Value Bookshop's Reading Notes

One of the kid’s magazine that I subscribed for my children featured a story about the Titanic. They seem to be very intrigued about it. I guess it sounded like a fairy tale coz’ my son asked “Mom, is this real?” After our little reading session on the Titanic, I found this great video explaining how the Titanic sank. If you want to add a little Titanic into your children’s homeschooling, you’ll like this video.

Summer is almost here but don’t let the learning stop for you kids. Right now, BookCloseouts is having a 99cents sale on selected children’s educational books. I love those kind of books. They combine both entertainment and education.

99cents! What a great offer. You better get over there now coz’ their inventory for these books are limited. Click the affiliate banner below and start grabbing like crazy.

p.s. Click here to know more about BookCloseouts: CHEAP CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Whether your kids are being homeschooled or not, you should sit down to educate your children. My children go to school but I know what they are learning there do not fuel their love for learning. The problem is I sometimes wonder “What should I teach them?” Are you like me? There are so many things that we can teach our children, it is difficult to know where to start or what to choose.
Well, as you know, the internet is a great resource. I found a site that has lesson plan ideas from grades K-12. The site is by Scholastic. Go to their homepage and you’ll find a button for teaching resources. Great stuff there. I also like the “top news” section they have. For example, currently there is the Icelandic volcanic ash issue. Did you tell your children about it? you can actually branch off to learning about volcanoes.

I’m going to browse through that site some more. Hopefully my children will be as excited to learn about these stuff as I am. Here is the website’s link: Scholastic’s Teaching Resource

If you want to stay updated on teaching and children’s educational resources that I share here, you can follow me using NetworkedBlogs. Scroll down the sidebar your right and hit that “Follow This Blog” button. You can also join me on Facebook.

If you’re out of ideas and need something interesting for your children to do (learn), then browse over to http://www.tlsbooks.com/. You’ll find free printable worksheets for kids from preschool – 5th grade. There are worksheets on different subjects such as math, geography, science, English, history, music etc….They also have coloring pages to keep the very young kids busy.

Looking to do a hassle-free activity with your preschooler? Try this. All you need are some color paper, scissors, glue and magic pen. Decide how many shapes you want to work with e.g. circles, square, triangle etc…. Cut those shapes out. You can make them different sizes too.

Now have your preschooler decide what he wants for the head and body. Draw in eyes, nose, mouth, legs and arms.

If you are looking for a homeschool preschool curriculum, click this affiliate link:
ABC Home Preschool

I borrowed this book from the library and it has some excellent ideas on teaching children to create stories. I’ve been doing some of the exercises with my kids because I want them to use their creativity and imagination. Also, it will definitely help them in the future when they have to write essays and composition.

Let me share with you one fun exercise we did. It’s called “Fortunately-Unfortunately”. You and your children take turns to make up a story. First you start by describing a situation such as Mary wants to watch the latest Alvin and the Chipmunk movie. The next person than continues the story beginning with the word “fortunately”. So, referring back to the example, you could say “Fortunately she doesn’t have to go to school tomorrow because it is the weekend’. The next person then must add to the story with “unfortunately”. So the story could continue with “Unfortunately she doesn’t have enough money to buy the tickets.” The story keeps going on as you and your children add sentences that use “fortunately” and “unfortunately” alternately.

This was really fun to do. You may need to guide the kids in the beginning. But once they get the idea, they can be really crazy. You could even play this game in the car. It’s a great way to have fun, work the brain and develop language skills all at the same time.