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LANGUAGE ARTS, SPELLING, VOCABULARY LINKS Page two | |
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SONG: "I'm Proud to Be An American...God Bless the USA!"
Midi-Player: courtesy of Crescendo -
"Cinema"--the Annenberg/CPB Project Exhibits Collection.
GRADE LEVEL: Grades 6-adult; Secular
COMMENTS: Learn one real-life use of creative writing skills as you learn about what it takes to put on a real-life cinema production. Learn about the following: screenwriting, directing, producing, acting and editing. Along the way, try your hand at various on-line projects. One I tried was screenwriting--they set up a scene and you must take over from there by providing dialogue that would fit the characters that they set up. Your attempt will be posted (CAUTION: Parents, some attempts are not worth reading so preview!). Learn about camera angles and more! Very informative and well-done! Click on the top OTHER EXHIBITS tab and see more!
GRADE LEVEL: All Ages; Secular
COMMENTS: This reading program was the reading program I used years ago to teach two of my children to read. Even with an education degree, I found this program simple to use...the lesson plans were mostly 3-4 sentences each and anyone could understand them! Ten minutes a day was all I spent with my kindergarten children and they learned to read with ease with this workbook. There are no pictures for them to lean on either...pure phonics. I have also used just this book to tutor children from public school who could not read well.
I, however, only had to purchase the workbook when I used his program. Now he has expanded the program into a more expensive kit. (I do not have the link for the entire kit--this is a link to buy just the book like the one I used--click on the "ALPHA-PHONICS INCLUDES REVIEWS LINKS" on the uppermost left corner.) A friend of mine has purchased and used his whole program and raves about the results she has gotten too. I highly recommend this book--the book ALONE without the entire kit is VERY easy to use and VERY effective in teaching beginning reading--if you have more than one child to teach to read, then you may want to research where you can get the entire ALPHAPHONICS kit...it would definitely be cost-effective for more than one child. It also appears that a PHONICS TUTOR CD-ROM is available on this page too (see left side for link). Samuel Blumenfeld is a well-known authority when it comes to teaching reading to anyone...child OR adult!
WriteGuide: A Company Devoted to the Teaching of Writing
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary-College level; Secular
COMMENTS: An unbelievable and very needed site and service! Billed as "The web's first and only individualized writing program for homeschool families and students of public education", this site lives up to its purpose. The prices also are very inexpensive and fair for the services they provide.
At this site, you can order inexpensive "skills sheets" to help your child in a certain area or you can get some ideas through their list of free project starters. In addition, you can order editing work for anything you submit. After the editors work on the piece you send in, they will give you what is called "A Workshop Letter". Here is their description of what is provided in "A Workshop Letter":
"No matter what skills or instruction WriteGuide is delivering, Workshop Letters are our primary means of delivering it. A Workshop Letter is a letter written by one of WriteGuide's consultants to one of our customers. Our method of teaching is based on an exchange: a client sends us a piece of writing, and within 24 hours we send that person a Workshop Letter which contains (1) an analysis of the strengths of the piece, (2) an analysis of the weaknesses of the piece, and an explanation as to how to fix them, (3) at least one individually-tailored, specific lesson on syntax, punctuation, or literary devices, and an explanation as to how this lesson may be applied to the piece of writing in question, and (4) suggestions as to which direction the piece should take next. All four of the above items are described in depth further..." at this site.
Sample "Workshop Letters" are available on this site--see how they critique a nine year old's work and a fifteen year old's work--that was interesting in itself! Examine the credentials of their staff and other things they offer at this site including a personalized writing curriculum service. Look around and I think that you will see that they are MORE than qualified to help us homeschoolers in the task of being sure that our children know how to write.
CE Support Loop--1000 Good Books List
GRADE LEVEL: All ages; Secular
COMMENTS: Would you like to have a list of books that would be age and grade appropriate to either read to or be read by your child? This gives you 1000 books to look into for a good start.
Charles Dickens: Discovering Dickens!
GRADE LEVEL: Middle School-High School;Secular
COMMENTS: Learn about who the writer, Charles Dickens was and what the world was like when and where he lived. Great for a Unit Study. Specifically, "students will have a choice of five "Cases". Each requires visits to one or more Internet sites (links included) that specialize in specific knowledge about Charles Dickens. Students then transform the information into a project such as a timeline, diary, storyboard, or poster to demonstrate their newfound knowledge." Guidelines are even given for grading the projects!