Subway’s Random Acts of Fitness is back! Teachers + Homeschools can request a free fitness kit to help engage the kids in healthy activities for body and mind. Head over to Subway Kids to request your kit.

As a homeschool family, I know that children learn at their own pace. However, I know some like to follow a basic guideline for their children’s lessons so I wanted to share this for those that haven’t came across it yet.

World Book Encyclopedia and Learning Resources has a selection of free resources that could be very useful to use. There is a list for Typical Courses of Study to learn what subjects are taught at different grade levels, Trivia Quizes, a Cyber Camp (best for ages 4 – 8 or so) and much more.

My children have many allergies. Making homemade crafts & cleaning supplies are one way I can control what they come in contact with. Here are a few ‘recipes’ for craft supplies today. And tomorrow, I’ll follow up with a list for household cleaners.

Glitter

Supplies:
1c salt
ziploc bag
food coloring
cookie sheet

Instructions:
Seperate salt into piles, and mix each pile with food coloring in a ziploc bag. Spread salt our on a cookie sheet and let dry. Store extra glitter in a tupperware container. Best of all glitter made fr
om salt can’t cut your eyes like regular store bought glitter.

Modeling Clay

Supplies:
1c. salt
2c. flour
1c. water
food coloring to tint

Instructions:
Mix all ingredients together for about 5 minutes and then it is ready to use. To keep the clay from drying out you can store it in tuperware containers.

Chalk

Supplies:
1/2 c. plaster of paris
almost 1/4 c. water
powdered tempera paint
mixing bowl
an ice cube tray.

Instructions:
Mix the plaster of paris and most of the water together, add 1-2 tbs. of tempera paint and mix well. Add enough water to thicken mixture. Pour into ice cube tray and let dry, then just pop it out and it is ready to use.

Finger Paints

Supplies
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup water
1 bar hypo-allergenic soap
food stuff dyes

Procedure:
Grate bar of soap until it is in fine shreds. Melt with 1/2 cup water over med heat. In a bowl combine cornstarch, 1/2 cup water, and melted soap mixture. Stir to blend. Let mixture sit and thicken. Divide into as many separate bowls as you want colors (so for 6 colors, use 6 bowls) Stir in ‘colors”

For colors: Get creative…you can mix 1/4 cup fruit juices with 2 cups of water, or you can add the juice from canned beets (straight instead of water). For browns you can use tea, for yellow you can mix turmeric with a little bit of water to make a paste. Once your dough is prepared, you can kneed in the colors.

NOTE: For thicker consistency paint: Mix 1 packet of gelatin with 1/4 cup of water. Add to the cornstarch, water and melted soap mixture.

Play Dough

Supplies:
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt
1 cup cool water
2 Tbs oil
2 Tbs cream of tartar
Wax paper

Procedure:
Stir together flour, cream of tartar, salt and oil. Slowly mix in the water. Cook over medium heat stirring frequently until dough becomes stiff. Spread onto wax paper and let cool. Kneed dough with your hands until it reaches the desired consistency.

Note: You can add a few drops of color after you stir in the water (over the heat) to get colored dough. Get creative…you can mix 1/4 cup fruit juices with 2 cups of water, or you can add the juice from canned beets (straight instead of water). For browns you can use tea, for yellow you can mix turmeric with a little bit of water to make a paste. Once your dough is prepared, you can kneed in the colors.

Many people know that I was homeschooled through my high-school years.  Those years were definitely a success for myself and I plan to homeschool my children when they are of age.  My son is now 3, so I’m always on the look-out for books, software, supplies and tools.  By tools, I mean anything that will be of use in their education.

The internet can play an important part of learning these days.  From educational games and print outs to videos and research, you can find just about anything you would need online; you can even save money by not having to invest in an expensive curriculum.

Whether you homeschool or have a private/public school child that is doing research online for homework, I suggest this nifty kids search engine.  Kids can enter their keyword or phrases of choice and find the information they need through a number of trusted kid safe search engines.  These search engines are preset to filter out bad words and topics that you would not want them to access.

This kids search, http://www.kigose.com, is free and effectively used by K-12 students and particularly for those between the ages of 6 – 12.  There is a video tutorial on how to use the site available for new users which is helpful for those children and parents that are new to the web.  There is nothing to download (like many of the search tool bars) and the navigational search bar stays at the bottom of your browser page so that you can perform new searches at any time without having to stray away from this page.

As always, for added precaution, parental supervision is suggested when children are using the internet.