Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Clickschooling is pretty awesome

I subscribe to Diane Flynn Keith's "clickschooling" newsletter, which is geared toward homeschoolers and focuses on a different part of a curriculum on a daily basis. (The top boasts: Free daily curriculum ideas! -Get free daily web-based curriculum ideas that will save you money. -Enjoy educational websites that will save you time!) Mondays are math days, Tuesdays science, Wednesdays language arts, Thursdays social sciences, Fridays virtual field trips and Saturdays allow you to get foreign languages, arts, music, et cetera in. (The field trips have been pretty intersting too - sometimes it can be a museum visit, other times a factory or a behind the scenes of how something is made (at Easter it was a trip to the Palmer Chocolate factory and she even had a visit to the PEEPS site which was pretty cool.)

I have to admit that I've actually followed some of the suggested links on some days, and today's was no exception. If you would like to "hear" what Beowulf sounded like read out in loud, click here and launch the timeline. At each stage in the timeline, you can click on different things to get more history and to listen to things - the microphone will give you excerpts of different readings (Beowulf, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and several others); the jester in the top right corner will give you insults of that particular time. Listen to stage 8, The Age of the Lexicographer 1600 - 1800 (Early Modern English), insults and get a nice giggle. I loved fopdoodle - now if only I can figure a way to use that in my writings - lol.

I signed up for the daily newsletter hoping to find some ideas for new activities to put in my study guides. I have found some and one in particular, I'm trying to figure out how to actually make this work for book #5. I've emailed the contributors/designers/creators of this website about creating a "case" for a particular item but have never heard anything back from any of them. The contact page on the site doesn't work so I copied all their email addys and sent an actual email (may need to resend it soon, since I'm finishing up book #5 very soon).

I'm loving getting the new ideas and just exploring some fun areas. I encourage anyone who is looking for ways to enhance a homeschool curriculum or who is in need of new things to try out to subscribe to Diane Flynn Keith's "clickschooling" newsletter.

2 comments:

Rena Jones said...

I've heard of it, but have never subscribed. Anything to keep homeschoolers motivated by offering fresh ideas is a plus in my book. I'm in my 12th year, so I know how easy it is for parents to get burned out.

elysabeth said...

I'm not even a homeschooler and think some of the links are pretty cool. I love that one I posted today for the language timeline. Like I said some of the links will lead me, hopefully, to other ideas to use in my study guides. That was the main reason I signed up for the newsletter and you get one six days a week, with different topics. I love the virtual field trip Fridays and like today's (the language timeline). The lemonade info came from that newsletter (I believe it was in a Monday math session because of the skills enterpraneurs need (math among others).

Go sign up - doesn't take long to do so and you will start receiving the emails tomorrow - lol. - E :)

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