Internet Need I Say More - FREE Chinese New Year Resources And FreeBEE Friday Link Up

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Welcome to day 5 of the 5 day homeschool essentials blog hop. Homeschool essentials will be different for every homeschool family. So make sure you visit the other TOS crew members to see what their essentials are. I hope you enjoy this blog hop series and find some helpful information along the way!

Be sure to stop by everyday this week to find out what our other homeschool essentials are.

Since I created my blog in 2011 I have always been dedicated to sharing FREE resources with homeschool families. One thing that I was very worried about, when we finally realized I was going to be able to quite my job to homeschool, was purchasing curriculum...that was until I realized that we didn't really need to purchase anything at all. For an entire year (prior to us starting to homeschool in the Fall of 2011) I searched the internet and stocked up on tons of FREE resources. Literally everything you NEED can be found on the internet for FREE: craft ideas, worksheets, unit studies, videos, lapbooks, books, fieldtrip ideas and more! So yup the internet is essential to our homeschool. I am even willing to pay a little extra for the faster speed! Combine the internet with your library card (one of our other homeschool essentials) and you have totally FREE curriculum! And so I started compiling freebies on my blog in hopes of helping fellow homeschoolers. Every week I post at least once (generally on FreeBEE Fridays) about free resources. Be sure to also read my article on A Day In The Life Of Our Free Homeschool.

I end my FreeBEE Friday posts with this statement each and every time as a reminder to fellow homeschoolers, "Remember when it comes to FREE resources the internet and a good search engine are your best friend. Oh and a library card!"

So since it is Friday I decided to combine my FreeBEE Friday post with my homeschool essential post...

Chinese New Year FreeBEEs:
January 31st is Chinese New Year and 2014 is the year of the horse. The horse is one of the 12 Chinese zodiac symbols.  If you are a horse you are known to be independent, high energy and always up for adventure. Horses can also be a bit rash and inconsistent.

Chinese New Year is an important traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the 1st day of the Chinese calendar. In China, it is also known as the Spring Festival. Chinese New Year celebrations  run from Chinese New Year's Eve, the last day of the last month of the Chinese calendar, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month. Chinese New year is the longest festival in the Chinese calendar. Chinese New Year is centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. The festival is also a time to honor deities as well as ancestors.  It is a great holiday to learn about with your children. You can cover history, geography, social studies and more.

Worksheets, Crafts, Unit Studies, Lapbooks and More:
-Dragon Craft and 10 More Chinese New Year Crafts from the Nurture Store.
-Pre-K Pages has several fun Chinese New Year crafts.
-Rubber Boots and Elf Shoes has several fun Chinese New Year crafts ideas.

-KC Adventures has a great list of Chinese New Year books, crafts, printables.
-There are some fun resources over at Daria Music for Chinese New Year.
-Chinese New Year activity pack.
-In The Playroom has a fun Chinese New Year craft.

-Be sure to sign up for the Panda Express Chinese New Year program - they will have loads of great resources that they will email to you.
-Afterschool for Smarty Pants has put together an excellent Chinese New Year unit study
-Chinese New Year Lucky Tree craft from Handprint and Footprint Art
-Meet Penny has a great list much like what I have put together here. It includes crafts, videos, books and more.

-Here is another Chinese New Year unit study.
-Chinese Zodiac Lesson.
-A Journey Through Learning Chinese New Year express lapbook (not free but only $1).
-Chinese New Year Activity book from The Do-It-Yourself Mom.
-China lapbook from Homeschool Helper Online.
-ABC Teach has several Chinese New Year printables.

-A really, fun dragon craft (above). We did this one already and my kids had a blast. You can get the download and instructions here at Red Ted Art. We made a few slight changes and used glitter markers, feathers and boas for some added pizzazz.
-And here is another fun dragon craft from Pink Stripey Socks as well as a rattle drum craft.
-Another great Chinese New Year lapbook from The AnnaMatrix
-Chinese New Year coloring pages.
-Chinese New Year math activities.

Also be sure to check out my Chinese New Year Pinterest Board for more fun ideas!

Videos:


Books/eBooks/Audio Books:
-What We Do All Day has compiled a great list of Chinese Folktale books that you should check out from the library.
-MeMeTales has another great list of Chinese New Year books as well as some craft ideas too.

Games:
-Primary Games has several fun Chinese New Years computer games.
-Gamesgames.com has a fun Chinese New Year's Night game.
-Head over to Nick Jr to play Hoho's Chinese New Year Coin Catch game.

Fieldtrips:
Don't forget to search for some Chinese New Year celebrations in your area.

Here are a couple really awesome ideas for my Georgia readers.
-January 31, 2014 Daoist New Year ceremony.
-January 31 2014 Chinese New Year - Year of the Horse music celebration - FREE.
-February 1, 2014 Chinese Lunar New Year Festival.

-February 1, 2014 Shaolin Institute New Year Celebration - FREE - we went to this last year and it was fabulous!
-January 31,2014 - February 6, 2014 Doc Chey's 15 Days of Chinese New Year.

Welcome to a New Year of FreeBEEs. Every Friday I will share a great list of educational FreeBEE resources. PLUS...there's the added bonus of this being a monthly link up...where you can showcase your freebie posts or discover more amazing freebies from my blogging friends. The blogger link up will start on the first Friday of every month and end on the first day of the following month. Each month there will be a new link up. Link up anything that is educational and FREE including GIVEAWAYS!

I hope you find these resources useful. If you ever have any questions feel free to leave me a comment or email me. Also be sure to follow my FB page where I post FreeBEEs daily.

If you have homeschool FreeBEEs to share

please link up at the bottom of this post!

You can copy the button from my right sidebar to share

somewhere on your blog.

Link up: FreeBEE Fridays with Kathy's Cluttered Mind.

Remember when it comes to FREE resources the internet and a good search engine are your best friend. Oh and a library card!

*Don't miss a single FreeBEE... Subscribe to Kathys Cluttered Mind*

What is essential in your homeschool?

The Wide, Wide World

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Welcome to day 4 of the 5 day homeschool essentials blog hop. Homeschool essentials will be different for every homeschool family. So make sure you visit the other TOS crew members to see what their essentials are. I hope you enjoy this blog hop series and find some helpful information along the way!

Be sure to stop by everyday this week to find out what our other homeschool essentials are.

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As you know we are a very busy, on the go family. And as our blog motto states, "The World Is Our Classroom." So yup fieldtrips are a homeschool essential for us!!! There is no way we can stay at home for more than a few days or we all start to get a little stir crazy! Plus it is way more fun to learn through up close, hands on experiences. So at a minimum we are out exploring the wide, wide world at least twice a week...often more. I must admit, we have even done 2 fieldtrips in one day! We like to use EVERYTHING and ANYTHING as a learning experience and firmly believe in experiential learning, which is the process of learning from experience.

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." Aristotle

Looking at famous pieces of artwork in a book is boring, reading about the Civil War isn't all that exciting and watching YouTube videos of spiders spinning webs is dull. BUT examining artwork from the Louvre up close, walking the same path that Civil War soldiers did and watching a spider spin it's web between two tree branches at your favorite nature center is way more exciting and more memorable too!!!

In this article The Educational Value of Field Trips, Greene's research shows that children learn quite a lot during fieldtrips. She states in her article that, "enriching fieldtrips contribute to the development of students into civilized young men and women who possess more knowledge about art, have stronger critical-thinking skills, exhibit increased historical empathy, display higher levels of tolerance, and have a greater taste for consuming art and culture." The article discusses how children are able to recall factual information more easily after fieldtrips as well as make better connections. Children exposed to experiential learning were found to be stronger observers, evaluators and be more flexible in their thinking.

As a mom who takes her children on lots of fieldtrips I couldn't agree more with Greene's statements. My children have such an appreciation for art, history and more thanks to our fieldtripping adventures.

Some of our 2014 fieldtrip adventures!

The #1 reason I hear from other homeschool moms that they don't do fieldtrips is money, the second is their fear of taking time away from their schedule and curriculum.

First let me say fieldtrips don't have to be extravagant or costly, but they do require some research. I have found lots of FREE fieldtrip destinations around Atlanta by planning in advance and just simply asking. It may surprise you some of the places that will give you a tour if you just ask (like grocery stores, pet stores, factories, etc). I love sharing fieldtrip ideas with families so much that I even created a SE Homeschool Fieldtrip Group on Facebook (feel free to join). We try to keep our fieldtrips either free or under $7 per person. Memberships save us a lot of money. Every year we purchase 2-3 memberships and I try to purchase them when they are offering a special promotion like a percentage off. The nice thing about memberships is that they often have reciprocal benefits too that not only get into the museum you purchase it at but also other museums in the state and around the country. Also the museums and nature center we have memberships to offer homeschool days once a month too which is pretty awesome too.

A few days ago I shared the 10 Reasons We Love Books, in the post I mentioned the library and how many books we check out each week. Utilizing the library helps save us money which we can apply to fieldtrips. Also here in GA many of our libraries have passes for several local attractions that can be checked out so you can get FREE admission (ask your library if they offer programs like this). Tomorrow be sure to stop by to find out the other way we save money for fieldtrips!

Second read the article I linked to above. It is really okay to get out and go on a fieldtrip. Break the schedule and don't worry about your curriculum lesson (I promise it will be there waiting for you when you return). The joy of homeschooling is the flexibility. As homeschoolers we can provide our children with hands on, enriching, real world lessons that they won't get in a book, at home or sitting in a classroom.

Here are a few other posts I wrote about fieldtrips that you should check out: 10 Places To Take Nature Walks In GA, Exploring Nature, 10 Frugal Fieldtrips, FREE And Low cost Fieldtrip Ideas (Nationwide), 10 FREE Fieldtrips In GA, Fabulous Fun Filled Fieldtrips and GA Unit Study.

What is essential in your homeschool?

Homeschool Community - Friends and Groups

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Welcome to day 3 of the 5 day homeschool essentials blog hop. Homeschool essentials will be different for every homeschool family. So make sure you visit the other TOS crew members to see what their essentials are. I hope you enjoy this blog hop series and find some helpful information along the way!

Be sure to stop by everyday this week to find out what our other homeschool essentials are.

Our homeschool friends and our amazing homeschool group with 115 families is definitely a homeschool essential for us. Friends and groups are not only important for the children but also for me. Having the support of other moms who understand the daily joys and struggles I am dealing with everyday is very important!!! And this applies to both my online and "in real life" friends. I am blessed to have an amazing close knit group of homeschool mom friends who I meet with on a weekly basis. But I also treasure my many online homeschool mom friends too. There are several that I have met IRL (in real life) but the majority of them I have only spoken with online via social media. My friends are part of my support system and a big part of what keeps me going, especially on the rough days. Each and every time I need them I can count on at least one (often more) of them to be there to listen to me and offer advice. When we began homeschooling in 2011 my husband insisted that I make friends (something I have always had a hard time with since becoming a mom) and that I get out of the house at least once a month for some "alone time". Thank goodness a fabulous homeschool group popped up at the beginning 2012!!! I met some of the most amazing women who I not only became great friends with but who I can also sneak out of the house with once a month for some much needed "alone" time!


That crazy stereotype about homeschooled children being unsocialized always makes me laugh...hysterically. My kids have way more friends than they ever would if they were in public school. Those 115 families in our homeschool group each have 2+ kids...that's a lot of friends and acquaintances. And I love that not all of their friends are the same age as them. They have younger friends and older friends all whom they get along great with. They see several of their friends at least once a week for various events such as parties, clubs, fieldtrips or play dates. And my children have no problem making new friends. It doesn't matter where we go they will make a friend even if it is an 80 year old lady. They cherish their friends and rely on their friends just as much as I do mine!

If you are not part of a homeschool group I highly encourage you to search Yahoo Groups and Meetup to try to find local groups in your area to connect with...or perhaps start your own.

Also be sure to head over to Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog to see what else is essential to homeschoolers across the globe!

Here are a few quick links to some of my bloggy friends:

Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Jody @ Because I’m Me
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

What is essential in your homeschool?

Book Addicts And Proud Of It

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Welcome to day 2 of the 5 day homeschool essentials blog hop. Homeschool essentials will be different for every homeschool family. So make sure you visit the other TOS crew members to see what their essentials are. I hope you enjoy this blog hop series and find some helpful information along the way!

Be sure to stop by everyday this week to find out what our other homeschool essentials are.

We are book ADDICTS. I estimate we own well over 1,5000 books (including eBooks)! All of our bookcases are filled with books and there is no more room for more. There are literally books behind books because I am running out of room.

You would think eBooks would put an end to the book hoarding right? Well guess again. eBooks are great for some things like car trips or doctor visits but I LOVE "real" paper books even MORE. Plus paper books smell good especially the old ones!

Each week we take a trip to the library to check out books...and most of the time while we are there we buy some too. I mean who can pass up books for 50 cents? And then there's Goodwill and Read It Again which both have an awesome selection of used books. Talk about dangerous places! A few weeks ago I said to my daughter, while entering the Read It Again bookstore, that it was a dangerous place for us. To which she replied, "mommy it's only dangerous if a book falls on your head." I then explained that it was dangerous to my wallet and our bookshelves! Books are a homeschool essential for us because the majority of what our family learns everyday is from reading books. We read about 10 books a day! Oh yeah back to the the library, I forgot to mention how many books we typically have checked out at one time...125-175. Yup you read that right! We use actually have to use a suitcase for our library trips and when we get them home we store them in a Radio Flyer wagon. Told you we were addicted.

So here are 10 reasons we love books and why they are essential to our homeschool:

1) They teach us amazing things. Dr. Seuss was totally right, "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
2) You can NEVER read them all and you can read the ones you love over and over again!
3) They create special memories for us. Books create all sorts of special memories for us like the memory of where and when the book was read (like on a special trip) or perhaps the memory of getting the author or illustrator to sign your book. And there is of course the memory of the actual book itself and what it was about.
4) They help us escape the crazy, hectic, technology filled world for a little bit.
5) They are great way for our family to spend quality, cuddle time together.
6) They look fabulous on our bookshelves and make our Dr. Seuss themed homeschool room look colorful and fun...think of how boring it would look without any books.

7) They are a great conversation starters.
8) The illustrations and book jackets are intriguing and beautiful...especially if you are an aspiring artist.
9) They are portable. You can read them anywhere you want to. In a tree, in the tub, in the car, at the pond...learning on the go is so much fun!
10) They let us travel to amazing Worlds both real and fictional.  Reading allows us to travel to places we have never been and may never get to see. They allow us to experience different culture, scenery and more.

Also be sure to check out my Top 10 Websites To Read Stories Online For Free, Top 10 Places To Get Great Homeschool Books and 10 Reasons We Love Our Library posts!

Also be sure to head over to Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog to see what else is essential to homeschoolers across the globe!

Here are a few quick links to some of my bloggy friends:

Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Jody @ Because I’m Me
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

What is essential in your homeschool?

Passionate Children

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Over the next 5 days I will be blogging about homeschool essentials. Homeschool essentials will be different for every homeschool family. So make sure you visit the other TOS crew members to see what their essentials are. I hope you enjoy this blog hop series and find some helpful information along the way!

Be sure to stop by everyday this week to find out what our other homeschool essentials are.

Without my passionate children I would not be a homeschool mom...so yup they are pretty essential! Their creativity, passion to learn and desire to explore is what drives me. I never thought I would be a mom let alone a stay at home homeschool mom. But when I met my husband that all changed. During our brief (6 month) dating period we discussed that we both wanted two kids and that we definitely wanted to homeschool them. We knew we wanted the best for them and that we wanted them to be able to follow their interests and passions. We did not want them to have to change who they were and what they were passionate about. We did not want them to have to fit into a standardized box. So after 6 years of marriage we decided it was time to start our family. But unfortunately due to some bad financial mistakes staying home with the children was not an option for us...thankfully my children were able to spend their days with their Mommom (aka Grandma) instead of going to daycare. But finally in 2011 just before Gwyn was supposed to start Kindergarten our dream came true and I was able to quit my full time job to become a stay at home/homeschool mom. It is the hardest job I have ever had and there are days I want to give up and wonder what the heck we were thinking. But then my passionate, amazing, smart, energetic children remind me!!!

I thought it would be fun to tell you a little bit more about my passionate children and why they amaze me everyday:

Gwyndolyn who is turning 8 today:
Gwyn has a passion for animals and art. Her dream is to own a horse farm and be a farmer and an artist. She wants to rescue all kinds of animals and give them a good home. Just about everyday she is busy creating beautiful masterpieces and learning all she can about horses. She loves to help people and animals in need. A few times a month she volunteers at a local horse rescue where she helps feed, groom and love on abused horses. She is compassionate, creative, adventurous and loves learning!!! Science is her favorite subject and if she is not outside exploring nature and collecting things, she's is inside coming up with crazy concoctions. She also enjoys skateboarding, geocaching, hiking, learning about Native Americans.

Check out Gwyn's blog - Adventures Of A Homeschool Cowgirl

Rowyn who is 6 1/2:
Rowyn is a very energetic, tactile, rough, tough boy. He loves all things superhero, Star Wars and LEGOS. He definitely tries my patience everyday but he also makes me laugh everyday too. He spends the majority of his days building LEGO creations. He is compassionate, creative and adventurous just like is sister. His favorite subject is a toss up between science and history. He loves learning about how things work but he also really enjoys learning about the wars throughout history. He also likes trains, cars, hiking, geocaching, getting messy, playing in water and building sand castles. His dream when he grows up is to work at a LEGO store or be a superhero!

Check out Rowyn's blog - Minifig Homeschool Adventures

Also be sure to head over to Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog to see what else is essential to homeschoolers across the globe!

Here are a few quick links to some of my bloggy friends:

Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Jody @ Because I’m Me
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

What is essential in your homeschool?