Traveling with kids
It won’t be long until a lot of families will hit the road for summer vacation trips. There will be some who will drive or pull an RV and stay at campgrounds. Others will drive a family car and stay at a motel or maybe even do some tent camping.
Whichever way you travel with your family, if you have children you already know you’ll be hearing “Are we there yet? How much longer? I’m bored. She touched me. He made a face at me.” Those comments and even more will come ringing out from the back portions of your vehicle as your children get bored with riding in a car or van.
When we traveled, when the children were young, we took along snacks, beverages, and little games the kids could play. Things like Travel Bingo were a big hit. (This was way before there were DVD players in cars.) We also took coloring books and crayons.
We didn’t have a computer back then so free printable travel games didn’t exist for us. However, they do for you. Visit the linked site to find 35 different and entertaining travel games that you can print out for free. File them away until you are making a trip somewhere, even if it’s just a couple of hours worth of riding in the car, and surprise your kids with these fun ways to stay busy while on the road.
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printablesLabels: Free stuff, Printables
Great web resources
Wow. It's amazing how many learning websites are available these days. When we were new to homeschooling, our primary source was miningco.com (aka Mining Company) and encyclopedia sites. Real homeschool sites were rare and offered little.
Soon, we discovered sites such as Redwood Academy, RHLschool.com, Donna Young's website, and others that offered free worksheets and short lessons. We began receiving language arts lessons by email, free of course, from dailygrammar.com. Those were very good and they fulfilled everything we needed for grammar, punctuation, and spelling including a weekly quiz.
We used the President's Council on Physical Fitness workbooks and activity suggestions, along with another homeschool family, for our PE one year. We also learned that not every click here led us to exactly what we wanted, but I spent many hours at night browsing the web in search of lesson plans, printables, and free downloads of programs and worksheets we could use.
The fact is, I found so much and got so printer happy that I could have educated a large classroom of children instead of just the two I had at home!
Labels: Free stuff, Lesson plans, Printables
Planner forms
So, it's nearly the end of July. You plan to begin your homeschool year in about a month or so. Plenty of time, right? Sure, but make sure you really are ready so you won't have to be in a rush at the last minute.
One way to prepare for the new school year is to begin your homeschool planner. You can find free record keeping and planners at Homeschool Helper Online. These forms run the gamut of things you might need to use, from attendance forms to curriculum planners to weekly menus.
I would suggest using a binder to house and organize the forms to suit your needs, then refer to the binder each day.
The forms are free to print from your browser, no special programs required.
Labels: Free stuff, Printables
Chart Jungle
I used to love all kinds of printables. Especially ones I could use for homeschooling record keeping. At Chart Jungle you'll find plenty of those plus all kinds of things to print if you are a teacher in a public or private school. You can even print out diplomas appropriate to each grade in school.
Of course, if you're like me you'll wind up looking at and printing more things than 20 homeschool families could possibly use. I was always a little OCD about such things. So much so, that I wound up with entirely unused printables after the school years were finally over. It was hard for me to throw out all those great worksheets and charts, but I just didn't need them. So, control yourself!
Of course, if you can't and the urge to click on and print more and more takes over, then click here to see best sleeping pills. Maybe a couple of good night's sleep will help you regain your sanity.
Labels: Free stuff, Printables, Worksheets
Free worksheets - general
Every time I check in at Ed Helper I find more useful stuff that homeschoolers can use. From early elementary reading, writing, and math to high school level test prep, this site seems to have it all. There are games, daily activities, themed units, puzzles, and so much more!
Yes, it's another site I used when we homeschooled, which is why I feel comfortable sharing it with you. I want your homeschool experience to be the best possible, and it can be even if you can't spend hundreds of dollars on curriculum and teaching tools.
Labels: Free stuff, General learning, Printables
Free printables - planners
Some homeschool sites just keep on going. I'm glad for that! One I used extensively, and I think you'll like it as well, is DonnaYoung.org.
This site has been on the Web since 1998 and is really useful. There are not only load of printables which include homeschool writing papers, lessons, and planners, but there are also household planners. I found these things to all be wonderful when we homeschooled. They helped me stay organized and on-track for my children and for my home.
Visit the site for yourself and check it out!
Labels: Free stuff, Printables
SpellQuizzer Winner!
We have a winner for the free SpellQuizzer program. Your name is Donna and I'll send that to the publisher so he can award you the free Spell'Quizzer program.
I hope the rest of you will check out the site and make good use of the programs that are available both for homeschoolers and for those whose children attend public or private schools. I think you'll really be impressed, as I was, at how complete yet easy this program is to implement.
Labels: Printables, Resources, Spelling
Favorite Annex posts - 1
Since the beginning of any school year is when your child generally reviews what they learned from the year before, this seemed like a good time to share with you some of my favorite previous posts from this blog.
- Need Some Unit Studies? These are unit studies that are on my website. I wrote them and we used them in our homeschool. I hope you will find them as useful as we didl.
- What's happened to grammar? This points you to a grammar site where you can sign up to get very good grammar lessons for free through email. They include the lesson, the worksheet, and a test at the end of each week.
- Homeschool freebie
This site lets you download a print free stuff for all grade levels, all kinds of activities, and worksheets.- Teach with movies As the name implies, you use movies as part of your curriculum. Not free, but a very good bargain, nonetheless.
- Free math games Free math games your child can play online to help strengthen the math skills you've already taught him.
Being involved in homeschooling has led me to a lot of great sites to use completely free to either fill in the gaps or be a part of the curriculum in a more substantial way.
Labels: Free stuff, General learning, Lesson plans, Printables
Free Time Management lesson plan
These lessons are for grade 7 through adult, so could be utilized in the homeschool very easily for several students of various ages. Even Mom and Dad could participate in these lessons! The
Time Management Lesson Plan teach effective
time management skills and ways to balance time with the tasks that are necessary. Besides the lesson plan there are worksheets you can download and print. I love printable worksheets, don't you?
I might even go through these for myself!
Labels: Free stuff, Lesson plans, Printables, Worksheets
Practical Money Skills free curriculum
A commenter,
Starlily, recently asked this concerning the
previous post:
This is such an important topic! Home learning has given our children the opportunity to open and manage their own bank accounts. This year I'm looking for some time/financial management curriculum that is suitable for children. I'd like them to learn to be accountable for both. Any suggestions?
I may have posted this before, but it's certainly worth a re-post. I will look for a time management curriculum, but in the meantime here's a
money management curriculum that's great!
Practical Money Skills for Life is a free money skills curriculum offered by Visa. The lessons range from K to adult, so anyone can make good use of it.
We used the complete program when we homeschooled. At the time, you could get it all on CD-ROM and print the lessons from it. The CDs also included interactive games to see what the child had learned and where they needed more teaching. All this is now available straight from the website. You can view and print lessons, let your children play the games, view Case Studies, and use the calculator they supply. They even have lesson plans for special needs children.
We loved this program and it's a complete money management curriculum.
Labels: Economics, Free stuff, Lesson plans, Printables
Printable coupons and more
Any budget-minded homeschool mom is always looking for good bargains and deals. This includes coupon codes and printable coupons. At
BudgetMom.com you can find just what you're looking for in printable savings. They even have a frugal books page for you to get books for your homeschool child.
Labels: Free stuff, Printables, Shopping
Free printables
I have always been a sucker for free printables. Well, here's a site that has all kinds for homeschool purposes. They even include unit studies, which I'm particularly fond of. Just go to
free homeschool printables and see for yourself what HomeschoolViews.com has to offer.
Labels: Free stuff, Printables
Free history worksheets
If you're looking for worksheets, especially history worksheets, this is the place to go. TLSBooks.com has loads of free printable
history worksheets for you to download and print. These are PDFs and you'll need Adobe Acrobat 6 or newer to use them. These worksheets are for lower grades, K through 6.
Labels: Free stuff, History, Printables
Classroom organization
Whether you teach in your homeschool, at a homeschool co-op, or in traditional classroom, you may find yourself needing help with getting and staying organized.
Teacher Vision has all the free tools you need to be organized in your classroom situation, whatever it may be. All you have to do is select and print the PDF or download it to your computer for printing later.
Labels: Education, Free stuff, Printables
Lesson ideas from Expo
Expo, the maker of dry erase boards and markers, offers lesson plans and ideas for free for teachers.
Expo lesson ideas cover a variety of subjects for grades K-12 as well as activities for the students. They also have practice tests and comprehension tests for you to use in your classroom. These are all adaptable to the homeschool environment as well.
Labels: Free stuff, General learning, Printables
Doll Palace free coloring pages
Whether you are interested in anime or any other kind of coloring pages, you can find just about the most beautiful line drawings around here at The Doll Palace's
Free Coloring Pages.
Not only can your girl color the pretty girls in the coloring pages, but you can also find the
alphabet pages to color. These are very cute and the site is easy to navigate and use. Go to the section of free coloring pages you want, then click on the thumbnail of your choice.
These are interactive so if your child wants to select the colors and color the page online, she can. She just clicks the color she wants, then clicks in the area she wants colored in. When finished, you can print the completed picture out. These can also be printed out for your child to use her own crayons.
If you have your own outline drawings, they can be uploaded to the site and shared with others. You just need to make sure all the lines are connected or the online coloring may fail.
With your free registered account, you can also save your completed pictures online and share them with others.
The above are just a few examples of what you can find on the site.
The educational pages aren't limited to the alphabet, though. You can also find pages for holidays, nature, animals, foods, sports, religion, transportation, and more. You will also find familiar faces such as Tinkerbell, Barbie, and others to numerous to mention.
I'll let you in on a little secret: I wound up coloring some pages there myself. It was a lot of fun!
Labels: Free stuff, General learning, Printables, Reviews
The Learning Page
Become a member of
The Learning Page and get free worksheets, downloadable books, lesson plans, and ideas. Best of all, the membership is free. This is a wonderful resource for homeschoolers and classroom teachers alike.
Right now, they have activities and worksheets for Father's Day, which is just around the corner. Plus, they have lessons and printables for summer safety.
I've used The Learning Page in the past when my children were younger and found it to be very helpful in supplementing the curriculum I was using and providing materials for days we were traveling or camping.
Labels: Education, Free stuff, Lesson plans, Printables
More free travel games
This site even includes Travel Bingo, which is a game my own kids loved to play when we went on a long trip. The files found at
Gulf Shores Printables are colorful PDFs that will keep your children engaged for hours. You can download and print off as many as you want!
Labels: Free stuff, Printables
Free printable travel games
This is getting to be the time of year when many families hit the road for vacations. On the way to whatever their destination may be, the littles in the family are sure to need some sort of diversion to keep them occupied. It's pretty boring to have nothing to do on a long trip.
You can download free printable travel games from
Family Fun. This is the site for the Family Fun magazine I'm sure you're already familiar with. We used to get this magazine ourselves for many years, and it was always a source of child tested recipes, learning games, and crafts.
Labels: Free stuff, Printables
Homeschool printables
If there's one thing it seems like I could never get enough of when we homeschooled, it was free printables. They really do fill in a lot of gaps, especially if you are as eclectic as we were. If you're interested in free printables, just go to
Homeschool Views and print to your heart's content.
They offer free printables for writing, calenders, schedules, unit studies, record keeping, getting started in homeschooling, and even some fun stuff.
What are you waiting for?
Labels: Education, Free stuff, Printables
