Freely Educate

FREE American History Seminar & Study Guide

The National Center for Constitutional Studies presents the Making of America Seminar

Here is their description:

Few Americans today know the real story of how America was made. The struggle of the Founders to discover the ideas of freedom will give you a deep appreciation of these people. As each American today experiences this amazing story, he [or she] will surely become an advocate and a teacher America's formula for freedom.

Here is how to join in:

• Grab a Study Guide before the webinar (it's a .pdf file). Each of the four study guides are about 20 pages long, illustrated including maps, and contain the history of America's founding in chronological order. 

• Join in the live Webinar.  The four-part series begins on the first Tuesday of each month (August 4th is the first Tuesday of August), and continues for the next 3 Tuesdays of that month (registration required - name, city, state, and email address)

• If you miss a webinar, or if you're impatient and want to hear the webinar now, you may download from the archives, here (registration is not required)

Thank you, Glenna, for sharing this high quality, 100% free educational find with the FreelyEducate.com readers! If you want to share a freebie, too, email me at loriseaborg@gmail.com

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

FREE K-12 Tailored Tutoring Programs in Math & Reading

Note from Lori:  This site is massive and its potential to an educator vast, so I'll let them describe what they offer.  The following is from MINDsprinting.com:

MINDsprinting is 100% FREE. 5 good reasons to Enroll Today!

1. Comprehensive Assessment Tests
   Our Tests determine school grade level, skill gaps, and enable us to tailor our programs to a student's needs. You receive diagnostic results promptly, and if a Test is taken multiple times you can select which results to use for that program.

2. Coordinated Math (K-12) Tutoring.
   Each student receives two tailored programs in which we assign teaching and practice lessons:

   • Personal Math: Tailored to each student on the basis of skills that should have been mastered by his/her grade level and the ones he/she has actually mastered. Students can fill skill gaps from prior grades at their own pace, without peer pressure, and raise their skills to grade level and beyond without any limits. Ideal for remedial and enrichment purposes.
   • State Standards Math: Addresses all skills, by grade and by state, students must know for the annual NCLB-required exam. Over 50 different programs - we track your state's standards exactly! We tailor the program to assign lessons for all required skills in a student's grade that are not yet mastered (and show you the ones that have been mastered too).

   You can use either program alone - but together they are a one-of-a-kind teaching tool that provides individualized tutoring AND state exam preparation at the same time!

3. Reading Tutoring (K-12)

   Reading Excellence (K-3): Teaches children how to read and write from the beginning
   Reading Comprehension (4-12): Improves students' understanding of what they read. 

4. User Friendly System.
   An easy-to-use website - no training is required. Start immediately after you enroll.

   • The Dashboard: Manage students and access features from one page.
   • Fast Tracking: Select, skip or repeat lessons for one or all students.
   • Reports: Detailed Transcripts; Progress Reports, and Custom Reports.
   • Printed lessons: No sitting in front of a computer required.

5. IT'S ALL FREE!
   Convenient, quality tutoring (our proven curriculumhas been honed for over 20 years and been approved for NCLB tutoring) is now available to you at no cost.

   • Parents: Help your child improve from the comfort of your own home.
   • Teachers: Take advantage of this easy-to-use, multi-purpose tool; give your students their own personalized tutoring programs - ones that make it easy for parents to get involved too!
   • Students: Take control of your future. Get the tutoring you deserve and maximize your abilities.  
     
   • Thank you, Dawn, for sharing this high quality, 100% free, find with FreelyEducate.com readers!

1. Comprehensive Assessment Tests
   Our Tests determine school grade level, skill gaps, and enable us to tailor our programs to a student's needs. You receive diagnostic results promptly, and if a Test is taken multiple times you can select which results to use for that program.

2. Coordinated Math (K-12) Tutoring.
   Each student receives two tailored programs in which we assign teaching and practice lessons:

   • Personal Math: Tailored to each student on the basis of skills that should have been mastered by his/her grade level and the ones he/she has actually mastered. Students can fill skill gaps from prior grades at their own pace, without peer pressure, and raise their skills to grade level and beyond without any limits. Ideal for remedial and enrichment purposes.
   • State Standards Math: Addresses all skills, by grade and by state, students must know for the annual NCLB-required exam. Over 50 different programs - we track your state's standards exactly! We tailor the program to assign lessons for all required skills in a student's grade that are not yet mastered (and show you the ones that have been mastered too).

   You can use either program alone - but together they are a one-of-a-kind teaching tool that provides individualized tutoring AND state exam preparation at the same time!

3. Reading Tutoring (K-12)

   Reading Excellence (K-3): Teaches children how to read and write from the beginning
   Reading Comprehension (4-12): Improves students' understanding of what they read. 

4. User Friendly System.
   An easy-to-use website - no training is required. Start immediately after you enroll.

   • The Dashboard: Manage students and access features from one page.
   • Fast Tracking: Select, skip or repeat lessons for one or all students.
   • Reports: Detailed Transcripts; Progress Reports, and Custom Reports.
   • Printed lessons: No sitting in front of a computer required.

5. IT'S ALL FREE!
   Convenient, quality tutoring (our proven curriculumhas been honed for over 20 years and been approved for NCLB tutoring) is now available to you at no cost.

   • Parents: Help your child improve from the comfort of your own home.
   • Teachers: Take advantage of this easy-to-use, multi-purpose tool; give your students their own personalized tutoring programs - ones that make it easy for parents to get involved too!
   • Students: Take control of your future. Get the tutoring you deserve and maximize your abilities.  
     
   • Thank you, Dawn, for sharing this high quality, 100% free, find with FreelyEducate.com readers!

Planning a School Field Trip? This Free Trade Magazine for Educators Will Help

Are you planning a tour or field trip with your students this year?  Do you need to know the best accommodation options, the best educational tours, and all the other need-to-know information that goes along with trip planning? 

If so, and no matter the size of your "group," you'll probably find Student Group Tour Magazine to be an invaluable source for tour and field trip planning.  Student Group Tour Magazine is  a free trade magazine for educators, individuals and organizations...

      

Here is a description from Student Group Tour Magazine:

Student Group Tour Magazine is a publication for individuals, educators and organizations actively planning trips for student groups.

Every issue contains information focusing on student oriented destinations, itineraries, travel trends, and information covering all aspects of student travel. With the regional breakdown, articles and advertisements are placed within their respective section of the magazine for easy reference.

 If you'd like the Student Group Tour Magazine to come to your postal - snail mail - box, fill out the mailing information form, here.  There is no credit card required and nothing to cancel - this is a trade magazine, 100% free to educators.   

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Planning? Here's a Free Lesson Planner & Scheduler for your Homeschool

Is anyone else out there planning, planning and planning these days as I am?  My eyes are about to cross!  Maybe this free educational find will help us:

Homeschool Skedtrack is a scheduler and tracker, useful for homeschooling teachers and tutors.  Here is a screenshot of the planning program...

Here is a description of Homeschool Skedtrack from the site's geniuses who designed the program:

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.

The whole system is a personal virtual school that features:

• easy record keeping from K-12 for each student
• worry free data back-up
• access of your virtual school from anywhere around the world
• secure access of information between the server and the user's browser using secure socket layer (SSL) just like online banking
• flexible scheduling of your child's activities/lessons per year, per month, per week or as you go
• automated display of daily home school activities/lessons per course
• automated tracking of total number of hours/days completed
• scheduling and tracking of field trips
• scheduling vacations and declaring holidays
• a school calendar for each student
• a resource list per course
• tests recording
• automated grade calculation
• report card generation in pdf format
• transcript generation (coming soon) in pdf format

NOTE:  Go here for some great video tutorials of how to use Homeschool Skedtrack

Here is another screenshot of Homeschool Skedtrack, this time of the field trip log...

Thank you, April, for this high quality, 100% free educational find (you were so right, we do need more in our "planning" category!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Homeschool Skedtrack is a scheduler and tracker, useful for homeschooling teachers and tutors.  Here is a screenshot of the planning program...

Here is a description of Homeschool Skedtrack from the site's geniuses who designed the program:

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.

The whole system is a personal virtual school that features:

• easy record keeping from K-12 for each student
• worry free data back-up
• access of your virtual school from anywhere around the world
• secure access of information between the server and the user's browser using secure socket layer (SSL) just like online banking
• flexible scheduling of your child's activities/lessons per year, per month, per week or as you go
• automated display of daily home school activities/lessons per course
• automated tracking of total number of hours/days completed
• scheduling and tracking of field trips
• scheduling vacations and declaring holidays
• a school calendar for each student
• a resource list per course
• tests recording
• automated grade calculation
• report card generation in pdf format
• transcript generation (coming soon) in pdf format

NOTE:  Go here for some great video tutorials of how to use Homeschool Skedtrack

Here is another screenshot of Homeschool Skedtrack, this time of the field trip log...

Thank you, April, for this high quality, 100% free educational find (you were so right, we do need more in our "planning" category!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

DonnaYoung.org: Planners, Calendars, Forms, & more

You can go to a bookstore and buy forms for nearly every type of planning you wish, or you can go to DonnaYoung.org and for the price of a piece of paper and a few squirts of printer ink, you can have even more forms, some customizable, to fit any educator's paper needs (certainly not just homeschoolers, even though the site was created with homeschoolers in mind).

The site has so much to offer that it is overwhelming at first, so I'll get you started by pointing the way to a few of my favorite forms:

• Weekly Lesson Planners
• Blank Monthly Calendars
• Grades Forms (choose to grade by percentage or by whole numbers)
• Attendance Records
• High School Transcripts
• Diplomas

There are also different papers available through the DonnaYoung.org site:

• Handwriting Paper
• Math clocks, charts, money, etc.
• Science Lab Reports

There is a lot more at the DonnaYoung.org site, so check it out!

FreelyEducate.com, high quality - 100% free - educational finds

The site has so much to offer that it is overwhelming at first, so I'll get you started by pointing the way to a few of my favorite forms:

• Weekly Lesson Planners
• Blank Monthly Calendars
• Grades Forms (choose to grade by percentage or by whole numbers)
• Attendance Records
• High School Transcripts
• Diplomas

There are also different papers available through the DonnaYoung.org site:

• Handwriting Paper
• Math clocks, charts, money, etc.
• Science Lab Reports

There is a lot more at the DonnaYoung.org site, so check it out!

FreelyEducate.com, high quality - 100% free - educational finds

Have Phun with Physics

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that title.  Phun is a "2D physics sandbox" where your students can have fun while learning.

The creators of Phun describe the program like this:

Great for kids

Phun is a fantastic toy for children, where they can learn and appreciate physics, science and simulations in an open ended gameplay with rich creative and artistic freedom, including colorful freehand drawing.

Tina, a FreelyEducate.com reader, sent in the link to Phun. She said she appreciates why the creators are keeping Phun free: "We want to keep Phun freely available for non-commercial use, since we think and hope that Phun can make a difference in promoting science and art to the masses, in particular children and young people, through a constructionists learning paradigm."

Thank you, Tina, for sharing this high quality, 100% free, educational find with us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Review: The Online Mom, Tech Tools for Parents

As a parent or educator, you need to know what or at least to whom children are texting.  We can agree on that, right?  But do you know what these texting and IM acronyms mean?

• TW
• MOS
• PAL
• 420
• RUMORF
• WTGP
• IPN

I didn't know those either.  We need to know...the above acronyms stand for:

• Teacher watching
• Mom over shoulder
• Parents are listening
• marijuana
• Are you male or female?
• Want to go private?
• I'm posting naked

I was recently introduced to The Online Mom, a website for parents who want to keep up with their children's technology.  I know, we could call it our technology, too - the gadgets weren't necessarily invented with children in mind - but even the most geeky of us is sometimes stumped by our wee kids. It's like they were born knowing how to text and surf!

As parents and educators, we really do need to keep up. 

You can find a huge list of texting and IM acronyms here, at The Online Mom. 

There's a lot more at The Online Mom. Here is their description of the site:

The Online Mom provides internet technology advice and information to help parents protect their kids, encourage responsible behavior and safely harness the power of technology in the new digital world. Social networking, photo sharing, video games, IM & texting, internet security, cyberbullying, educational resources, the latest on tech hardware, gadgets and software for kids 3-8, tweens and teens, and more. You may tweet The Online Mom founder, Monica Vila anytime @theonlinemom, or join her in her Wednesday night tweetchats at #theonlinemom, in which participants discuss everything from privacy on social networks to back to school gadgets. Also, join The Online Mom's Facebook page.  Through Monday, September 21st, compete in various fan challenges to win a Nintendo Wii game system and some other prizes. Subscribe to FreelyEducate here Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at loriseaborg @ gmail.com

Free Grammar & Writing Curriculum for Grades 1st-6th

Scott Foresman: Grammar Curriculum for grades 1-6

This is a terrific find!  The Scott Foresman site offers a free grammar & writing curriculum for grades 1-6 (separate "handbooks" for each grade).

The books are broken down into lesson-sized links, making downloading (to .pdf) quick. and printing convenient.  The lessons are written in a large font with black and white graphics included. 

Go here to view the Scott Foresman Grammar & Writing Handbooks.

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Free American History Lesson Plans for K-12th

American Heritage: History Lesson Plans for K-12

The American Heritage Education Foundation offers free lesson plans on American history for K-12.  These are not just quickly created lesson plans thrown on an Internet page for website exposure.  No, these are high quality lesson plans that were created by teachers for teachers and that have been under the scrutiny of testing.

The American Heritage Education Foundation describes their program as:

Each resource book includes an introductory essay regarding the curriculum rationale, lesson plans to specifically consider the American heritage themes, and activities in which students assess and analyze their own identities as Americans. The elementary school lesson plans include lessons about the colonists' experience under monarchy; the context for the writing of the Declaration of Independence; the creation of important American symbols, songs, and holidays; and the character traits modeled by great national leaders and presidents. The middle school lesson plans include lessons focusing on concepts within the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and other important texts and American symbols as well as the ideals for which many fought and sacrificed their lives. The high school lesson plans include lessons for in-depth analysis and understanding of the ideas, intentions, arguments, rights, and meanings addressed in significant texts from the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence to Federalist 47, the First Amendment, and a government letter on religious expression in public schools. 

You may access the lesson plans online, through the American Heritage Education Foundation website, or you may go to this page to order a 100% free CD of the lessons.

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Free Report & Articles from All About Spelling

Last fall, I was given the opportunity to join up with 99 other bloggers to review educational materials.  Most of the material I liked well enough to recommend, but most of it I did not keep for our little school.   There were only a few items that passed my high quality, non-twaddle, not-boring-at-all test. 

All About Spelling was one of our keepers. 

You see, we have very (!) phonetic spellers in our little school. The children would naturally think to spell "read" as "rede" before they think to spell it correctly, because they were taught the rule that "if a word ends in 'e,' the vowel says its name."   It's been frustrating to try to teach them how to spell correctly through the traditional approach of spelling lists.  Reading great books wasn't working, either.  I simply needed spelling to make sense!

I checked out a few other spelling programs for the review process, but only kept All About Spelling.  The program is super simple for the teacher to implement and interesting enough to keep the student engaged.  As a result of using the program, our students are spelling above average. 

Here's how it works:

The All About Spelling program brings together three pathways to learning - auditory (hearing), visual (seeing), and kinesthetic (touching).  This multisensory approach, combined with a built-in review system and reinforcement activities, ensures that students retain what they learn and understand how to apply it in practical situations.

 All About Spelling has many articles for educators on its main site (click on Articles at the top of the page).  There is also a free report...

And, this is worth mentioning, too...All About Spelling is  offering a one-time, never-again sale of 25% off their newest book, Level 5.  I need to get that one, too. We'd better hurry, because their sale ends next Saturday, July 18th. 

And, don't take my word for it!  If you have question or want more opinions, visit the ChatterBee:

p.s. I wrote about All About Spelling when we did a giveaway of their Levels 1-4 in January, here:

 

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Nick.com 3D Games

 

If you are looking for some great on-line games for your children to play, look no further than Nick.com.  With just a click of the mouse, children from preschool age to young teens will be able to locate one of more than 500 games to suit their needs.

 

Nick.com has some great 3D games featuring favorite cartoon characters like Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron and El Tigre.  Ride in Spongebob’s boat and try to win the Powerkart Grand Prix.  Imagine joining a live 3D game where you can fling slimeballs at other players.    Remember Hey Arnold, The Wild Thornberrys and Rocket Power?   Join their adventures and take a trip to the past.

 

In addition to the usual cartoon characters available on Nick.com, some new characters have been added to the action games genre.  The Penguins of Madagascar: Arctic Boot Camp Blitz is a great action game.    Join your favorite penguins as they slide down an obstacle course laden with good and bad surprises.  Go skating with Ginormica through town while dodging laser beams from the Giant Alien Robot in Monsters Vs Aliens:  Alien Trackdown.  Help Betsy in Pier 13 Throwdown and saturate dragonflies with soda pop as they try to ambush her.  Go flying with Iron Man as he tries to navigate through gates and collect rings in Iron Man: Makluan Ring Rampage.

 

Are you looking for something a little more traditional?  Check out the board games available to children of any age.  Play Nick.com Chess with another player on the same computer or you can e-mail your move to your friend.  Choose themes from Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron or Fairly Odd Parents to man your individual board.  In Jellyfish Shuffleboard, try to knock your opponents jellyfish off the board while scoring points with your own jellyfish. 

 

Overall, children will be able to find a game on Nick.com.  Whether you favor 3D games, actions games or board games, a fun time will be had by all.

Free Lessons for Teaching Engineering to K-12

TeachEngineering.org starts out with this statement:

Engineers have a hand in designing, creating or modifying nearly everything we touch, wear, eat, see and hear. Introducing engineering into the K-12 classroom K12 classroom connects science and math concepts to the everyday engineering that surrounds us.

Do you have a budding engineer?  Or do you have a good artist or an curious kid?  That's all you need to enjoy all that Teach Engineering has to offer!

The site is organized by categories:

• By subject area (subjects are organized into lesson plans and activities) 
• Curricular Units (longer, multi-week groupings of lessons)
• Lessons (these include associated activities)
• Activities (stand-alone activities or part of lessons or units)

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Free Elementary Grammar: Big Grammar Book from English Banana

It's sort of hard to take a website name like English Banana seriously, but after taking a look at their Big Grammar Book for elementary-age students, I think it's quite a find!

The following text is from the Big Grammar Book's introduction:

About the Big Grammar Book

"It's jam-packed from cover to cover with a great selection of photocopiable worksheets taken from the popular English Banana.com website. We wanted to provide teachers with a really useful book of no-nonsense grammar worksheets that they can dip into and use in class with students at ESOL Core Curriculum Entry Levels 1 & 2 [Elementary Level]. It is also ideal for students to work with at home since the answers are all printed at the back.

"The book is divided into four parts and is graded in difficulty, so that it begins with some basic stuff and builds up to more challenging grammar activities. It features a selection of Essential English worksheets which provide practice for crucial basic areas of knowledge for learners at Entry Level, like using numbers, writing the alphabet, spelling days and months correctly, and so on.

"We hope that you find this book a big help and full of material that you can use with your learners. A big thank-you must go to all the students who have already been trialling these worksheets in class. Their feedback has been invaluable to the development of this book..."

If you want to look at a few of the pages, to sample the book, or just want to download it slowly, go to this page for a list of available pages with links to download them (these download are .pdf files, straight from the English Banana site). 

If you'd like to download the entire kit and kaboodle in one click, go here to download the full grammar book (this download is through CNET's trustworthy and spyware/virus-scanned Download.com site).

Thank you, Jenn, for this high quality, 100% free, educational find!  Send your suggestion to me at loriseaborg@gmail.com

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Free Landmark Supreme Court Cases for Teachers

A parent in my area wrote in an e-newsletter:  "This was so good, I had to post it.  Please check it out if you have middle school age and up.  It is VERY teacher friendly with info broken down into appropriate reading levels, and tons of resources."  ~ Desiree" She was writing about Landmark Supreme Court Cases, a site full of famous (and infamous!) cases, legal terms and teacher-friendly information (such as how to teach about case studies).  A description from the Landmark Supreme Court Cases site includes: This site was developed to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark Supreme Court cases, helping students explore the key issues of each case. From the home page, you'll have access to a list of teacher-friendly areas of the site. Thanks, Desi, for this 100% free educational find! Subscribe to FreelyEducate here  or keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate Have a free educational resource to share? Want to be highlighted in a review and/or giveaway of your educational product?  Email me at loriseaborg@gmail.com