Cool Links to Help your Home School

I was listening to the Ultimate Homeschool Expo last week (the one put on by CIndy Rushton previously, and was hosted by Felice Gerwitz this time). I actually purchased a ticket, but you can listen to a lot of the sessions for this type of thing for free if you can listen at the time it is taking place -- very challenging to do with a busy life. The normal price for the expo is $39, but it is still on sale as I write this for $24.95 (not that that is a small chunk of change, if you weren't planning for it). I love the HSE, and so I was saving for it. I was actually pleasantly surprised to get the sale price, because last year I paid full price!

I like the UHSE because I miss a real home school convention.  I used to live in a state that had a great convention every year that was three days long and had speakers and seminars galore. You had to pick and choose. I haven't had that for ever so long, but now that I have the home school expo (which cost me less than going to a convention), I don't have to miss ANY of the seminars, because they are all recorded and provided to me in download form! My biggest challenge becomes making time to listen to them, and then that's another story.

Anyway, I heard about some websites I hadn't visited before, and I wanted to share them here.

• My Audio School is a subscription site, but the site also has lots of stuff that is free. The nice thing is that it is a "safe" site, so you know the kids are not going to unexpectedly see something objectionable. Yesterday I really enjoyed watching a video put out by Scholastic about Martin Luther King, Jr., and I'd have to say that I learned stuff myself about him that I hadn't known.
• Another website I learned of and subscribed to through the UHSE is one put up by Lorrie Flem called Eternal Encouragement. When you first get to the site there is a pop-up for a free newsletter -- that is what I subscribed to.  As it's title suggests, Lorrie has a heart to encourage the moms. At the expo she gave a wonderful talk. I haven't had my coffee yet, and the content of the talk is niggling at the back of my brain, but I really couldn't give it justice if I tried to tell you what it was about right now. I need to relisten to it. At the time I was listening to it my household was being very loud and I was having difficulty hearing her...

Those were the two links I had saved from the USHE, but in addition to that I daily get new links for free stuff available on the internet, so I will blog about some of them here and let you know how you also can get links to good stuff sent to your email daily.

• SCIENCE: Aurora Lipper, from SuperChargedScience, sends me letters regularly with free science experiments in them.  This week she sent a link to a page full of summer fun science experiments: e-camp Activities and Experiments . 
• Free Flight on the Young Eagles 'Learn to Fly Day' on May 21st (US, Canada):   On May 21st, the Young Eagles program welcomes your family to a free flight at a local airport for International Learn to Fly Day.  Why would they do that?  Here's their reason: "International Learn to Fly Day was announced in 2009 as an effort to increase interest in flying and to encourage the aviation community to get others involved in Aviation." [This information provided by Lori Seaborg on her Freely Educate blog, to which you can subscribe.]
• FREE TEACHER APPRECIATION KIT:  This free Teacher Appreciation Kit can be sent to your e-mail inbox monthly. The above links to a sample page which shows an idea of the materials they will send you for free every month.  At the top of the page is a link to subscribe (look for "ADD"). I'm about to subscribe myself; looks "yummy" for my homeschool! This information came to me from Jacquelyn at the "WherecanIfindit" Yahoo Group.  
• MUSIC APPRECIATION: Piotr Tchaikovsky - Music Appreciation posts by San Francisco Smyphony on their "Keeping Score" website. The home website (just linked) has a great selection of major composers. This looks like a real "keeper" of a site.  "Keeping Score" is apparently a PBS television show -- I didn't know that, not having cable and barely watching television at all myself. This information provided to you by Diane Keith Flynn, who sends me a daily e-mail which you, too, can subscribe to. Go to her website, ClickSchooling, and subscribe in the upper right-hand corner.  

Well, I guess that's it for links for today. I will still be trying to post about narration later today.

D