Favorite Sites for Printables

This weekend, I spent some of my snowbound time reorganizing all the homeschooly links I’d saved in delicious account.  I primarily use my account to save sites I might use in homeschooling and links to books I’d like to read.  (See this post by Melissa Wiley for more ways to use technology for organizing needs) In my reorganzing effors, I made a printables category and I wanted to share my favorites sites for printing coloring pages, letter activities, worksheets, and craft ideas.

The girls often make requests for coloring sheets of particular animals, and I usually print out a few coloring or craft pages to help with our letter of the week activities.  I also occasionally print out word searches, word scrambles, and small activity books for M.  These are the sites I turn to most:

Enchanted Learning – a wealth of worksheets, coloring pages, and activity booklets on almost any topic you can think of, good for preschool-3rd grade (at least), useful for science, history, reading, wonderful dinosaur and ocean sections, many pages are free but you can have full access for $20/year

First School – preschool crafts and coloring pages and activities, divided by theme or letter of the alphabet

TheColor.com – coloring pages to print out or color online, online coloring can be printed once complete (M is draining the color printer cartridge fast with her creations), searchable by topic

DLTK – crafts and coloring pages by topics, search by topic, letter of the alphabet or season

Non-Fiction Monday: Dinosaurs Big and Small

Dinosaurs Big and Small by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld is part of the Let’s Read and Find Out Science Series. This series is divided into Level 1 and Level 2 books. This Level 1 book is simple enough to be enjoyed by preschoolers but still interesting to early elementary-aged kids.  Both my girls loved learning more about the variation in size among dinosaurs from Diplodocus who was as long as 22 4ft-tall kids to turkey-sized Caudipteryx.  The final page spread shows all the dinosaurs mentioned in the book in comparison to each other, a man, and an elephant.

This week’s Non-Fiction Monday Round Up is at Great Kid Books.

What We’re Reading, February 5

M and her dad are reading The Flight of the Phoenix (Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist) by R.L. Lafevers which we discovered while looking for the release date of the next Theodosia book would be released.  M and I flew through a re-read of The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker and now we’re reading, Canadian Summer, the second book in the Mitchells trilogy by Helen Van Stockum.

M has recently read Lauren the Puppy Fairy and Harriet the Hamster Fairy from the Rainbow Fairies series, and she is reading Keeker and the Sneaky Pony by Hadley Higgenson now.

C has continued to request Hen Hears Gossip by Megan MacDonald every day.  She’s also enjoying Sing!, Sophie by Dayle Ann Dodds, Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear by Emily Gravett, Tales of Amanda Pig by Jean Van Leeuwen and Mr. Cookie Baker by Monica Wellington, a favorite of both girls since babyhood.

Two Alphabet Activities

Over the last few months, I’ve been doing alphabet activties with C each week.  She goes to preschool a few mornings a week and we’ve been following along with the letter of the week from her school.  I often print out some coloring pages with animals that start with the week’s letter.  This is O week and last night I printed an orca for her to color and one for M too (she likes to join in on preschool homeschool).  I’d planned for us to color the orcas, cut them out, and glue them onto a sheet of paper we’d painted with ocean colors.  M suggested that instead we paint a long piece of paper like the ocean and then add to it each week.  She’s very excited about S week when we can color a sperm whale and a squid.

As they painted the girls decided to make an acrtic ocean on C’s side and a tropical ocean on M’s side.

After watching the Dinosaur Train alphabet song, M suggested we also make a dinosaur alphabet.  After talking about various ideas, we decided to make a dinosaur alphabet book.  Each week the girls will color or paint a dinosaur for the letter of the week.  We’ll glue them to construction paper and put them together to form a book.  This week, I printed an oviraptor.

Finding Appropriate Books for Advanced Readers

My sister-in-law asked if I could help a friend of hers find books appropriate book for her ten-year-old who is an advanced reader, books that would challenge a good reader but not contain topics better left until the later teen years.  I knew of a few places to start and discovered a few more so I thought I’d share them here.

Ink Spells, a wonderful blog I discovered during the 2010 Comment Challenge, features reviews of books for 8-12 year old advanced readers

I also found this list for gifted 9-year-olds (or other upper-elementary-aged kids)

The Hoagies Gifted site has great reading list for advanced readers.

And this article from Columbia’s Gifted Children Examiner contains great advice for finding reading material for advanced readers.

Prehistory and Evolution Booklist, Part 1

These are the books we’ve used in the first five weeks of our prehistory unit.  We’ve covered the formation of the universe up to the time of the earliest reptiles. I’ve included links to ones I’ve written more about in more detail on previous Non-Fiction Mondays.

Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History – includes a section on the prehistoric world that starts with the formation of the universe

Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peters – simple picture book showing our connections to the first lifeforms and tracing our “family tree” to modern humans

Born With A Bang by Jennifer Morgan – the universe tells it’s story from it’s beginning until the Earth was formed, at first I wasn’t sure about the personification of the universe but it grew on me and M really liked it

Life on Earth by Steve Jenkins – excellent introduction to the history of animals on our planet, could be used to introduce the concept of geologic time scale

Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs – Ms. Frizzle and her class take a field trip to an archaeological dig and then go back in time all the different era of the dinosaur age.  Another good intro to the periods of geologic time.

From Lava to Life by Jennifer Morgan – continues the story from Born With A Bang, the universe tells how the oceans and continents were formed and how life began in the ocean and moved slowly onto land

Magic School Bus Blow Its Top: A Book About Volcanoes – Ms. Frizzle and her class see a volcano erupt and form a new island

On This Spot by Susan E. Goodman – starts with a scene of moden day NYC then travels back through time until just after the earth was formed,

National Geographic Readers: Volcanos by Anne Schreiber – an easy reader that decribes introduces readers to the different types of volcanoes and gives specific examples from around the world

When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm and When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth by Hannah Bonner – fantastic, humorous approach to life in the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods, the best children’s books I’ve found yet on the age before the dinosaurs

Paleo-Sharks: Survival of the Strangest by Timothy J. Bradley – wonderful pictures and facts about amazingly weird species of prehistoric sharks along with descriptions of modern sharks that share similar characteristics

Paleo-Bugs: Survival of the Creepiest by Timothy J. Bradley – some of these species are very creepy indeed, great overview of some of the large and strange bugs of the Paleozoic era

Giant Shark: Megalodon by Caroline Arnold – fantastic overview of Megalodons (the largest sharks that ever lived), this species evolved later than the time period we’ve studied so far, but we’re going to see a Megalodon exhibit in a few weeks and we have a Megalodon tooth fossil so we read this book along with Paleo Sharks

Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins – fantastic pictures that give the reader a sense of the scale of prehistoric creatures

DK Eyewitness Reptile and DK Eyewitness Amphibian – these books focus on modern amphibians and reptiles but both have excellent description of the defining characteristics of these animal group and a few pages on prehistoric species

This week’s Non-Fiction Monday Round Up is at Wild About Nature.

Books, Videos, and Websites We’re Enjoying

Walking With Monsters – amazing BBC series about life before the dinosaurs, M has been glued to these episodes, and they’ve inspired many games where we pretend to be creatures from the video.  All the episodes are available streaming from Netflix.

Dinosaur Train – a new PBS show that has both girls adore

TheColor.com - free coloring pages grouped by them to color online or print out, we’ve been coloring lots of birds while discussing the calls, and lots of dinosaurs

DK Eyewitness series – fantastic non-fiction series, we currently have Reptile, Amphibian, Mammal, and Whale out from the library, I’m watching several lots of them on ebay

Peggy Kaye’s Games for Writing – M and I played two of the games this week. The first is called Race of Words. You set a timer and think of as many words as you can in a specific category (we did pets), I handicapped myself by having to write in old school cursive and we tied for the number of words we got.  She asked for more so we played One Question, Please.  We each thought of an animal, then we wrote questions to each other and answered them until we could guess each other’s animals.

Mind Benders and Math Analogies from The Critical Thinking Company – If M gets to choose her own schedule for the day, she always chooses science first and then some of these puzzles from her logic folder.

Prehistoric Fun

We’re having such a wonderful time with our study of prehistory.  All of us are learning things and getting inspired to look up answers to new questions.  I’m still tweaking the book, video, and activity lists and figuring out some technical issues, but eventually I’ll be sharing the curriculum I’m creating for us in a series of posts and/or downloads.

Right now, we’re studying the Paleozoic era and what better way to celebrate the variety of life in Paleozoic seas than to make trilobite cookies.

M made a prehistory timeline using one piece of construction paper per time period.  As we study each period, she fills in some of the animals that were alive at that time. We keep these pages in a file folder where she can pull them out as a reference or practice putting them in the correct order.

Non-Fiction Monday: The Story of the Orchestra

We been using The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine for music appreciation.  The book is divided into two sections.  The first half explains the four eras of classical music (Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern) and focuses on a few composers from each era.  Tracks on the accompanying cd give the reader a chance to hear music by each of these composers.  The second half of the book describes the instruments of the orchestra and how they are organized into families.  Once again, selections on the cd highlight each of these instruments.

Far from being dry like some books on classical music that I’ve tried to read, Levine’s text and Meredith Hamilton’s illustrations use humor, fascinating facts, and tidbits from the composer’s personal lives to make classical music accessible to children.  My girls have had a blast dancing around to the selections on the cd and both of them can now name some Baroque and some Classical composers.

This week’s Non-Fiction Monday Round-Up is at Playing By the Book.

What We’re Reading, January 23

M and her dad finished their second read of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Despite much pleading, we’re holding off a bit longer on Prisoner of Azkaban so they’ve returned to Narnia and are reading The Horse and His Boy.

It’s much be the season for re-reading, M and I recently re-read Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder and Clementine by Sara Pennypacker.  A few days ago, we finished Blue Bay Mystery, a Boxcar Children book and now we’re happily frolicking through Magic or Not? by Edward Eager.

M is quickly gaining confident reading chapter books.  In the last week, she’s read Dinosaur Before Dark, The Knight Before Dawn, Katie the Kitten Fairy, and Bella the Bunny Fairy.

We read so many picture books to C (many of which M listens to as well) that I have a hard time keeping track of them.  Some that have had multiple requests this week are: Young MacDonald by David Milgrim, Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Apples Here! by Will Hubbell, Night Rabbits by Monica Wellington, On the Moon by Anna Milbourne, and Don’t Eat the Babysitter by Nick Ward.