Animals
  • Equipment
  • What Grows
  • People at the Ranch

And, you’ll find a free, printable coloring book of farm animals, interactive online crossword puzzles, spelling practice activities and more – all themed around ranch life.

If you click on any topic, “Farm Animals” for example, a new screen opens with a menu of animals to choose from including:

  • Horses
  • Chickens
  • Turkeys
  • Goats
  • Llamas
  • And More!

Click on any category and a new screen opens with information presented through text, photos, and sound (so turn on your speakers).

This site is easy to use, loads of fun, and designed with kids in mind.

Free Valentine Language Arts Worksheets!

February 13th, 2013

Hi! It’s Wednesday, February 13, 2013 and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

Valentine’s Day is February 14th. Here are some sites that provide free Language Arts worksheets themed around Valentine’s Day…

Recommended Website:

See Below

Age Range: Varies (with parental supervision)

Education.com

You will not believe the massive selection of free Valentine-themed worksheets and printables for grades K-6 that are offered on this website. Get free crosswords, mazes, word searches, Valentine card templates, matching games, word challenges, coloring pages, and more.  You’ll also find Valentine math worksheets.

Lanternfish.com

Get a printable Valentine-themed crossword puzzle, word scramble, word search, rhyme activity, and more.

MindsInBloom.com

Enjoy a printable Valentine’s Day Mad Lib to practice parts of speech. See how many homophone errors you can detect in a printable Valentine’s Day story.

Free Spanish Lessons, Games, & Apps for All!

January 26th, 2013

Hi!  It’s Saturday, January 26, 2013 and time for Foreign Languages at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Online Free Spanish

Age Range:  All (with parental supervision)

This ad-supported website offers engaging, FREE, introductory Spanish lessons for children and their parents that includes games, activities, printable coloring pages, and worksheets, and mobile apps!

When you get to the site you’ll see currently featured activities, followed by an icon menu that includes:

*Mobile Apps – Get free apps that teach Spanish numbers and colors.

*Lessons – Enjoy Spanish lessons that teach the alphabet, numbers, colors, parts of the human face, fruits, pets, bugs, geometrical shapes, holidays, and more. Click on any lesson icon and a new page opens where you can watch an animated video lesson. Be sure to turn on your speakers to hear the correct pronunciation of words as they come up on the screen. Each lesson includes a link to “Related Lessons and Activities” that provide printable worksheets to reinforce learning.

*Activities – Click and drag Spanish words to matching pictures, play a variety of word search games, and guide a bee safely through a frog pond by unscrambling letters to spell Spanish words.

*Printables – Choose from an assortment of fun printable materials that reinforce learning the lessons. There’s a picture dictionary, word search puzzle, and coloring pages of farm animals, fruits, bugs, numbers, and more.

You’ll also see an icon menu of select games – just click on any one to get started. New activities are added to the site regularly, so bookmark it to return often.  Or sign up to receive the free newsletter that will keep you updated on additions to the site.

Free Ground Water Science Activities & Lessons!

January 15th, 2013

Hi! It’s Tuesday, January 15, 2013 and time for Science at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Ground Water Adventurers

Age Range: 5-18 (Grades K-12, with parental supervision)

ClickScholar Theresa suggested this website, sponsored by the National Ground Water Association, that archives free lessons and activities (housed on other websites such as the EPA, USGS, etc.) designed to help students learn the science behind ground water, which makes up “90% of all of all available fresh water in the world.”

When you get to the site, you’ll see some featured items. You may want to explore them, but to get right to the activities and lessons for grades K-12, use the horizontal menu near the top of the home page that includes:

*Brain Ticklers and Fun Facts – This section is divided into grade ranges K-3, 4-8, and 9-12, and includes information on groundwater, the water cycle, drought, wells, and conservation, along with puzzles, games, coloring pages, and more.

*Water Experiments – Students in grades K-12 can try experiments designed to teach about ground water including making an aquifer model in a cup, a water cycle in a bag, and a hydrogeology experiment on surface water-groundwater interactions.

*Educator Resources – The National Ground Water Association provides free lesson plans for classroom teachers and links to other resources on ground water education.

There are a lot of links to activities in this archive, and most of them work. I did find a few that led to error messages, but that shouldn’t be a deterrent from using the many resources available at the site.

Dia de Los Muertos Lessons & Activities!

November 1st, 2012

Hi! It’s Thursday, November 1, 2012 and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!

Recommended Website:

Mommy Maestra: Dia de Los Muertos

Age Range: All (with parental supervision)

November 1st and 2nd are celebrated as Dia de Los Muertos, a Mexican holiday tradition when families remember and honor relatives and friends who have died. As I was researching the holiday, I stumbled upon this terrific website, Mommy Maestra: Discoveries of a Latina Homeschooler. Monica Oivera, is a homeschool mom and writer and recipient of the Latinos in Social Media’s “Best Latina Education Blogger” award, who shares all kinds of bilingual and bicultural resources to support homeschool parents.

I was astounded by the number of resources at the website that include lessons plans and activities to learn history, culture, math, arts and crafts, science and nature, and much more. While I’m focusing on the information and activities she provides for Dia de Los Muertos for this ClickSchooling review, be sure to peruse her site for some extraordinary and out-of-the-box learning resources.

First, if you are unfamiliar with Dia de Los Muertos – Mommy Maestra provides a brief history of the festival (written for children).

Then, go to the featured page on Dia de Los Muertos. There, you’ll find an archive of links (all of them were working at the time of this review) to lesson plans and activities that include:

*Thematic Units – Get free lessons themed around Dia de Los Muertos with cross-curricular connections for almost every grade level from 2-12. Some include serious academic studies, others provide fun activities.

*Websites: Check out a short list of websites with terrific info on Dia de Los Muertos.

*Printables: Includes free, printable coloring pages.

*Crafts & Supplies: Learn to make sugar skulls out of clay, or tissue paper marigolds.

*Videos: Watch a selection of videos about Dia de Los Muertos.

Again, the information on this holiday is just the beginning of the educational resources available at this site.