Quote of the Week ~ August 30, 2011

Never be without a really good book on hand. If you find yourself sinking to a dull common place level, with nothing particular to say, the reason is probably that you are not reading, and, therefore, not thinking. ~ The Story of Charlotte Mason, p. 162

Homeschool for Free

Click the links below for a huge assortment of  free homeschooling resources and printables from The 5 J's:

Homeschool for Free

Printables and Downloads

Alphabet Virtues Coloring Pages

Here is a wonderful collection of free coloring pages to teach an alphabet's worth of virtues to little ones! Click here to see and print the whole collection

Free Pages

A wonderful assortment of free printables from Practical Pages:

I am passionate about homeschooling and really enjoy my homeschool journey with my girls.

Here are my notebook pages, minibooks and lapbook projects, handwriting charts and booklets, organizational tips and ideas … that I would love to share with you.

Click here for lots of links

Tracing Outlines of Famous Art Works

From Practical Pages:

I have often made outline drawings of our art work for art appreciation lessons.  The Van Gogh picture  “Starry Night” 
is one of the most popular downloads! It is a simple, really easy and frugal method to create a picture to colour, apply techniques and make your own version of the art masterpiece.

Click here for instructions.

Freebies from Heart of Wisdom

LOTS of free printables from Heart of Wisdom:

There are hundreds of free printables for Bible study, homeschooling, and home organization spread across five different Heart of Wisdom blogs. I put them all here to make them easy to find.

Printable ABC Bible Verses

From Heart of Wisdom:

These are copywork Bible pages for children memorizing the ABC verses. The print is dotted and lined for tracing. Print in color or black and while. There are 5 PDF pages.

Click here to download

Yesterday’s Classics Ebook Package Sale!!!

Yesterday’s Classics is a company that republishes classic books for children from the golden age of children’s literature, the era from 1880 to 1920. Many of the titles they offer have been out of print for decades and so have been hard to find until recently. Now they have also made their entire collection of 225 books available as e-books in both Kindle and E-pub format! These are beautifully formatted, complete with illustrations and table of contents. If you don’t have an e-reader you can still read or print the books from your computer.

From now, until Saturday, August 27th Yesterday’s Classics is offering their entire e-book package to our readers at a special sale price of $99.95! If you purchased all of the paperback editions of these books the total would come to $2,495.75! If you purchased each book in electronic format individually the total would come to $648.80! This is a wonderful opportunity to add a huge collection of wonderful children’s literature to a family library!

Though I have to admit I still much prefer to collect and read from printed books I am delighted to add these to our family collection. The ability to print the books and read them from multiple devices makes them extremely versatile, and the price makes it possible to have an incredible selection at your fingertips.

(Note: There are several books in the collection that I don’t intend to offer to my children as they don’t meet with some of the convictions we hold regarding reading material. However, this collection is so extensive that it is still wonderfully worthwile, even if some of the books never get read. )

We are thrilled to offer this sale to you right now as it blends beautifully with our theme for the rest of August over at Noble Womanhood; home schooling using the Charlotte Mason/Christian Classical methods which both rely heavily on real, “living” books, rather than textbooks.

For lots more information on this package, including a complete list of all the books in the package and a free book to download, please click here!

Review: Song School Latin

Here's a great review of  Song School Latin (which we use and enjoy!):

Satori started learning Latin when she was five with the introductory Latin program Song School Latin by Classical Academic Press. It’s suitable for grades K-3. We used the student text book, CD, and Latin Monkey Match flashcards. The teacher’s guide is not needed, it is a copy of the student text, but with answers. This post is our goodbye to the program, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Click here to read the rest.

"Not" Back to School Blog Hop: School Room Week

Lots of inspiration and ideas for homeschooling and book organization in big and small spaces at the "Not"  Back to School Blog Hop: School Room Week!

Two Ebook Giveaways!

Head over to Noble Womanhood to enter the giveaway for two brand new e-books: Encouraging Challenges  and Nurturing a Godly Wife by Jason and Jennifer Ross!

Alphabet Avenue

Here's a link to Alphabet Avenue which offers a huge selection of resources for teaching the alphabet to young children. Click here to visit the website.

Free Chronicles of Narnia Audiobooks!

Listen online to these free, well done audiobooks of The Chronicles of Narnia. (The reader even has a beautiful English accent. Very important for this series. ;-))
Click here to listen.

Back to Homeschool Sale at CurrClick!

Now through August 25, save up to 75% on thousands of e-books and downloads from CurrClick!

Home Book Binding Without Special Equipment

From Large Family Mothering:

It's just wonderful the opportunities we have to read old books and other digitized manuscripts for free. But I am not alone in needing to read these nifty tomes on paper—electronic devices just don't seem "right" to me. Besides that, I do not want my children staring into a computer monitor for long periods of time—I am sure there are a profusion of studies relating to just how a child's brain can turn to mush from staring into a box of flashing lights for hours (none of us need any help in that regard.

For a while there I was printing books out on my handy-dandy inkjet and zipping over to the office supply store to have them comb or wire-bound. This was great for the first 20 or so, but I'm passionate, and so are my children; we want a whole collection of superior, educational books. It's just that the cost of all that printing and binding, not to mention all the "zipping", was taking its toll on me.

So I went on an odyssey, surfing the Net for better alternatives. I am so pleased and excited with what I have found that I have to share it with you all!

Click here to read the rest

50% off Coupon Code for "31 Days to Clean" EBook (Plus Videos for Book Owners!)

From Sara Mae at Raising Homemakers:

Beginning on Monday, August 1st, there will be a new video each day encouraging you and helping you along the way with the Martha Challenges from 31 Days to Clean (see a sample video at 31daystoclean.com right now)! Jennifer Ross, a reader, has done a wonderful job showing you that you can complete the challenges…and not go crazy!

And for those of you who would like the eBook but have been holding off, it will be available for 50% off on Monday (and the whole week) by using code: BLOOM

Why “BLOOM”? Great question!

Tune in here (the Bloom book club) on Monday because I’ll be talking about the heart of 31 Days to Clean and my heart for YOU each day during the week – I hope you’ll join me!

Free Online History Course for a Limited Time (From Veritas Press)

From Veritas Press

Back by popular demand. Last summer we tried this and the response was overwhelming, so during the month of August we are offering it again. We want you to experience what we believe is the best way to learn history-and it's FREE. The award-winning Veritas Press grammar school history curriculum is now (or shortly will be) available online in our new self-paced courses. We are so convinced you'll love them that we are giving them away for a limited time. Customers have told us, "the courses are so much fun that their children must not be learning." Click here to sign up for a free 30 day trial.

Here are the available courses:

Old Testament and Ancient Egypt History
New Testament, Greece, and Rome
Middle Ages Renaissance and Reformation
Explorers to 1815