Hummingbird Math

July 22nd, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Monday, July 22, 2019, and time for Math at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Hummingbird Math

(www.rubythroat.org/ActivitiesMathMain.html)

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

 

This website was designed to be a cross-disciplinary opportunity for students in grades K-12 to study the behavior and distribution of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

These little birds tolerate people well and are drawn to gardens and feeders where they can easily be studied. The data collected is shared via the website with students worldwide. You can access a great deal of information at this site for free, but they also offer the opportunity to register for $20/year, a fee that enables students to participate fully in the research project. (Details are at the site.) However, you don’t have to register to learn interesting facts about a variety of hummingbirds or to access the activities and lesson ideas in math, art, geography, drama, music, and writing.


When you get to the site you will see the introduction to “Hummingbird Mathematics Activities.” Just scroll down to review the lesson and click on the links to the other curriculum pages as well.

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Children’s Literature Quizzes

July 17th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Wednesday, July 17, 2019, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

FunTrivia: Quizzes – Books for Kids

(www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/for_children/books_for_kids.html)

Age Range: 5-18 (Grades 1-12, with parental supervision)

 

At this website you will find many online, interactive quizzes based upon children’s literature.

When you get to the site you will see a menu that you can use to find quizzes according to book series, book author, young adult books, and a general literature category that includes quizzes on fairy tales and more. Don’t let the sparse menu on the landing page fool you – there are tons of quizzes on just about every children’s book imaginable.

Click on a category and a new page opens with a large menu of quizzes. Choose the quiz that interests you – and another page opens where you can select what format you want to take the quiz in – html or timed. Make your selection, and a new page opens where the quiz begins.

It’s fun to test your knowledge and memory of various story lines and characters that you have met in books! That said; parents have different criteria for what is suitable in terms of children’s literature. Therefore, as always, parents should preview this site before exploring it with your children.

Note: There are innumerable quizzes on many subjects at this site. We have only reviewed the Children’s Literature section for ClickSchooling. Again, parents should preview this site before exploring it with children.

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All About Caves (and Bats)

July 16th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Tuesday, July 16, 2019, and time for Science at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Exploring Caves

(tinyurl.com/y3fh9n3j)

Age Range: 4-8 (Grades K-3, with parental supervision)

 

This 50-page PDF from the U.S. Geological Survey has free educational materials all about caves that can easily be tweaked for use in the homeschool environment.

Learn about geology, cartography, and hydrology in a lighthearted story of a bat. This original 5-chapter fictional story introduces a wealth of information about caves through the adventure of two children and a talking bat. There are lesson plans, activity sheets, teacher instructions and coloring pages. The lessons include: 

  • What Is a Cave?
  • Cave Stories – Tales of Adventure
  • Find a Cave
  • Cave Diagram
  • Adapting to the Dark – Bats and People
  • Water Creates a Cave
  • Cave Art and History
  • and more!

There is also a list of books, articles, special publications, music, and more. You’ll also find links to other educational resources. However, most of the links have changed. As it says at the top of the resource page: “URL’s (Web site addresses) often change unpredictably. If any of the given URL’s fail to work, do searches with names of organizations combined with relevant key words.”

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Free Homeschool Record Keeping

July 15th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Monday, July 15, 2019, and time for Math at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Homeschool Skedtrak

(www.homeschoolskedtrack.com/HomeSchool/displayLogin.do)

Age Range: 4-18 (Designed for homeschool parents to track activities for grades Pre-K-12)

 

While we usually stick to recommending sites that enhance learning about math on Monday, we couldn’t resist sharing this free resource, developed by a homeschool family, that enables you to track your homeschool course of study and activities for free.

I know that keeping records is a big concern to many homeschool parents, especially once the kids hit the high school years and need to create transcripts for college. While this site is designed with homeschool parents in mind, older students can use it for record-keeping purposes. Even unschoolers can use this system to track learning opportunities and interests they have explored as well.

The description provided at the Homeschool Skedtrack website explains it all:

“Homeschool Skedtrack is a *FREE* online lesson planner, scheduler, and tracking system rolled into one. The heart of the system is the automated scheduling of activities that frees you from the headache of rescheduling everything once an activity/lesson is missed.”

Features include: 

  • easy record keeping from Pre-K-12 for each student
  • worry free data back-up
  • flexible scheduling of your child’s activities/lessons per year, per month, per week or as you go
  • automated tracking of total number of hours/days completed
  • scheduling and tracking of field trips
  • a school calendar for each student
  • tests recording
  • automated grade calculation
  • report card generation in pdf format
  • transcript generation in pdf format (two columns or by subject)

There are even video tutorials at the site to explain how to use the Homeschool Skedtrack program. Begin by creating an account in the upper right corner of the home page.

Not only that, this site offers a database of educational websites (many that have been recommended by ClickSchooling over the years). Not only does the database include websites on various subject topics such as math, science, music, homeschool resources, etc., it allows the users/visitors to rate the sites which can be helpful in determining overall usefulness.

Bookmark this one to return often!

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Songs, nursery rhymes, and poems from around the world

July 13th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Saturday, July 13, 2019, and time for Music at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Mama Lisa’s World

(www.mamalisa.com/?t=eh)

Age Range: All (All grades; children with parental supervision)

 

This website features the largest collection of lyrics to children’s songs, nursery rhymes, and poems popular in countries all around the world.

The songs are in a variety of languages and many songs include downloads and/or videos for your listening enjoyment. Make sure your speakers are on!

When you get to the site you will see a menu including: 

  • Songs by Continent
  • Songs by Country
  • Songs by Language
  • Songs by Type of Song
  • Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
  • and more

Click on any continent, and a new page opens with a list of countries located on that continent. Click on a country to find a menu of songs and poems. Click on a song. A new page opens with the lyrics to that song, and sometimes a link to an audio file or video.

Can you think of a country not represented? Do you know a traditional song or poem from that country (or any other) that isn’t on this site? You are welcome to send it in; as Mama Lisa says, you don’t have to be a professional to get your contribution included!

There is also a blog that mainly focuses on various world languages and cultures. Bookmark this site, you’ll want to return often!

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Explore Nova Scotia

July 12th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Friday, July 12, 2019, and time for a Virtual Field Trip at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Landscapes of Nova Scotia

(novascotia.ca/natr/meb/fieldtrip/START.ASP)

Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 6-12, with parental supervision)

 

Climb aboard for a virtual helicopter ride with Dr. Ralph (a.k.a. Air Wolf) to explore the scenic vistas and geological wonders of Nova Scotia.

Presented by the Department of Lands and Forestry in Nova Scotia, Canada, this site takes the visitor on a picturesque trip through the province of Nova Scotia. Through the use of breathtaking aerial photographs and closer views of geological features, this site is a geologist’s gold mine of information. Some of the locations of exploration include: 

  • Halifax Harbor and the Atlantic Uplands
  • Lantz Brick Quarry
  • Shubenacadie Wildlife Park
  • Brookfield Limestone Quarry
  • The Debert Paleo-Indian Site
  • Striae on Wittenburg Mountain
  • Gibraltar Rock
  • Lismore
  • Moose Point Section
  • Creignish Mountain Lookoff

For each ‘stop’ of your journey, the images are accompanied by informative text that not only gives visitors a geographical description of the destination but also provides an in-depth geological explanation of the stop.

Before you finish your tour, be sure to stop by the “Passing Views” and “Vistas of the Month” pages for more splendid views of the land as well as the “Reading Material” and “Links” sections of the home page.

Effortlessly navigate through this site and expand your knowledge of geology and Nova Scotia.

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Multimedia History of American Agriculture

July 11th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Thursday, July 11, 2019, and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Growing A Nation: The Story of American Agriculture

(www.agclassroom.org/gan/index.htm)

Age Range: 11 and up (Grades 5 and up; children with parental supervision. This was designed for middle and high school classrooms.)

 

This website provides a free multimedia social studies program that explores the history of American agriculture and how it has affected our lives today. It uses digital story telling to engage learners and help them understand that “the history of America is much more than just war battles.”  


When you get to the site, you’ll see a menu that includes: 

  • Explore Multimedia Program – Launch or download the free program that is divided into four lessons delivered through a narrated video presentation (turn on your speakers): 
    • Lesson 1 – 1600-1929, Seeds of Change
    • Lesson 2 – 1930-1949, From Defeat to Victory
    • Lesson 3 – 1950-1969, Prosperity & Challenges
    • Lesson 4 – 1970-Present, Into a New Millennium
    • Classroom Resources – Access pdfs of the instructional units (lessons) along with activities and resources based upon primary source documents. You’ll also find options for assessment.
  • Historical Timeline – Explore the various eras of American agriculture including Economic Cycles, Farm Machinery & Technology, Crops & Livestock, Transportation, Agricultural Trade & Development, and Government Programs & Policy.
  • External Resources – Find more free lessons on agriculture including pest management, water quality, food safety, understanding wetlands and the environment, the history of cotton, cattle ranching, and more.

This program is designed for classroom use to stimulate discussions and promote understanding. There is lots of flexibility in the material that can be tweaked for independent study. It supplements any study of history and meets national standards.

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Free Activities to Learn & Improve Writing Skills!

July 10th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Wednesday, July 10, 2019, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

WritingDEN

(www2.actden.com/writ_den/index.htm)

Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 6-12, with parental supervision)

 

The WritingDen website offers free, online activities to help students improve their writing skills by working on vocabulary, sentence structure, and paragraph development.

When you get to the site you will see a “Feature Topic” and a menu. Click the “About” button on the menu for an overview of what the WritingDen offers.

Then, back on the home page, click on the “Feature Topic.” The topic is “wolves.” Click on it and a new page opens with a menu of: 

  • Words
  • Sentences
  • Paragraphs

Click on each one in succession to see how the story is developed from a selection of vocabulary words, to simple sentence structures, and finally to full paragraphs.

The “Paragraphs” section includes a “Note Set” that shows how the ideas presented in the paragraph were organized. This step-by-step process really demonstrates how stories are constructed.

Once you’ve completed the activity, take the quiz to test your comprehension and understanding of vocabulary, sentence structure, and paragraph development.

When you are through with the “Feature Topic,” you will have a clear idea of how material is presented at this site. If you like it, go back to the home page and click on “More Topics” to see the archived list of stories on subjects that include: History, Nature, Canada, Science, etc. Click on any story to go through the writing process as you did with the “Feature Topic.” 

This site also contains “Tips-O-Matic” that provides grammar rules on word, sentence, and paragraph usage. This is a great tool for learning and reviewing parts of speech, etc.

This site is a great resource to help students develop their writing skills.

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Project-Based Science Lessons for Grades 5-12

July 9th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Tuesday, July 9, 2019, and time for Science at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Teachers TryScience

(http://www.teacherstryscience.org/lp)

Age Range: 10-18 (Grades 5-12, with parental supervision)

 

This website is a collaborative effort between the New York Hall of Science, IBM Corporation, and TeachEngineering.org. It provides free, hands-on, project-based learning activities that require students to engineer solutions to problems by employing math, technology, and science concepts from more than one science discipline including physics, chemistry, and earth sciences.

When you get to the site, you’ll see three lesson plans. Click “See All” to get to the rest. (There are currently almost 700!) Click on any one and a new page opens with the target grade (ages), the estimated time required for the project, the topics covered, goals, objectives and more.

You’ll also find links to resources and materials that are needed, as well as comments from teachers who used the project in their classroom.

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Math helps for all ages

July 8th, 2019 by ClickSchooling No comments »

 

It’s Monday, July 8, 2019, and time for Math at ClickSchooling!

 

Recommended Website:

Bitesize – Maths

(www.bbc.com/bitesize/subjects/z6vg9j6)

Age Range: 3 and up (Grades PreK and up; children with parental supervision)

 

The BBC’s website is the quintessential online learning tool for all subjects in all grade ranges. This review features just the math section of the website.

When you get to the site, you’ll see the different levels of Math including: 

  • Early level Maths and Numeracy – Covers Numbers, Money and Time
  • 1st level Maths and Numeracy – Covers Number Processes, Fractions, Measurement, and more
  • 2nd level Maths and Numeracy – Covers Fractions and Decimals, Mathematical Skills, and more
  • 3rd level Maths – Covers Patterns and Relationships, Expressions and Equations, Data Analysis, and more
  • 4th level Maths – Covers 2D Shapes; Angle, Symmetry and Transformation; Chance and Uncertainty; and more
  • HigherMaths – Covers Algebraic and Trigonometric Skills, Geometric Skills, and Calculus Skills
  • And more

Click on the desired level to get to the topics. Then each topic has explanations, graphics and some videos to explain the topic. And for the lower levels, there are “Class Clips” – one to five minute videos, along with Classroom Ideas, that can easily be used at home as well. This is a wonderful mathematics resource for all ages.

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