Miscellaneous Educational and Informational Links

American Foundation for the Blind Braille Bug (added 6/08) This website provides games and other resources to increase awareness and enhance the study of braille.  The website also provides information on the lives and work of Hellen Keller and Louis Braille.    Book Reviews Read book reviews for homeschooling and homemaking books at the TEACH Magazine website.   Book Samaritan Donate school materials that you no longer need, or borrow books that you need and cannot purchase.   Box Tops for Education Activity Center  (added 6/08) At this website you’ll find seasonal crafts and other activities sponsored by General Mills and intended to support and encourage the collection of the Box Tops for Education “tickets.”         Bembo’s Zoo At this website you can enjoy a video of the letters of the alphabet coming to life and making a variety of zoo inhabitants.     Celebrate Urban Birds!  (added 6/08) Sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology this website invites kids in cities to learn more about the birds in their neighborhood.  Registrants receive free resources including a bird identification poster.  Be sure to check the resources page on the website for some beautiful photos of selected birds.      Character Counts This website, sponsored by the Foundations for Life, offers free character building materials.  Included are free monthly lesson plans and writing prompts.  The materials are based on the Six Pillars of Character- Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship.  (This program is designed for use in the public school setting.)       Creative Kids at Home This site offers free kids crafts, science projects and gift ideas for kids.  A free e-newsletter subscription is available.  The site hosts Google ads.      Dance Mat Typing Sponsored by the BBC, this website takes the student through 12 interactive levels to teach the fundamentals of typing.      Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Free access to more than 1.2 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials.   Encyclopedia Mythica This Internet based encyclopedia includes entries on mythology, folklore and religion.  The folklore and mythology entries are sorted by region as well as topic and many entries are accompanied by links to images to further enhance your study of these subject areas.  Note- some content may not be suitable for children.    Facts on Fiction A website that provides parent and educator reviews of works of fiction to allow you to better choose appropriate books for your child.     Find It in A Library   Search for an item in libraries near you: Enter title, subject or person   Find books at your local library! Provided free of charge by OCLC Online Computer Library Center .   Free Printable Blank 30 Day Scheduler From The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.   FreeTypingGame.net This site, though a bit ad-heavy offers a complete interactive method for learning to type.  The site features lessons, games, tests and a other resources to teach your student to type.    Great Homeschool Videos Hosted by the Erskine Family, of Homeschool Radio Shows, this site offers a homeschool friendly location for sharing educational and family fun videos.       GuruLib This is a free web service to assist you in organizing your home library.  This service allows you to create virtual shelves and list your books by location.  The system also allows you to track books loaned to others and catalog documents.      Hubbard’s Cupboard Kid’s Recipes  (Added 12/07) This page of the HC website offers kid tested recipes, plus additional links to cooking with kids resources.      Jump$tart Coalition  This site hosted by the Jump$tart Coalition for Financial Literacy, offers articles, links to free materials and other resources targeted toward teaching children and adults about finances.    Kiddie Records Weekly Listen online or download a large collection of vintage children's recordings. Titles include Peter and the Wolf, Uncle Remus Stories, Bozo at the Circus and more. There are over 200 recording available altogether. If you don't want to download the files you can purchase a CD in MP3 format of the first two years' worth of recordings from the site.   Kid’s Cooking  (Added 12/07) This website presents recipes that have been featured in the Belleville News Democrat weekly “Kids Cook” column. The recipes are designed to teach basic cooking skills to kids and are sorted by category.  Be sure to visit the special Animal Crackers page designed to teach your youngest children how to prepare foods that fit the Food Guide Pyramid.     Learning to Give This website offers lesson plans, activities and resources to educate youth about giving to others.    In addition to lesson plans and other resources, you can search the site’s 1,200 quotations about giving for just the right inspirational words or play The Giving Game.      Lego Club This is definitely a commercial site, but it *is* Legos. Kids love Legos.   Library of Congress Flickr Photo Gallery  The Library of Congress has uploaded its photo collection into a flickr account.  Images may be searched, commented upon and "tagged" by viewers.  Most of these images are copyright free.    Library Thing This is a very cool site for booklovers that is till in beta testing. Enter your books by title or ISBN and you can store your collection list online.      Little-Known Inventors of Common Things This geocities site offers a list of 13 inventors of common items. However, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the information, the website information indicates the lists were taken from “The Book of Lists II”.  Caution: The same site also offers lists of notorious crimes, unsolved murders and other topics on subsequent pages.       Modesty Heart Check This pdf document provided by the authors of the Girl Talk blog includes a checklist for young women to assist them in determining if their garment choices are modest.     My Home Library Print a variety of free bookplates and bookmarks to personalize your library from this site.       Not Just an Opinion This site offers researched writings on Christian topics by a number of teen contributors.       Ready Made Games and Game Boards This site is sponsored by the Jefferson County School system and provides a number of options for creating learning games.  There are many pre-made printable board and card games on topics ranging from art and music to science.  In addition you can print pre-made spinners and game cube forms or use the templates to create your own custom game.  The ready made games come complete with question cards and other printable materials.  You can download and print colorful games such as "Virus or Bacteria" or "Weather Bingo".    Recess This website was created by the University of Florida’s Center for Children’s Literature and Culture and WUFT-FM.  The site offers a daily 3-minute program for adults focusing on the culture of children.  Transcripts of previous programs can be accessed at the website and the current month’s programs are available for listening.  The website also offers a links page with connections to a wealth of resources for children.     Scholastic News Online This website is updated daily with educational news stories for kids.  The site also features games and quizzes, homework helps and special reports.  Note, the site also features movie, TV, and music reviews and articles that you may not wish for your child to view.       The Center for the Book This is a Library of Congress sponsored site that lists a variety of projects centered on supporting reading and learning through literature.  A visit to this site will provide you with links to the current project topics being undertaken.  Current themes include “Telling America’s Stories,” “Books & Beyond,” “River of Words,”  “Mother Goose Programs,” and “Book and Library History.”        The Free Dictionary Online Reference Dictionary, Encyclopedia & more Word: by: WordStarts withEnds withMentions This website features free resources including dictionaries, a thesaurus, and several encyclopedias and other useful word services. Interesting tidbits include a word of the day, "Today's Birthday", "This Day in History", "Quote of the Day" and more. Many of these extras can be added to your own website.             The Great Sunflower Project (added 6/08) Sign up to receive free seeds and plant sunflowers in your garden.  Then observe the bees that come to visit and report back to the project.  What a fun summer science project!     Time Magazine Archives A part of the Time Magazine website, this section allows you to search for an article from any Time Magazine from 1923 to the present.  Special collections based on specific topics may also be viewed.  This is a commercial website with ample advertising.        Traffic Stuff This site offers a host of links to various tidbits on traffic planning, signage, laws and more related to our roadways.  Of particular interest is the Manual of Traffic Signs; a set of web pages displays all types of signs and information about the design and coloration of signs.       University of Delhi E-books Archive This unusual site based in India offers a variety of resources ranging from free e-books written in Hindi, Marathi, English or a combination to instructions for creating toys from trash.  The site also offers a few images of trees and birds indigenous to the area plus two short films and several articles in digitized form (some with support for evolution theory).     Video Jug View video instructions explaining how to juggle and lots of other things. Use your discretion when visiting this site- the topics are varied and are not all intended for young viewers.   Vintage Board Games This is a game retailer, but you can order copies of game rules and extra parts from this site as well.   Winged Sandals (added 6/08) This website presents the stories and characters of classical mythology via interactive games and other resources.  Visitors to the site can learn about every day life in ancient Greece, learn about the myths and legends of the time, play mythology-themed games and get ideas for mythology-themed crafts.  The website is sponsored by The University of Melbourne’s Centre for Classics and Archeology and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.   You Need A Story Sign up to receive a free weekly newsletter and recorded audio story.   Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve This website offers information about the mining history of Alaska and the Yukon territory and the Yukon Quest dog sled races.    Back to Links for Schooling Home