Posts tagged ‘free’

Would you like to take a field trip, but don’t have the time or money to do so right now? Perhaps the last field trip you took was a disaster because you were too busy trying to nurse the baby, finding the preschooler a bathroom, and helping the older ones enjoy the trip–all at the same time. Maybe you’d simply like to try something different. If so, go on a virtual field trip. Since you’re already doing much of your learning online with Lesson Pathways, why not take your learning a step further and embark on an online journey. You can even go while the little ones are napping.

What is a virtual field trip? A virtual field trip is a trip you take online. You tour a location using a series of websites that have been linked together for a guided experience. You can visit museums, cities, factories, farms, different countries–almost anywhere you could go on a field trip–and some places you could never visit in person, like the International Space Station.

As with any field trip, a virtual field trip requires advance planning. Decide what you want your children to learn and see. What would be a good supplement to your studies? Do you want to visit a museum that shows something you’ve studied recently? Would you like to see a reenactment from a particular period of time? Should the children learn more about geography and visit a faraway place?

Before you head off to explore, prepare your children. Give them an idea of what they will be seeing and learning. You may want to give them questions to answer or things to look for on your journey. Give them enough information to help them discover fun and interesting things along the way.

Here are a few virtual field trips you might try to get you started:

• Factory Tour–Bakery
• Explore a Viking Village
• Europe
• Interactive Space Station
• Jason Project (registration required–great explorers and events)
• Minnesota Orchestra on Tour
• Museums and Virtual Exhibits
• Reach the World (various journeys around the world)
• Secrets of Easter Island
• Tour the Galaxy
• Virtual Field Trips of all Types

To find other virtual field trips, begin with your favorite search engine. You probably won’t want to type in “Virtual Field Trips,” as that will yield a little over a million results. To narrow your search, try searching for virtual field trips by country or continent (maybe Europe or Australia), by subject (perhaps geology or history), or by place (like a bakery, factory, or zoo).

Once you’ve found a trip, browse the tour yourself before visiting with the children. Make sure the links are working and the sites do not have any objectionable material. Gather any supplies you want the children to have available: paper, pencils, list of questions, etc.

Before you head off to explore, prepare your children. Give them an idea of what they will be seeing and learning. You may want to give them questions to answer or things to look for on your journey. Give them enough information to help them discover fun and interesting things along the way.

Make your next field trip a virtual trip. Pick a destination, gather the kids around the computer, and head off on your virtual tour. You won’t need a sack lunch, coats, extra diapers, changes of clothes, an umbrella, or boots. The trip won’t even put a dent in your budget. Best of all, if someone needs to use the bathroom, you can pause, walk down the hall, and take care of business.

The BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: LessonPathways.com is now FREE for EVERYONE to use!  Please read the message from our founder, Richard Rasmus, below:

NEWS

We have exciting news to share with you about the future of LessonPathways.com!

We have decided to transform the Lesson Pathways site from a paid subscription-based service to one that is advertising- and donation-supported. As a result, if you are currently a subscriber we are canceling all paid subscriptions and invite everyone to use LessonPathways.com at no additional expense.
I know that we have many satisfied customers who are actively using Lesson Pathways with their students.  If you feel that our service is of value to you, we ask that you consider contributing to support Lesson Pathways and help allow us to continue to bring you this valuable educational resource.

BACKGROUND

When Lesson Pathways first launched in August 2009, we initially offered free 12-month subscriptions for those who agreed to fulfill Beta Tester roles.  Within a 4 day time period, over 4000 users signed up for free accounts! The feedback we have received on our service since then has been phenomenal.  Unfortunately, once we moved to a subscription based system, the number of paid purchases we received not enough to cover our operating costs.

While we are confident that we are offering a top-notch service, we are attempting to sell our service during a very difficult economic time.  We have received many emails from families who would like to use our service, but are unable to do so due to tight household budgets.

We have spent many hours trying to find a solution – something that will help us cover our operating costs AND provide an educational tool to families who need our help.  We believe we have come up with a viable plan.  However, we will need your help – the help of the Lesson Pathways community – in order to make it work.

Our new approach, called a “freemium business model” is currently being used by sites like Facebook, Flickr, and Skype.  These sites offer a valuable free service, attract a very large number of users, and receive income when users click on affiliate and paid advertisements.  Over the course of the next few days we will switch Lesson Pathways over to a similar revenue model and we hope we can count on your support!

HOW YOU CAN HELP

We are hopeful that by changing the fundamentals of how we operate, we can continue to improve and expand our educational offerings. In addition to considering making a donation to Lesson Pathways, we hope you will help us in the following ways:

Share Lesson Pathways with anyone you think might be interested in our free service: face-to-face, postings in online forums and blogs, and on Facebook, Twitter or any other social or educational network to which you belong.

Support our advertisers and sponsors and buy educational and other supplemental materials by clicking on affiliate links you find on our site, such as links for Amazon books displayed with the Pathways.  Also consider shopping through the Lesson Pathways Online Shopping Mall, where you will find a variety of popular online stores.

Contribute content and help us maintain our site.  There are numerous ways to share your thoughts about our service or the sites we feature, such as commenting on our pages or flagging broken links.  We also hope that more experienced users will help newcomers by answering questions and offering support on our user forum.  In addition, we hope those of you who have a keen interest in education will volunteer to help us create new content.  This can be done by offering guest blog entries, suggesting alternative sites to feature, or creating new Pathways that reflect your own interest, knowledge, and educational philosophy.

Thank you again for your support.  We hope you will continue to be a valuable part of the Lesson Pathways community and will help us during our transition period and beyond!

Please visit our Free Service FAQ’s Page or feel free to contact our customer service department at ContactUs@LessonPathways.com if you have any questions, comments or concerns you would like to discuss.

As mentioned last Friday, each week we will be featuring a new Pathway here on our blog.  In addition, we will be giving everyone FREE access to this unit for a full week.  Each Pathway contains enough resources for a full week’s worth of learning.

This week’s Free Featured Pathway is all about Booker T. Washington.

Explore the life of Booker T. Washington in this unit. Your child will create a diorama, design a stamp, and make a collage. A map and an online story are included to help your child learn more about Washington. This unit is designed to last one week, depending on how often you teach history.

To access this Pathway, simply click the link above.  While there is no registration needed, we encourage you to sign up for a 7 day free trial to access all of our great Pathways!

*Booker T. Washington clip art courtesy of ClipArtGuide.com

LessonPathways would like to recognize the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the impact he had on the lives of everyone.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. day, we are giving everyone FREE access to our Martin Luther King Jr. History Pathway.  Here, you will find all the resources you need to complete a one-week study on the life of this great leader and visionary.

FREE Martin Luther King Jr. History Pathway

This Pathway will only be free for one week.  Please enjoy the learning and activities with your child this week.

Image courtesy of  Free-Stock-Photos.com

We are VERY pleased to bring you another wonderful giveaway!!

You could win…

Susan Marlow’s Book, Andrea Carter and the San Francisco Smugglers

http://www.circlecadventures.com/Books.html

This is the fourth book in the Circle C Adventure series for kids and it is SURE to entertain!

Click here to read the first chapter!

When a flood damages the schoolhouse, Andi is ecstatic—until her family sends her to a stuffy San Francisco school for young ladies. The plight of a small, Chinese slave girl captures her heart, sending Andi and her new friends into the dark alleys of Chinatown, where danger greater than she’s ever known waits to swallow them up.

In addition to the book, the winner will ALSO receive the Journey through Learning Lapbook!

From A Journey Through Learning you will get the lapbook that goes along with this chapter book. It is 3 folders big and includes extra study pages such as the Fresno Flood, Chinatown, the Transcontinental Railroad, Streetcars and Cable Cars, the Chinese Slave Trade, Chinese Writing, Golden Gate Park, Life at Young Ladies’ Academy, and more!

Susan K. Marlow is a twenty-year homeschooling veteran of four and the author of the Circle C Adventures series for “tweens” from Kregel Publications. She combines her love of teaching and her passion for writing by teaching writing workshops for kids on line and at home-school co-ops. She and her family make their home in Washington State.

To learn more, please visit Susan Marlow’s website: Circle C Adventures.

How to Enter:

Leave us a comment below and let us know what you love about the Circle C series! (please make sure to include your email address in the form, it will not be visible to others and will not be shared)

For extra entries:

• Subscribe to our Feed
• Follow us on Twitter
• Tweet This: RT @LessonPathways Enter for a free Circle C Book & Lapbook http://bit.ly/2cbEK5
• Become a fan on Facebook
• Say “Hello” in our user forum
• Sign up for our newsletter

Please make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. This contest will be open through Friday (January 15th), 11:59 EST.  Good Luck!!

Even though our homeschool is on a break from our normal schedule, we still try to take advantage of learning opportunities, whenever they may arise.  As we prepare for our New Year’s celebration, I thought it would be an ideal time to share a few ideas with our readers. Here are some links you can use to create your own “on the fly” New Year’s Unit Study:

Learn About New Year’s Around the World

Turn your New Year’s Eve celebration into a multicultural one!  Have you children pick a country or two to learn about. Locate them on a map, read about their New Year’s traditions and prepare some food from that country.

New Year Around the World Facts:
Read this interesting,  fun collection of facts about traditions from around the world.  You’ll learn about customs in Greece, Columbia, Scotland & many more countries!

Traditions from Around the World:
Find out even more about the history and traditions of New Year’s. This site offers and extensive list of countries. We just wrapped up a study on our heritage, this will be a great tie in for us! Find the country you are interested in and click on the link to learn more.

How to Say “Happy New Year”:
Have fun learning how to say “Happy New Year!” in other languages.

Lucky New Year’s Eve Food Traditions from Around the World:
Read about food traditions and try to prepare some yourself for New Year’s Eve.  NOTE: There are a lot of pop-ups on this site.  Be sure to have your pop-up blocker on for a better experience.

Calendar Concepts

What better time to reinforce time and calendar concepts, or even learn something new about the history of the calendar? If you kept a family calendar this year, you can review the events of the past year and have your children create a time line.   You can print calendar pages and have your children decorate each month, filling in the special days and holidays.

Calendars: Counting the Days:
This site is just a wealth of information about the calendar!  Read through the different pages to learn about the history of the calendar, how to measure time and the different types of calendars used today.

Assignment Discovery:Days and Months:
Watch this short video to learn how the moon is connected to the calendar.  A nice, quick and to-the-point lesson!

Printable Calendars:
If you want your children to create calendars, this is a nice place to find printable ones for coloring or customizing.

Just Plain Fun

Maybe you’re just looking for some good, old-fashioned, coloring pages, printables and crafts?  There’s lots of fun and learning that can happen with paper, pencil, scissors and glue!

New Year’s at Danielle’s Place: A nice collection of ideas.  My favorite is the FREE printable “pop-up” New Year’s card to make.  Let your kids make a few for friends and neighbors.

New Year’s Word Search:
Just print and circle the words!

Bright New Year Mobile:
This fun craft project, from Crayola, will liven up your home on New Year’s Eve.  You probably have all the supplies you need on hand: construction paper, colored pencils, gel pens, glue & glitter glue, scissors, hole punch, ribbon and recycled foam trays.

Will you be doing some fun learning this New Year’s?  Or, do you have a learning idea or resource for New Year’s?  Share it with us in the comments section below!

This post was written by Christina S., a LessonPathways.com Team Member and  homeschool mom of 10 years.  She lives with her husband and two daughters in Detroit, Michigan.

Whether your children are educated at home or in a classroom setting, its likely most of them will not have scheduled school work this coming week.  When they get antsy for something to do, help keep their minds and hands busy this week by assembling a fun holiday workbook using these FREE resources:

Printable Christmas Quiz

A fun quiz about Santa!

Printable Christmas Quiz for Older Children

Print this quiz for your older children and allow them to use the internet to find the answers.

Christmas Tree Dot-to-Dot

This dot-to-dot will reinforce counting skills.

Santa Claus Word Search

Find & circle the words in the grid — they all relate to Santa Claus!

Christmas Crossword Puzzles

Choose easy, medium or hard for your child.

Christmas Around the World

Print this poster to learn how to say “Christmas” in different languages.

Decorate a Gingerbread Cookie

Color, cut and glue the decorations for your gingerbread boy or girl!

Reading Comprehension – Making Christmas Ornaments

Read the recipe and directions for making the ornaments.  Answer the questions and try making some of your own.

My Family Christmas – A Rebus Story

Print this page for your young reader.

The Internet is full of great resources.  These are just a few of our favorites.  Share your favorites in the comments section!

If you’re looking for some insightful articles on homeschooling, be sure to check out The Homeschool Connector newsletter. It’s FREE to subscribe too!!! This month, they are featuring the following articles:

• Top Ten Reasons to Homeschool
• Homeschool Field Trips – 7 Essentials on How to Plan and What to Take
• How to Enjoy Homeschooling
• Technology in the Homeschool Classroom
• And More!

Your Homeschool Connection

In case you missed any of the other giveaways, there are THREE more chanced to win a FREE YEAR of Lesson Pathways!

SecularHomeschool.com is hosting a giveaway for three free subscriptions to LessonPathways.com. You can find all the details and enter HERE! Good Luck!

Be sure to stop by the The Work of Childhood between now and November 4th to find out how to win a FREE one year subscription to LessonPathways.com!!!

While you’re there, check out the archives to read about their family and adventures in homeschooling!