Go Phonics.  This program is highly recommended by Basic Skills.  It reminds us of the wonderful out of print Horizon/Little Patriot readers with an added Sing, Spell, Read, Write approach and some Phonics Pathways type dyslexia helps. We gleaned this off of Basic Skills website and have not seen it anywhere else nor used it, but we've included it here as we know finding controlled phonics readers linked to an incremental phonics instruction program are difficult to find.  This is a complete program (with a rather impressive price tag if you buy everything), but you can purchase individual components separately in particular the controlled vocabulary readers that caught our eye.

 

Answers.com is billited as the world's largest encylodictionalmanacapedia. Type in your target word(s), and you will get a dictionary entry, several ecyclopedia articles, and almanac entry with map. Secular.

 

DVA Special Markets.  (From their website) "We are DVA, the largest distributor of authentic studio released special interest DVD and VHS at deep discount prices. We would like to invite you to visit our website  with a special 10% discount code for educators. There you will find hundreds of great educational videos from studios like PBS, A&E, Discovery Channel, History Channel and National Geographic."   The DVA material is obviously secular in content, so buyer beware; however, some are from the History Channel and PBS which were quite good at truly "cheap" prices!

 

Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Noah Webster could best be described as an America's first curriculum writer. Concerned with the quality of books in Amercian schools (a hodge podge of used English books), He revolutionized American educational curriculum in the 1780's by producing the Blue Back Speller which taught children how to read for over 100 years. He later wrote the first American dictionary which standardized American spellings and recognized uniquely American words (such as squash). His strong Christian character and firm grasp of the principles of government shine through in his definitions.  Here's another site for Webster's dictionary (since these free sites do change from time to time).

 

  

Classical Astronomy  In the Classical Astronomy web site explore pages to find information about happenings in the night sky.  Visit the Sky This Month page for information on current and upcoming sky events. Also visit the linked pages for extensive archives of astronomy articles from a Christian perspective. Check out their Newsletter page for info on the Classical Astronomy Update, a free email newsletter, and an archive of back issues. 

 

CYFERnet 4H Just for Kids.  This site sponsored by CYFERnet has a number of fun science and technology units that are written for 4H but most of which provide a fun online unit without being part of 4H or purchasing anything.  Check out the aviation "Airplanes and Flight,"  "Bug Club," "Space," and "Virtual Farm."  More units are coming online soon. (Secular).

 

Enature. A great site to find out what that creature or plant is in your back yard! From birds, to fish, to amphibians to shells to insects to wildflowers. It offers online field guides with input
help and even specific species for your location! There's even bird songs. Great nature resource for bird, plant or critter identification.

 

Home Science Tools. Home Science Tools (formerly Home Training Tools) is a science supplies company. Has actual kits and/or printouts of materials needed for Apologia, Abeka and Bob Jones science as well as a host of the usual and unusual science supplies. HTT also provides an interesting free, monthly newsletter (upon sign up), that includes science lessons and information resources.

 

How Everyday Things Are Made - "If you've ever wondered how things are made (candy, cars, airplanes, or bottles) or you're interested in manufacturing processes (forging, casting, or injection molding), then you've come to the right place. This introductory website for kids and adults shows how 40 different products are made and includes almost 4 hours of video. Think of it as your own private online factory tour. The Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing (AIM) a cooperative venture among Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, School of Engineering, and member industrial firms. Optimized for high speed internet access. Requires Flash." Really cool site!!

 

JETS  Junior Engineer Technical Society's site to promote and encourage students to consider engineering and technical careers.  The provides information, resources, and online challenges for the budding engineering student.

 

Master Books. This publisher specializes in Christian perspective science reference materials: i.e. encyclopedia style and story style informational books that cover the areas of: Weather, Geology, Astronomy, Human Anatomy, World of Chemistry, World of Medicine, Planet Earth (with explorers), and Dinosaurs, among others. There are also downloadable study guides for the earth science books and numerous others. Fabulous books! Great Site. Great links
on it to other creation sites.

 

Molecular Expressions  This is a site containing "photo galleries that explore the fascinating world of optical microscopy... going where no microscope has gone before by offering one of the Web's largest collections of color photographs taken through an optical microscope (commonly referred to as "photo-micro-graphs").  Great slide photographs for those who do not have a good microscope to use in science (most student microscopes offer poor results). The pond scum gallery has video streams of microscopic pond life slides--really helpful if your biology lab's pond sample didn't yield much!  Full descriptions included with each video or slide photograph.  Use the "Real Player" option for best results (you will need to download Real Player if you don't have it on your computer).

 

 Neuroscience for Kids  From their website "Discover the exciting world of the brain, spinal cord, neurons and the senses. Use the experiments, activities and games to help you learn about the nervous system. There are plenty of links to other web sites for you to explore."  The lesson plans we viewed appeared to be geared towards the elementary age student.

Online Dissection Labs:Here's a good site for online lab links for those who would like help with their dissection or would like to view a dissection without the mess. Includes frog, cow eye, sheep brain, heart, plant cells, cat and earthworm etc.  Here is also a frog dissection worksheet.

Periodic Table. Los Alamos Lab provides an interactive periodic table that is both
informative and fascinating.

 

The Physics Classroom  This site provides help for the high school physics student.  It includes the Physics Tutorial (Learn basic physics concepts and review them in the Physics Tutorial. Check Your Understanding quizzes let you know you got it.), the Multimedia Physics Studio (Is physics difficult for you to visualize? Do you need to see it to understand it? Then visit the Multimedia Physics Studio.), and the Physics Help (Practice your skills in Physics Help. Hone your skills by graphing problems, recognizing forces, identifying vector magnitude and direction, and practice vector addition.). Secular site.

 

TryEngineering  This site is a resource for students (8-18), their parents, and teachers.  It gives information about engineering careers, associations, colleges, AND lesson plans and games to help get your budding engineer started!

 

 Scratch  Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.  Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.
Scratch is downloadable from the site free of charge, and the Scratch site offers supports for students and educators.  Currently available for Mac OSX and Windows (Linnux available soon).
 

Quick Study Labs  This site provides an online electronics course for homeschooled students, electronics summer clubs, and some cool links.  Currently, courses are about $110 ($55 for lab equipment--which is reusable for other courses, $55 course registration).  There are several courses, the Edison project for students ages 8-11, and Electronics I and II for students ages12-18.   Electronics I and II constitute 1 semester credit of science.  Taught by an enthusiastic community college electronics teacher who desires to bless the homeschool community. 

Virtual Science. A page full of science links including virtual caves, virtual labs, virtually EVERYTHING!  We have NOT gone through a lot of these links nor reviewed the info as there is SO much stuff, so please be careful, but there is a lot of interesting looking links there!

 

 

Teaching Jeremiah is a Christian homeschooling mother's blog about the joys and challenges of homeschooling a child with autism (Aspergers).  It contains many helpful links and articles regarding autism and Aspergers.

 

Little Sparrow Ministries As Little Sparrow Ministries (LSM) we encourage, assist, and provide support to home-educating Christian families, especially those with special needs children, throughout the country. Our ministry is not merely an "informational" ministry, but also a "support" ministry. We have learned to provide services through phone consultation, e-mail, workshops/seminars, specially designed materials and curriculum support, and personal contact. Most of our support is given via phone consultation and e-mail. Many of the support materials we have available are able to be transmitted via e-mail while others are sent using standard mailing channels. LSM serves families at no cost. We depend upon the Lord to work in the hearts of his people to supply what we need to carry out the various aspects of this ministry. Any materials we do supply are at very low cost.

 

 

 

 FREEHomeschool Software.com  This company is a homeschool family that scours the market to find educational software to sell cheaply, and THEN adds lesson plans to them!  ($7.95 per title to cover shipping and handling).  We at the CHOC Board recognized many of our old favorites (like Story Weaver Deluxe by MECC) which have dropped off the general market.  This company states they have tested all programs and found them to work on Windows XP, and there is a policy of 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money is refunded with no questions asked.  We've not tried this particular service (although we've tried similar).  The downfall is these are older programs which generally should work with XP, but as you know in the computer world, ought to doesn't mean it will.  Also, since these are obviously back inventories of items not generally on the market, the supplies are limited and their inventory varies daily. Most of these programs will be secular.  But we list them because many of them we recognize as favorite wholesome jewels, and we were sad to see the mass market trend away from this type of truly educational program to a more entertainment type.

 

 

Unit Studies:

Alwright Publishing company is the work of a homeschooling family in Georgia. Kim Wright created hands on units for her own children, shared them with her co-op group, and now publishes them for sale. There are units such as Victorian Quilting and Sewing, Flower Arranging, Botany, Birds, The Microscope, Spiders, Arachnids, Sheep, Goats, Poultry and Photography. They use the notebook approach relying upon the child's research as well as providing basic information, lab sheets, work sheets, flash cards and such.