Evan-Moor

  One resource I recommend all the time is Evan-Moor.  The workbooks are ideal for summer practice.  I like the Geography practice as enrichment in the elementary grades.  You can do an exercise each day or polish off a week’s worth of activities in under an hour.  Look at Grade 5 Geography, as an example.  Another suggestion is Summer Bridge activity books.  You can use these as supplement those days when you just need emergency lessons.  Consider used copies—many are like new.  These workbooks won’t replace a core curriculum; they do provide a good supplement.

Instant Lessons: Let’s write reports about inventions!

Let’s go old-school and reinstate reports.  Kiddos used to read an article and handwrite a report. Reports are a great safety net.  Read a book and write a report.  Done.  Reports are perfect assignments for the week of chaos when you had a trip to the ER, the washer broke down, and the dog was sick. 

 Pick any topic.  I teach science and am interested in inventions.  (Don’t you wish you had invented wheels on luggage?)   If you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, look for Ben Cohen’s Science of Success articles.  (He wrote about white lines on the roads in the July 3rd issue.). Print a few articles to assign during family emergencies. 

Take BYJU’s Quiz, Ten Famous Inventions and Inventors Kids Must Know to get started with a list to research at the library or on Britannica.

ACS Chemical Landmarks: Crest, Scotch Tape (Booklet), Bakelite (Booklet), and  Test Strips (Booklet) are all examples.  Food Dehydration (Booklet) can lead to Snack Engineering.

Smithsonian has Invention Stories, such as epi-pens, George Forman’s grill, brewing coffee, and more about chips.  Invention at Play has a ton of short inventors’ stories, such as Ann Moore’s Snugli.

Lemelson-MIT has an Inventor Archive with Mary Anderson’s Windshield Wipers, Marconi’s telegraph, , and Mars M&Ms.

Dave Ramsey Financial Peace

 Have you considered Dave Ramsey’s Home School Personal Finance?  You may want to buy the 2012 version.  My friend, Christine, and my husband, Rob, teach a personal finance course and include Dave Ramsay’s program.  They are examining just the books and workbooks because the costs of the digital versions have risen sharply.  (BTW we use and reuse older textbooks all the time!)  Many, many families have their teens read one of Dave Ramsey’s books, attend a course (often held at a local church), or use a home study course.  Rob and Christine want the teens to use a workbook and take quizzes to hold them accountable for the material.  The used kits have DVD lessons.  Some teens prefer to watch and video and answer questions.  You do you!

Patriotic Art Projects!

 The 4th of July is right around the corner.  Let’s celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary in style!  Do an elective art project!  Add this fun, summer project to your digital portfolio.Make 4th of July Agamographs! Here and here are more.  4th of July Pointilism dovetails well with this Art of Patriotism unit.  10 Easy Crafts includes spin painting.  Finally, 30 Patriotic Crafts should give you enough ideas to finish your art unit.

Instant Lesson: Story Starters and Writing Prompts

 My young friend, Meg, used to get up at 6:30 to be able to finish all of her school work before her neighborhood friends even got on the bus to go to public school.  She enjoyed running out to the bus stop to announce she had finished!  Now what?  You need instant lessons occasionally for enrichment.  Some of my favorite instant lessons are for writing.  

Kiddos: Free Creative Writing Story Prompts are written for home-schoolers!  Here, here, and here are more story starters.  Print a list or two for your emergency files.  You could also have your kiddos print a list my hand to practice handwriting.

Teens: I keep a set of grab and go writing prompts for days I just blank.  I used several from San José State: Descriptive Writing, Pruning Your Prose, Snowball, etc.  (Nope.  I can’t find the source for the exercises unless they are buried in Homegrown Handouts.)  Teens need to write!  Practice with SAT Writing Prompts or these prompts.  

There are any number of reasons you need an extra activity or an instant lesson.  Let’s create a stack of files for fall!

Instant Lessons

 When I taught professionally, I had emergency lessons.  You should, too!  Create files marked Emergency.  Some large families also have an emergency snack box when mom just can’t face cooking another meal.  Put the emergency files there. There will be days when your three year old decides to have a two hour melt-down or the baby is vomiting with a fever.  While your older kiddos are delighted to build with LEGOs or bake, consider emergency lessons—at least to keep you from feeling guilty about missing the regular lessons.  

Money: Currency, coins, and money combines several subjects. Let’s start with coins.  Watch Money and Magnets before you read The Captivating Chemistry of Coins.  Here are the student questions.  Younger kiddos might enjoy the NCW issue, Marvelous Metals, which has articles, a game, activities, and terms.  Assign the terms to the kiddos.  They can copy the vocabulary and definitions.  In fact have them research the definition and record any unfamiliar word.   Tell the children they can clean copper pennies (older than 1981) with vinegar and salt or Ketchup; however, they need to find the pennies by themselves and do the experiment in the kitchen. Here is the U.S. Mint’s Coin Classroom, with videos. Ask the younger kiddos to hunt for change and count it.  Here are counting money worksheets to print.

Currency is another interesting topic.  Here is the currency academy.  Cash, Currency, and Counterfeit (guide) and Counterfeiting Countermeasures, are fascinating.  Here are U.S. currency videos.  HST has a Counterfeit Money Project kids can do independently if they have a magnifier.  Ask the kiddos to hunt for yours when they are searching for coins.  If you have a hand-held microscope, paper currency is fascinating under the microscope.  

Science NCW and ACS Issues: Celebrating Chemistry (scroll down) has annual issues full of articles, activities, vocabulary, etc.  Look at The Sweet Side of Chemistry: Candy.  Print the articles and save the experiments for another day.  Kiddos can summarize articles or just write a few facts, depending on their ages. Do you want dire emergency science lessons?  Use Bill Nye Movie Sheets and Bill Nye Episodes.  My emergency lessons were Chemmatters articles and teacher’s guides, such as Crochet Chemistry, which dovetails well with Fabulous Fibers.  The teacher’s guide is on the same page as the article. Students should write the answers in complete sentences.  Voila! An instant lesson!

English and Math: Pick a writing prompt. The kiddo is practicing  handwriting.  Have Editor in Chief and Easy Grammar on hand.  Pull out any sheet.  By all means read a book!  Ask your kiddo to add the title in her reading log.  Similarly, print math drill worksheets.  Try to train your kiddo to pull out math of his own and work on the next lesson.  3-Act Tasks have videos, such as The Candyman, with questions.  Kids can estimate the number of pieces of gum from the gum ball machine and see the answer in the link or video below.

Geography and History: I like Daily Geography.  Pull any lesson.  For high school teens I’ve used Land and People: Finding a Balance.  The focus question provides a guide.  For example, have the teen start with the poster, review the Teacher’s Guide, and read the lesson.  I’ve used this as a research project.  What is the current state of water quality in Cape Cod?  How is Cape Cod addressing the water quality issues?  For History, try Five Minute History Lessons or pick a Sesquicentennial Lesson!  What does freedom mean to you?  Try Dissecting the Revolution and worksheet from the Museum of the American Revolution.  Save these crafts for a rainy day.

VeggieTales Connections

 Good Will has a listing for Veggietales Connections.  eBay does, too!  This looks like a year-long Bible Study for kiddos.  What fun!