Recent finds

Best online dictionary for kids: WordCentral.com

Best all-inclusive Social Studies curriculum: Heritage Studies by BJU Press. This curriculum includes Geography, Economics, Government, American History, World History, and Culture, so you don't have to worry about finding a separate curriculum for each. Available for grades 1-12.

Best states & capitals games online:

• SheppardSoftware.com - a range of difficulty levels and different styles of games. The most challenging states/capitals games here challenges you to choose the correct capital for a given state from the entire list of 50 displayed capitals - surprisingly very difficult. There are also many more geography-related games and resources on this website.
• YourChildLearns.com - this states/capitals game gives you a capital which you must drag onto the correct unlabeled state - very challenging. This website also has many other geography puzzles and games, which can be found here.
  
• KidsGeo.com - this is a nice multiple choice option which shows you a given state, and asks you to choose the correct capital from 4 options. Again, many more geography games and resources are on this website, and worth looking at.
  

Standardized Tests

If you've opted to give your homeschooler a yearly standardized achievement test to fulfill the government's requirement (as opposed to having your work reviewed monthly by a certified teacher), here are your most widely used options:

Test	Subjects tested	Total test time (complete battery)	Test difficulty	Report analysis	Cost	Degree required to test
CAT/5®	reading, language, spelling, math, science* and social studies*	2.5-3.5 hrs	Easy	Simple	$40	No
ITBS	reading, language (includes spelling), math, science*, social studies*, sources of information*, cognitive abilities*	3-5 hrs	More difficult	More detailed	$50-70	BA/BS, OR teaching certificate, OR teach or taught in public school.
SAT	reading, math, language, spelling, science*, social studies*, listening*, thinking*	3-6 hrs	Most difficult	Very detailed	$50-70, +$20 app fee	Bachelor's, OR teaching certificate, OR teach or taught in public school.

(*optional)

These are just the basic considerations. There are other considerations out there, and a wide range of opinions about tests, if you go searching for them. But it helps to be able to see the "in a nutshell" info side by side, so there you have it. There are also other testing options, but they may or may not be approved for use in your state. These three are the most widely recognized, from what I've found.

The Cat5 test can be purchased here, and the ITBS and SAT tests can be purchased here.

Bill Nye resources

I don't need to tell you how useful Bill Nye's videos are in helping our kids get excited about science, and retain what they learn. The man needs no introduction. Instead, I'll just share with you a few useful links.

• A complete categorized list of all his episodes, including full descriptions of each episode.
• Links to free web-hosted videos of every episode - of which Megavideo has the best quality and track record. (Use "ctrl-F" to quickly find the one you're looking for.)
• A user-submitted collection of printable student worksheets to go along with each video.

Enjoy!

Automatic sentence diagrammer

Okay, this is just freaking cool. :) I stumbled upon this as a means to help ds9 better understand sentence structure. It's the Reed-Kellogg Diagrammer - a (free) tool that lets you type in your own sentence and then diagrams it for you, and lets you mouse over each section to see the word type and function in the sentence. I remember diagramming sentences as a kid, but I get the impression that this practice has been lost in most workbooks and classrooms since then. It's too bad - this little exploration was REALLY helpful to ds9 in understanding how a sentence is much like a skeleton, which "holds up" the other parts of the structure. And because this nifty little tool diagrams for you, ds9 can plug in sentence after sentence to see how the structure changes as he makes changes in the sentence. TOO COOL!!!

Sylvan workbooks - vocab and spelling

I recently discovered Sylvan's line of workbooks, while looking for a new vocabulary workbook. The vocab workbook we had was super simple and streamlined - A Word A Day. I figured it would be easiest to cover vocab that way, since a) ds9 had a fairly good vocabulary to begin with, and b) we had so much else on our homeschool plate. But my theory backfired. Our vocab book was SO simple and SO streamlined, that ds9 found the new vocabulary words completely uninteresting, and thus had difficulty retaining what he had learned. Knowing my ds9, I should have known. :) Then I found Sylvan's vocabulary workbook. The word lessons are not only very well-organized by categories that obviously should be learned together, but the workbook is just CHOC FULL of games and puzzles and challenges that are interesting, exciting, and truly creative. Vocab has gone from one of ds9's best subjects, to one of his worst, to one of his most favorite subjects - and he no longer is having any trouble retaining the new words he's learning - AT ALL. And even though it's a regular workbook with pages for ds9 to complete, it's taking hardly any time out of our homeschool day - one page a day is all it takes (would only take a page every OTHER day had we started at the beginning of the year, even!), and he whips through them like they're CANDY. :D

This got me thinking... What ELSE does Sylvan have up its' sleeve? Turns out, they also have workbooks in their same very fun yet very logical approach, in the subjects of Math (K-5), Reading Skills for 2nd grade and below, Reading Comprehension for 3rd grade and up, and Spelling (1-4). While the math and reading books appear to be really neat, I think I'm still happier with the Math and English workbooks we're using by Bob Jones University Press. However, Sylvan's Spelling workbook has caught my eye, and I just might give that a try next year. It meets and masters all 3 of my criteria in a Spelling curriculum: 1) the words are sorted by similar spelling types or tactics - *check*, 2) there's emphasis on spelling rules and tips/tricks to make spelling easier - *check*, 3) there's fun (super fun!) games and puzzles and challenges to hold ds9's interest and aid in retention - *check*! I'm gonna have a hard time choosing between Sylvan's Spelling, BJU's Spelling, and Purposeful Design's Spelling next year. Ultimately, I'll probably let ds9 pick - whichever he thinks is "funnest" based on the sample pages. We'll see. :)

Online math games

Whenever possible, I like to substitute online games for repetitious math homework, such as multiplication drills and such. Following are the three best websites I could find for elementary level math games to play online. Each website is well organized, has a large collection of games, and has multiple levels of games so that you can tailor the activities for your little learner. And, of course, they're all free, with few or no ads cluttering up their site.

1st up - fun4thebrain.com. Page after page after page of truly entertaining and well-designed games, most with customizable levels. Website is divided up in sections for multiplication, addition, division, and subtraction. This is ds9's favorite math website.

2nd up - shppardsoftware.com. There are games on this website that cover the full spectrum of math, such as operations, money, geometry, time, and much more! While the website is extremely easy to navigate, I wished that some of the games were more customizable as far as their skill level is. But, as it is, most of the games are RIGHT at ds9's skill level, so I can't really complain. :) Also, this website has a LOT of other really well-made games in many other academic areas as well. I might have to explore the website further and give you a more extensive report on it another day.

3rd up - funbrain.com - math section. This section of their website has all their math games listed out according to possible grade level, which is really handy. You can also filter the games by a keyword search, such as multiplication or fractions, so you can find exactly what you're looking for. Fun, highly customizable games! There are also games covering a number of other subjects available from their home page, though not quite as academic as ShepardSoftware.

Know of a great math games website? Comment and let us all know about it!

Animated history maps

Ds9 and I are both visual learners. You can describe something to us, or tell us where something is located, but unless we SEE it with our eyes, the memory will be lost on us. Ds9 and I have been learning some ancient history, about how various empires took over this area or that, over this time period or that. But we needed to SEE what that meant, with the entire atlas as a reference. Luckily, we weren't the only ones. After gobs, and you know I mean gobs, of research, here are the two best options out there for framing up the events of western history. Both are free.

Option #1 - Map of Imperial History. This animated interactive flash website shows you the spread and regions of all the greatest empires of the "world", as relates to the middle east. And as you'll see, that covers just about all of them. It's a lovely map, and my first choice because it's so simple and to the point. Pros: very well made, easy to read; covers 1450 BC to 1980 AD - quite an inclusive time span; doesn't require any software installation; quick moving. Cons: It doesn't show the rise and fall of lesser civilizations; doesn't include Chinese empires or Russia. Note: the company who made this also made several other fascinating maps, including a map showing the spread of different types of governments, and a map showing the spread of the world's major religions.

Option #2 - Atlas of World History. This interactive animated piece of software takes seconds to install, and is great if you want an option that has more detail than the options above. Pros: covers almost the entire globe except the Americas; includes the rise and fall of smaller civilization; runs continuously over a steady rate of time so you can see just how the civilizations grow; allows you to customize your choice of map, time frame, and starting year. Cons: software must be downloaded, though small and easy to install; timeline ends at the year 1000 AD, though it does start quite a bit earlier, at the year 3000 BC. If you want to preview the software before installing it, here is a sample video of lesser quality that will give you an idea of what it can do.

Both of these options are great for a (almost) global perspective, and I recommend them both. If you happen to be looking for an option that shows the animated history of Europe, with its' ever-changing boundaries, here are my 1st and 2nd choices for that (both are Youtube videos), though I have not researched options for this region as extensively.