Through February 16, 2012, you can download the Funnix Beginning Reading Program for free. The reading program is 220 complete lessons taking children from beginning non-readers to reading at a beginning third grade level.

To get the free download, you'll just need to fill out the form here. After filling out the form, you will receive an email with instructions on how to download the entire 220 lessons onto your computer. You will receive everything you need to teach the program, including daily workbook activities and guides to help utilize the program effectively.

English is a very complicated language. Many English words, due to their roots in a variety of languages such as French, Greek, German, and Latin, are known to be exceptionally hard to spell and pronounce correctly.

Sure, as homeschoolers we like to entertain the idea that there are actually English spelling and pronunciation "rules" that we can teach our children to follow all the time. But in actual practice, there are so many exceptions to most of those "rules" that they end up being something closer to a suggestion.

Early in the twentieth century a Dutchman named Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité, who recognized that the English language was somewhat of an anomaly when it comes to pronunciation, wrote a poem called "The Chaos." The 300-line poem highlighted the complexity of English pronunciation — in an almost Dr. Seuss style.

Here are the opening lines of "The Chaos":

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

And the closing lines:

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of cup…
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

You can read the full text of The Chaos here, or listen to it being read aloud on Librivox here. Your children might enjoy the challenge of reading through the entire poem (if they can make it all the way through — it's tough!)

By the way, if you're wondering how to pronounce ghoti from the graphic at the top of this post, it's actually pronounced the same as fish. How? The gh is pronounced like the gh in tough, the o is pronounced like the o in women, and the ti is pronounced like ti in the word nation. Yet another example of the absurdity of English pronunciation.

I just swapped out the book selection at the Five J's MightyBookJr.com Reading Station. Your kids can choose from 12 new books to read for free online, many of which this time are songs.

And don't forget, if you want access to MightyBookJr.com's full library of over 900 animated story books, FiveJ's.com readers get 80% off a subscription to MightyBookJr.com.

New Book Selections

• Modern Day Fairy Tales — an updated version of nine classic fairy tales, written by kids from 6 to 12. Modern Day Fairy Tales includes "Tommy Snooks and Bessy Brooks", "Humpty Dumpty", "Bye Baby Bunting", "Little Miss Muffet", "Kary be Nimble", "The Gingerbread Man", "Sleeping Ugly", "Jack and Jill", and "What Did She Do?"
  
• Aesop Fables (Vol 2) — includes "Belling the Cat", "The Wolf and the Kid", "The Fox and the Leopard", "The Eagle and the Beetle", "The Donkey and the Wolf", and "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse".
  
• The Tale of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter — Benjamin Bunny helps Peter Rabbit reclaim his coat and shoes from Mr. McGregor's garden.
  
• Fabulous Frogs — an information-packed non-fiction book about the frogs of the world.
  
• Balancing Elephants — a classic song about counting elephants that are standing around on a spider web.
  
• Dinner with Gopher —a little song and dance about that gopher and a snake, with a catchy tune filled with bounce and bubble.
  
• Days of the Week — a catchy little song that helps children remember the sequence of the days and their relationship to a week.
  
• The Lion & the Mouse — a condensed version of a classic Aesop fable with the moral: Even the smallest of goods deeds is rewarded.
  
• Pexi Has a Question: What are cloud? — Pexi is disappointed to learn that clouds have no taste.
  
• Rub a Dub Dub — a twist on the classic nursery rhyme, "Rub a Dub Dub".
  
• Where Would You Fly? — a whimsical song about wishing you could fly anywhere you wanted to.
  
• A Home for Every Creature — a fun song about different kinds of animals and their habitats.

You are always welcome to visit the Reading Station and watch/read the books for free. However, if you choose to subscribe to MightyBookJr.com for full access to their library, your subscription helps support this site.

Descriptive writing doesn't come naturally to most writers, especially to children. That ability usually has to be learned.

As you know, children tend to tell, not show what is happening, so their writing ends up sounding more like a newspaper article rather than a story. As parents and teachers, we often struggle with how to help our children be more descriptive in their writing.

One fun way to help children develop better writing skills is to use Show-me Sentences.

The idea is simple. You give a child a sentence such as "He was nice." or  "My room was messy." Then you guide the child in writing a paragraph that demonstrates that idea without stating outright that a person was nice or that the room was messy. The child needs to show that the person was nice or that the room was messy, not just state the fact.

Here's an example of a Show-Me Sentence that Joely did today for the Show-me Sentence "I am not a morning person."

It was on a Sunday morning and I felt so comfortable and safe as I slept in my bed. Suddenly my mom knocked on my door and said, "Time to get up, Joely!" I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. It was 7:30AM. I sighed, pulled the covers over my head, and squirmed. Minutes later my dad came in and ripped the covers off me. "Get up and get ready for church!" I groaned and lumbered out of bed to get breakfast.

(NOTE: Joely has been working on Show-Me sentences for several days now, and this attempt is far better than her typical attempt. We also collaborated on editing it extensively, which we usually don't on a normal day, since I told her I'd be using it in a post.)

How to Use Show-Me Sentences

1. Offer your child several Show-Me Sentences to choose from.

I've included a list you can start with at the end of this post.

2. Help your child brainstorm ideas by asking questions.

If the Show-Me Sentence is "He was nice.", ask your child what that person might do to make you think he was nice? Did he speak kindly? Offer assistance? Praise you?

For "My room was messy." ask your child what made the room look messy. Toys? Clothes? Unmade bed?

In each case have your child make a list of his ideas. These can be used to help develop the paragraph.

3. Encourage the child to pretend he's writing a paragraph in the middle of a book or a scene in the middle of a movie.

It doesn't have to be a complete thought, only a snapshot of one small paragraph in a larger chapter of a story. For example, if the Show-Me Sentence was "I was scared." suggest starting the story with you in an airplane suited up with parachute gear ready to skydive for the first time.

Show-Me Sentence Ideas

Here is a list of some Show-Me Sentence you can start with. Of course it's simple to come up with your own as well, but hopefully this will get you started. Feel free to change the subjects, pronouns, or anything about the sentences if you use them.

• My grandfather is funny.
• I had a busy day today.
• My mother had a bad headache.
• Performing stunts on a skateboard can be dangerous.
• My friend makes me laugh.
• He was nice.
• My room was messy.
• I am not a morning person.
• Her hairstyle is wild.
• Our family vacation was a disaster.
• Taking tests makes me nervous.
• My father is a good man.
• Lying is not a good idea.
• I was scared.
• She put her foot in her mouth. (idiomatically)
• The twins are completely different.
• She saw the car accident from the sidewalk.
• The room was crowded.
• She takes things way too seriously.
• He can dish it out, but he can't take it.
• My dog is lazy.

Do you have other suggestions for Show-Me Sentences? It would be fabulous if we could come up with a huge list for people to choose from.

Right now Home Educating Family Publishing is offering 60% off their Well Planned Day, On the Go High School, and Student Planners when you use the coupon code heav112. I'm not sure how long this coupon code is good for, so make sure that you double check your discount after you apply the coupon code. The discount is off their planners created to begin this 2011-2012 school year.

Here's a description of the planners that are on sale.

Well Planned Day Family Homeschool Planner

Organize your busy days all in one place with this beautifully-designed planner. That Well-Planned Day is a family homeschool organizer, designed especially for moms. This effective, yet easy-to-use format will ensure that each day at your home is smooth and profitable.
Retail Price: $24.95 |  Sale Price: $9.98 with coupon code heav112

On the Go Planner

With over 200 full color pages, this versatile purse size planner is perfect for home, work, family, and school organization in one convenient book. Weekly schedule includes areas for daily priorities, dinner menu, shopping and appointments. Other features include read through the Bible in a year, budgeting, project planning, and more.
Retail Price: $15.95 |  Sale Price: $6.38 with coupon code heav112

Student Planner (Tech or Floral Style)

The Well Planned Day Student Planner is designed specifically for students in elementary and middle school years. The Student Planner comes in two design options and features full color pages, spiral bound pages with perforated corner tabs for easy reference. With over 175 pages, this convenient 9"x6" size planner is has it all: July – June monthly and daily layouts, monthly special projects and notes, weekly Bible verse with corresponding catechism (Westminster Shorter), and famous quotes. The student planners also have an extensive reference section on English, Writing, Mathematics, US Geography, World Geography, States and Capitols, US Wars, US Presidents, Solar System, and Space . Perfect for any student attending school or homeschooling!
Retail Price: $12.95 |  Sale Price: $5.18 with coupon code heav112

High School 1 Year Planner

The Well Planned Day High School Planner is a one-of-a-kind resource specifically designed to help students achieve more during their high school years. With custom spaces for daily assignments and special projects, this high school planner will ensure students are prepared for college. This one year planner (dated July 2011 – June 2012), also includes high school reference pages with checklists for freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior students, along with additional references pages on electives, test taking, transcripts, record keeping, and more.
Retail Price: $14.95 |  Sale Price: $5.98 with coupon code heav112

High School 4 Year Planner

Worried about missing an important deadline? Want to know what you need the Well Planned Day 4 Year Plan is a one-of-a-kind resource specifically designed to help step homeschoolers through the process of their high school record keeping and keep them on track to ensure they are ready to prepare for college. All four years of high school in one planner, with custom spaces for you to record your daily lesson plans, grades, extracurricular activities, and the books you read. Each year starts off with a college planning checklist, a full semester calendar, and an extensive article discussing what you should focus on that semester to prepare for college. Each month islaid out on a full two-page spread so you can easily document what you are doing throughout high school, accompanied by monthly reminders about where you should be in the college planning process. Compiled and organized by a homeschool graduate, now a homeschool mom, this is the perfect resource to keep you on track to have a Well-Guided High School!
Retail Price: $29.95 |  Sale Price: $11.98 with coupon code heav112

Want to teach your kids about the United States Constitution through a fun song?

Rhythm Rhyme Results — also known as EducationalRap.com — is offering a free download of their rap song set "What Does the Constitution Do?". When you download the song set, not only do you get four versions of the song (normal speed, slowed down, missing words, and karaoke-style), you also get the lyrics, worksheets, and answer keys.

To get the free song set for "What Does the Constitution Do?" just head on over to EducationalRap.com. Enter your email address in the form in the sidebar where it says "Download a Free Song! What Does the Constitution Do?" and you will be emailed a download link for the entire song set.

I totally understand that rap music may not be for everyone, so if you want a taste for the type of music EducationalRap.com produces, you can listen to a couple of their songs in full in the videos below. (If you're reading via RSS, you may have to click through to watch the videos.)

EducationalRap.com also produces songs covering other topics as well. I've listed their songs at the end of this post (current as of January 4, 2011).

If you want to purchase any of their song sets, you can do so in a number of ways:

• individually for $2.99 each
• by theme collection for $9.99-$13.99 (Grammar Goodies, U.S. Government, etc.)
• by subject for $19.98 (math, science, etc.)
• complete boxed set (currently $49.99 for 43 of their songs in 4 subject areas).

You may also be interested in their list of free resources to supplement each of their song topics. Even if you don't use their songs, this list is a great resource for homeschoolers.

Math

(Pump Up the) Volume: Learn how to calculate the volume of geometric figures using cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones.

Circumference (It Just Makes Sense): Enjoy learning the formula for the circumference of a circle using Pi and radius and how it applies to a variety of familiar circular objects.

Don’t Be Negative: Examine arithmetic and algebra rules for working with negative numbers including adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing positive and negative numbers.

Fractions and Decimals: Listen as the song teaches conversion of fractions to decimals and then back, as well as explaining components of a fraction.

How Do I (Work with Fractions)?: Learn how to compute fractions with algebra including how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions by using examples.

Inversion: Listen as the song explains both the multiplicative inverse and the additive inverse.

It’s All in the Surface: Rap with the song and calculate the surface of geometric figures including spheres, cubes, boxes, and cylinders.

Mean, Median, Mode: This mean, median, mode explanation was created for students in upper elementary school (4th grade and 5th grade), middle school students (6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade), and high school students.

Meters, Liters, and Grams: Explore the metric system including the conversion of centimeters to meters to kilometers, liters to milliliters and grams to kilograms referencing everyday items to increase understanding.

Order of Operations – Advanced: This song for teaching order of operations in math introduces basic information about PEMDAS. The lyrics contain detailed information about order of operations problems and how to apply its principles in problem solving. Exponents are introduced as well as algebraic equations. The accompanying classroom materials for each version include puzzles, order of operations printable worksheets, activities, and online resources that enhance the song and offer additional opportunities for learning.

Order of Operations – Standard: The lyrics contain detailed information about Order of Operations problems and how to apply its principles in problem solving. Simple PEMDAS problems and equations using numbers and symbols are used to illustrate important mathematics concepts. The accompanying classroom materials include puzzles, order of operations printable worksheets, activities, and online resources that enhance the song and offer additional opportunities for learning.

Rise Up (Run Out): Examine the elements needed to graph functions including the quadrants on a coordinate plane, the equation of a line, and how to find the slope and intercept of a line using real-life examples.

The Standard System: Learn about the standard system including how to convert feet to inches to yards to miles,
and ounces to pounds to tons using familiar examples.

Science

Circulatory System: Examine how the heart, lungs, blood, arteries, veins and capillaries function in the circulatory system.

Lab Safety!: Enjoy learning laboratory safety rules and regulations, and how to avoid lab dangers. This song is useful for lessons in lab safety procedures.

Layers of the Earth: Learn key facts about the inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust, to better understand earth’s composition.

Multicellular Organisms: Learn about interconnected parts of the body from cells to tissue to muscles, organs and body systems.

Periodic Table: This song for teaching the periodic table of elements offers basic information about the first eighteen elements with names. Students will learn names, atomic symbols, and numbers as well as general information about elements and how they are organized. For students wondering how to memorize the periodic table of elements, this song is the perfect start. The accompanying detailed, printable periodic table worksheets and games enhance the learning experience.

Photosynthesis: Hear an in-depth description of the oxygen-carbon cycle describing chemical reaction and light and dark cycles (calvin cycle), that convert solar energy into chemical energy.

Radiation, Conduction, Convection: Examine heat transfer by learning how solar radiation, conduction, and convection work.

Sun, Earth, Moon: Enjoy this great introduction to the solar system and learn key concepts including the earth’s tilt, tides, rotation and orbit around the sun.

The Planets: This song for teaching the planets introduces basic information about the eight planets in our solar system. This song’s educational lyrics contain solar system facts including physical characteristics, relationship to the Sun, and unique details of each planet, including planet Earth. This song for teaching the planetary system portrays the Sun as the principal speaker who describes the surrounding planets. The accompanying classroom materials include puzzles, printable solar system worksheets, diagrams, activities, and online resources that enhance the song and offer additional opportunities for learning.

Water Cycle: Examine the hydrologic cycle (water cycle) with an overview and definitions of specific terms.

Weight, Mass, Volume, Density: Learn the difference between mass and weight by comparing the two and describing the relationship between them using examples in the song.

Language Arts

Characters, Setting, Plot: Learn and apply the elements, structure, and analysis of story writing.

Dots and Dashes (Punctuation): Examine rules of English grammar and punctuation and how to use punctuation.

Figurative Language: Understand personification, alliteration, assonance, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, metaphors, and similes, with figurative language examples.

It’s Non-Fiction: Learn the elements and structuring of non-fiction writing and how to avoid plagiarism.

Parts of Speech: Examine the construction of a sentence and how the components fit together.

Poetry (for Life): Enjoy learning the elements of poetry and how to write different types of poems.

Prefixes, Suffixes, Roots: Examine how words are put together with this song that uses a variety of linguistic units as
examples.

Public Speaking: Learn presentation skills and how to use them preparing oral presentations for the classroom.

Sit Down & Write: Better understand writing skills and reading comprehension, and apply strategies with this overview of the writing process.

Verb Tenses: Learn about past, present, and future tenses as well as simple, perfect, and progressive forms.

Social Studies

44 Presidents: Enjoy learning all of the names of the Presidents of the United States in chronological order.

50 States, 50 Capitals: Learn all 50 states and their capitals. This is a great companion song for “Geography in the
USA”.

Bill of (Your) Rights: Enjoy studying the first ten Amendments and the meaning of each amendment.

Civil Rights Movement: Become familiar with major events and individuals of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Countries of Africa: Enjoy learning all of the names and pronunciations of the countries of Africa.

Declaration of Independence: Learn about the founding fathers and the concepts of democracy and sovereignty set forth in this famous document.

Geography in the USA: Explore much of the topographical geography of the United States highlighting important sites.

Redcoats vs. Rebels: Explore the major battles, dates and events of the American Revolutionary War.

The Civil War: Understand the major events, dates, individuals and battles of the Civil War presented in chronological order.

The President’s Cabinet: Examine the President’s Cabinet and Cabinet offices in order of establishment and succession.

The Rest of the Amendments (11-27): Examine and learn the meaning of each of the remaining Amendments.

What Does the Constitution Do?: Understand the contents of Articles I-VII of the United States Constitution and the structure of the three branches of government.

Economics

Demand, Supply: Based on Greg Mankiw’s “10 Principles of Economics”, enjoy this overview of market, equilibrium, monopolies, incentives and more.

Efficient Markets: This rap song provides basic explanation of the theory of ‘efficient markets’ and the sometimes irrationality of the stock market and its trends.

Elasticity: Understand the different types of elasticity depending on the value of e and learn about the economic elasticity of demand.

Equilibrium: Learn about equilibrium in quantity demanded and quantity supplied.

Imperfect Competition: Understand key terms such as price-setting behavior, monopoly, monopsony, market power and more.

Make Your Money Work: This song is an introduction to borrowing, lending and investing citing bonds and savings accounts as basic instruments of investment. The importance of understanding interest rates is dealt with as well.

Maximum Utility: Learn key terms such as the equation for a budget line and its slope, indifference curves and marginal rate of substitution (MRS) in this clever song.

Monopolies: Examine how different kinds of monopolies affect competition.

Price Control: Listen to explanations of price control and regulation using key terms such as government intervention, price minimums, equilibrium, and surplus.

Regulation: Learn about government intervention and regulation in economics, as in the Sherman Antitrust Act, price fixing, the Herfindahl-Hirschman, public interest theory, and other important terms.

Study of Choice: Enjoy this introduction to teaching scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost in microeconomics.

NOTE: I am not affiliated with EducationalRap.com in any way and receive no compensation for promoting their songs. I'm posting about this simply because it's a great educational resource.

Image Credit: samlevan

This morning my 9-year-old was working on editing some sentences where she was looking for errors and correcting them. I noticed she tended to overlook some of the more common errors, such as misspellings of it's/its, your/you're, two/to/too, there/their/they're, and whose/who's.

She knows how to use each of the words the proper way, but catching them in writing, especially writing that is not hers, is something completely different.

I wanted a way for her to remember to check for those common misspellings, so I came up with a little graphic and a saying to help her remember which words she should always double-check when writing or editing.

"It's your two there! Whose?"

The saying doesn't really flow off the tongue, but it's not terribly difficult to remember. And hopefully it will help her recall which words she should always pay special attention to when she's editing any writing at all.

If you'd like to print out the chart for your own use, you can download a printer-friendly version here.

The New Year is the time for making resolutions, and for many people, one of those resolutions is to be more organized. To make getting organized a little easier, I've designed a 2012 printable calendar especially for homeschoolers that has an inspirational educational quote on each month. I hope you enjoy!

Download the 2012 Printable Calendar

In the course of homeschooling, it's helpful to look back over the previous week to evaluate what's working and what is not.

One thing I'm going to be implementing with my children is a weekly conference and evaluation, especially with my 9th grader. This will not only help me stay on top of their progress, but it will help give them valuable life skill experience.

What type of life skill? Self-evaluation.

In some professions, employees are required to evaluate their own job performance. My kids will be doing something similar during our conferences, because while I'm filling out the evaluation on them, they'll be completing the same form about themselves.

The evaluation form I've created covers the following 10 areas, each of which is scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning needs improvement and 10 meaning excellent:

1. Completion and quality of school work. Did they finish all their assignments? Did they do quality work?
2. Organization of school work. Did they keep track of their school books and maintain a neat work area?
3. Overall attitude. How good was their overall attitude that week?
4. Interaction with siblings. How did they treat their siblings that week? Were they helpful? Argumentative?
5. Independence and initiative. Did they need to be told what to do or did they complete their assignments independently?
6. Punctuality. Did they start their day on time? Did they complete things on time?
7. Response to correction. When corrected, did they respond appropriately?
8. Follow-through on instructions given. When given instructions or assignments, did they follow them without being reminded?
9. Completion of chores. Did they complete all their assigned chores without grumbling or being reminded?
10. Productive use of free time. Did they make good use of their free time?

I've created two versions of the evaluation forms that you're welcome to use in your own homeschool. One version has the criteria filled in already (the 10 criteria listed above), but the other version is blank, so you can add your own criteria to evaluate.

The file is customizable so you can open it in Adobe Reader, fill in the name, dates, and criteria, then print it out to be completed by hand.

Each evaluation form comes in two parts: one for the parent to complete, and one for the student to complete. The idea is that parent and child will fill out the forms independently, then they will get together to discuss the results. Hopefully this conference will be a chance to discuss how to improve in each area over the next week.

Download the Homeschool Conference & Evaluations Forms

If you use the evaluation forms, I'd love to hear how they work for you.