Freely Educate

Free Comic Books on Finances (in the mail or online)

Think our students need to study finances?  You bet they do!  The Federal Reserve has published quite a few comic books on the topic of money (banking, foreign trade, saving, and more). 

You may view the comic books online or order hard copies of them to arrive in your mailbox.  I went through the ordering process today and found both methods hassle-free and 100% free, no catches, not even a registration requirement.  You may order up to 35 copies of each comic book.

Here is a peek at one of the comic books:

 

How to Get This Freebie:  Visit the Federal Reserve Comic Books site (while there, you may want to browse around for other free, non-comic-book, publications)

For:  Elementary, Middle, and High School Students

Update added 7/23/2010:  I wrote this post on Saturday, the 17th, and ordered two comic books that day as a review of their process. We received the comic books on Thursday, the 22nd!  Our teen was immediately interested in them and claimed them as his own.

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Today's high quality, 100% free, educational find comes from reader Carrie Bon. Thank you, Carrie! 

Have a resource to share, too?  Email me at freelyeducate@gmail.com

Practical Skill: A Unique Geography Idea

It's hot.  Let's stay indoors this weekend and embroider a globe, shall we?

This idea comes from the Piece Work magazine site.  They offer full instructions, a history of embroidered globes (1840s schoolgirls used to do this), and stitching details.

If you embroider a globe, please comment below with a link to a photo so we can admire your piecework!

To Get the Instructions:  Visit this Embroider a Globe page 

For:  Students over age 9, give or take, should be able to handle a needle without difficulty.

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Free Job Chart System to Help Motivate Kids

 

To complete a child's education, he or she needs to learn practical skills as well as academic skills, right? Academic skills usually come with motivations such as A+ grades, a teacher's encouragement, or the privilege to participate in sports.  But what motivates a kid to get their chores done?  With My Job Chart, a free online chore chart, you choose the reward that your student or child should receive, while the student enjoys the freedom of increased responsibility. 

Here is more about the program:

My Job Chart is a FREE online Chore Chart that teaches kids to work in a fun and productive way. Using an easy and fun online system, My Job Chart inspires kids to do their chores on time. An interactive point system tracks your child’s progress, creating excitement and enthusiasm among kids. And the fully customizable chore chart allows you and your child to decide upon mutually determined rewards, fostering communication and developing responsibility. You even get an email or text message when your kids finish their chores or they earn a reward!

Signing up for My Job Chart is easy.  You'll only need to use an email address to register. 

 

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Over 300 Wildflowers

There are over 300 line drawings of wildflowers at the Umatilla National Forest website. 

What can you do with line drawings? 

• Print them out as coloring pages (coloring guide is included at the site!)
• Transfer the design to fabric for an embroidery project
• Use them as a reference for learning both Latin and common plant names

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Thank you, Tina, for sharing this high quality, 100% free educational find with us!
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Free Online Course on Choosing a Career: Middle-High Schoolers

Choosing which career to pursue is a daunting task for anyone. The choices are so many and so diverse, where to begin?  Microsoft and the Michigan Department of Education created CareerForward, a 20-hour online course to help you choose the career of your talents & dreams:

The following text comes from the CareerForward site:

The CareerForward course is a self-contained online learning course  to provide students with the opportunity to assess their career interests, explore career options and create an educational development plan. It is designed to help students understand how to plan their work lives and career opportunities amid the implications of the global economy.

As a result of major investments by Microsoft’s Partners in Learning program and MVU, this innovative course is now available to all secondary students at no fee. 

Course Information

The CareerForward course uses personal reflection and activities to provide each student with an independent exploration of the possibilities of their future and the creation of an Educational Development Plan (EDP).

Grade Level:		Middle and high school
Prerequisites:		None
Course Style:		Blended, teacher facilitated; 4 to 6 weeks in length; 20 hour-long online sessions
Price:		No cost
Availability:		Now

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Practical Skill: Free Kitchen Remodeling Workshop

In our little school, we consider practical skills to be just as important as academics.   The Home Depot Do-It-Herself Workshops look like a great way to learn practical skills for free.  These classes are for moms, (female) teachers and college-aged gals (I cannot find the minimum age; if highschoolers are allowed, that would be great!). The projects this month are in the kitchen:

Learn how to create your dream kitchen and save while doing it YOURSELF

Our FREE Do-It-Herself Workshops^SM are designed for women and will teach you how to tackle projects around the house while saving you money by doing it yourself. Come gain the confidence necessary to improve your kitchen and stretch your budget as you learn the following skills:

• Cabinet refinishing
• Cabinet painting and staining
• Changing cabinet hardware
• Replacing a sink
• Replacing a faucet
• Changing/upgrading lighting

Kitchen Updates

Thursday, September 24, 2009

7:00 p.m.—8:30 p.m.

Register here by filling out a simple form that requires only your name and email address.  You'll select a local Home Depot store for the class location.

Never stop learning!

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

Something to Do This Weekend: Go Geocaching!

Geocaching is a little different than the sites I normally highlight, but I think its concept is so appealing to an educator that I had to share about it...

What is geocaching?  It is simply, using your GPS to find a certain location.  This may involve trekking through treacherous terrain or walking along a flatland trail.  What you find at the end of the hike -- at the precise GPS point -- may vary, but usually includes a waterproof box of some sort and a log book, where you mark that  you were there.

I'll leave you to explore the Geocaching site, where you can input your zip code and start geocaching this weekend.  Happy hunting, um, caching!

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Practical Skill: Woodturning: Creating a Top

On my other blog, Just Pure Lovely, I posted a series of photographs I took Saturday while at a local heritage festival. In the photo series, the woodworker is creating a spinning top. 

If you have a mini lathe around, or access to one, you might be able to figure out how to create a top from the photos. 

Or, it's less messy and probably less expensive (but definitely less fun) to just gather the kids around the computer to see how a spinning top is made. 

Here's the link to my post on How to Make a Spinning Top

~ Lori Seaborg

Online Courses and Three-Week Instructor-Led Online Classes

GCF Learn Free.org offers self-taught courses and online classes for continuing education.  Some of their courses may be useful to you, especially for your middle school or high school students (or for yourself!).  Available courses include:

Computer Training (from internet skills to specific software learning, such as Access 2007)

Everyday Life ~ learn about work, money, food and more. 

Math & Money

The above courses are for you to take on your own, self taught, but the site also offers free instructor-led, three-week online classes.  Upcoming Classes include Math Basics, Powerpoint, Excel, Word and more.  Go here for the schedule and to sign up for a three-week class (these classes earn a Certificate of Completion and CEUs). 

Registration is required to access the site, but it was as simple as filling out a user name, password, city, state, and then checking a box to opt out of emails and to agree to the terms of service.  Quite simple, and very quick. 

GCF Learn Free .org writes the following about their site:

We believe that quality, innovative education helps people improve the quality of their lives. Through our computer, technology, and life skills training, our learners acquire the skills they need to do this.

p.s.  The site is also available in Spanish:  http://www.gcfaprendagratis.org/

Thank you, Tina, for recommending this 100% free, high quality educational find!

Practical Skill: A Piggy Bank to Sew

What's more educational than sewing and saving, I ask?   Why, we're talking handiwork and economics!  Concentration and math. 

Patience and patience.

Sewing a piggy bank sounds like a fun weekend project, I think.  Thanks to Nosey Nest, we can sew one, too, without figuring it out for ourselves.  Full directions are located here, with plenty of photos to guide the way.

On Fridays I'll post freebies for practical skills. Things the family can do together.  Non-academic-y things to teach the children...

...because, as all of we adults know full well, math and grammar aren't the only things a kid needs to learn.

Have a wonderful weekend (perhaps joined by the piggy)! 

~ Lori Seaborg for FreelyEducate.com,
where high quality and 100% free educational finds are posted every weekday

p.s. I got 2 packages in the mail today, with 4 future freebies for giveaways.  Great stuff, and I can't wait to review it to see if it's any good and then share it with you!  Soon.  Very soon.

FEMA: Disaster Preparedness

Opal, Erin, Ivan, Dennis, and Katrina gave our children firsthand experience with FEMA (America's Federal Emergency Management Agency) and natural disasters.  Those lovely names were given to not-so-lovely hurricanes that came to our area, among others.

It seems no area is exempt from a natural disaster these days.  FEMA created a site dedicated to educating children about disaster preparation:

Go to Becoming a Disaster Action Kid, finish the checklist, and you are then eligible for FEMA freebies, such as:

Freebies For Disaster Action Kids:

You can get posters, videos and other fun things for free if you are a Disaster Action Kid.

You can order these items FREE from FEMA:

• Mary & Jett's Activity Book
• (Ages 4-7) Disaster Preparedness Activity Book
• (Ages 8-11) Disaster Preparedness Activity Book
• Preparing for Disaster
• Door Knob Hanger: Fire Safety.

If you have any questions about the above offer, please contact the web owner. 

Enjoy!  (the freebies, not the disasters!)

FreelyEducate.com, high quality ~ 100% free ~ educational finds posted every weekday.

Handipoints.com: Chore Charts

As our children well know, in our house, chores are as educational as math lessons!  So I was delighted to find Handipoints, a website (think Webkinz) for keeping track of children's chores.  Enjoy this educational freebie! ~ Lori Seaborg

The following is from Handipoints.com:

Handipoints is a virtual community for families where children’s everyday “real world” chores earn them big prizes and new adventures in a safe online environment that is controlled and monitored by parents. Unlike other children’s Web sites, Handipoints marries offline tasks, such as cleaning their room and brushing their teeth, with online entertainment and games to teach children the value of their work and foster good behavior. While they’re having fun, children learn about saving money and building responsible habits – and parents get a helping hand with positive reinforcement that is educational at the same time. 

Games that Teach Responsibility:

HandiLand is very similar to Club Penguin and Webkinz such that you can adopt and dress up a cartoon cat, walk around to different towns and interact with other kids. The big difference is how we tie in the aspects of teaching responsible habits and doing chores to earn points into our game. In other sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, kids earn "money" by playing games. So kids end up spending countless hours flipping virtual burgers and riding bob sleds so that they can save up enough points to buy a hat for their characters. These sites are great fun but at the end of the day, its 100% play and the kids aren’t learning anything constructive. In Handipoints kids earn points by doing chores, staying healthy, and behaving well in the real world and must save their points in order to play the games and watch the cartoons inside our virtual world. So the economics of our game more closely follows real life and teaches kids some important lessons along the way. We also give parents a whole suite of tools to let them create an allowance program tied to real rewards.

Here you go!  http://www.handipoints.com