Free Educational E-Books

Even before beginning to homeschool I have checked Amazon.com for free e-books though these e-books have become essential as we journey forward, as I know that there are materials that my children may not be exposed to otherwise. These materials are good for homeschooling and traditional students, so I have compiled a list of e-books that were free today.
Don’t have a Kindle? Get a Fee Reading app for your tablet, smartphone or computer here.

Free e-books do not last long so make sure to check the price before purchasing!

Preschool
Rabbit Readers – First Book – Kindy & Preschool: 5 Very Simple Learn to Read Stories for Beginning Readers
Baby Birds : Smart Kids Count
A Children’s Story about Cells: For Children who Appreciate Biology
Hands and Feet with Colors: Finger Painted
Learning Same and Differences for Young Children Preschool and Kindergarten
Kindergarten
B is for Brighton Beach
When I Grow Up I Want To Be (Picture Book for Children aged 4 to 9)
Who Plays in the Musical Zoo? (a fun guessing game for children ages baby-5 years)
First Grade
Mrs. Purdy Hatches an Egg
The Clothes We Wear Reading Readiness for Young Children
Teacher Resources
How to Teach Kids Music – 5 Best Music Games: The Best Music Activities to develop Talents of your Kids
Exercises to Math Shorts – Derivatives
Idioms For Kids
Speed Reading For Beginners: Drastically Improve Your Reading Speed in One Day
30 Days Math Addition Series: Two 1 Digit Addends, Daily Practice Workbook To Improve Mathematics Learning Skills: Maths Worksheets
Processing Time: Developing the Interpreter Muscle (The Interpreting Handbook Workbooks 5)
Effective Classroom Management: An Interactive Textbook

I hope you find some (or all) of these e-books helpful.

*Links in this post are affiliated to learn more please read my Disclosure Page, Thank You*

Who Is The Teacher?

Going on our two week mark with homeshooling and I have learned more about my children in this time, than I have their entire lives (sad I know) which makes me wonder… Who is the real teacher?

Am I the teacher or are they? This also makes me wonder how I should proceed from here. I know that my son Ice needs structure, Kc is a visual learner and has a short attention span when it comes to me. Mae and Doe will do almost anything to “please” me which makes them a bit more independent and little Miss Nova can talk (and understand) better than most toddlers that I know as she just wants to be like her older siblings.

I am wondering how they would do if I give them the materials for their lesson then appoint them as My Teacher. Would this make learning more appealing for them? This is one of the perks of homeschooling, I can adjust my plans according to each child’s needs, to ensure that I instill the love of learning… Wish us luck 🙂

Our First Day Homeschooling

I have always wanted to homeschool and it took me 7 years to finally get started, but I did and that is what matters. If you want to find out how our day went, you can see what I wrote here http://www.bubblews.com/news/9521329-not-bad-for-our-first-day

Why is there only one door?

My babies are due to be seen by their pediatrician soon, which brought up a concern that I shared on Bubblews… Why is there only one door? Shouldn’t there be two doors? Come find out my thoughts at Why is there only one door? – News – Bubblews.

Laundry Lesson

Kc was folding a load of laundry towards her contract when Mae decided that the baby could help and put Nse near the basket. Kc was getting a little upset because Nse was throwing all of the clothes out of the basket onto the floor. Mae ,on the other hand, thought it was “cute” that Nse was trying to help, and continued to encourage the baby.

 
So I turned around and looked at Mae and said, “It may look cute, but if Nse starts unfolding the clothes that your sister has already folded, You will be the one to refold them and it will not count towards your contract.”

 
Needless to say Mae redirected the baby.

 (Photo credit: brianjmatis)

Plan (C)ontract

I have never had any luck using charts with my children in the past, but as the years have gone by, I figured I would give it another shot. Again The Plan fell through, though I have to say, they did get farther this time. They wrote down their own ways of earning and losing their pennies, and have been keeping track by paying (or making me pay) on the spot. So I came up with Plan C or Plan Contract. Yes I know I skipped Plan B, but I am saving that for Plan (B)oys 😉

 
My oldest girls wanted computer/tablet time, and I wasn’t going to give in to them without getting something out of it. So I decided that 2 cents a minute would be a fair price and allowed 30 minutes, which would cost them 60 cents total. There is a catch though, I would not take a full payment, I made them give me a down payment and each of them came up with chores to do with appropriate rates, in order to pay the remainder.

Contracts (Photo credit: NobMouse)

Kc’s contract looks like this:

 

30 minutes @ 2 cpm = 60 cents

Down payment of 5 cents = 55 cent remainder

 

She agrees to:
1. Fold laundry 2x @ 5 cents = 10 cents
2. Pick Everything off from the kitchen floor 1x @ 10 cents = 10 cents
3. Clean table Properly 2x @ 10 cents = 20 cents
4. One sink full of dishes is 5 cents, but I told her if she did One Full Load (2 sinks full) I would give her 15 cents to finish the contract.

 

To make it a little more interesting to them, and more convenient for me, the contract has a twist. If all chores on the contract have been completed on or before the 7th day, not only will they get their deposit back, they will get a bonus 20 cents as well.

 

This contract does not include normal chores. Any chore that is done outside of the contract will still earn them their pennies, just as the fact if they do not do their normal chores I will be taking pennies. So far (Knock on Wood) this has been working.

Weather Be Gone

This past week has been terrible for my children. First there was So Much rain and one day the rain came down So Hard that my husband made me go outside and help him find branches to hold our veggies up! I was shivering when I came back inside. It rained for almost 5 days straight and the first day after the rain stopped, you couldn’t take a step into the yard without sinking almost 2 inches.
Then, out of nowhere, we get a heatwave (which we are still encountering) with advisories stating that children, elders and pets, should avoid going outside, and to avoid using as much electricity as possible…  What’s worse? They are calling for More Rain when the heat goes away! Grr!
It has not been easy for anyone in our house, I am very thankful that we have an air conditioner, but keeping everyone occupied has been a challenge. Once we all find something we all can do, someone gets bored before the end and it starts all over again.
I guess I can’t really complain, as I have been having the kids doing exercises and dancing to get their energy out, and they do a good job of thinking up things to do, like drawing, writing stories, and taking over my tablet (which leaves me bored 😉 ) Though I still have to say…
Bad weather go away so my kids & I can go Out to play lol

A Potty Training Mishap

I have been working with our youngest, Nse, to get her prepped for going to the bathroom, and it reminded me of something that happened when we lived at the trailer a couple of years ago when we were training both of our boys. The boys would go poop with no problem at the time, but getting them to stand up to pee, was a different story.

I read online somewhere that if you put cheerios in the toilet, that boys could “aim” at them to learn how to stand while peeing, so I gave it a try. They didn’t have any interest, but when no one was looking they decided that it would be fun to stick toys in the toilet and flush them, which lead to us having to replace the toilet 😦

While Nana was on her way up with another toilet we removed the one that was plugged up and I had an idea. I took a bucket and put their seat on top of it and told all of the kids that this is our new toilet because I would not have to worry about having to replace it again.  They all begged me to get a new toilet and promised never to put toys in it again!

 

Teaching Math With Toys: Preschool

I have spent So Much time looking for free ways to teach my children math, that I didn’t even realize that I don’t have to be searching at all! Why? Because I already know how to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide , and I know how to group objects. The only thing left for me to do is Apply My Knowledge and use it to teach my children. So I decided to start with our preschooler.

I took 15 objects for this first project, I chose cars, books and action figures. I placed them all in a pile and asked our 4 year old to separate them into groups according to what they are. After Doe grouped the objects I had him count each group and he did, “1,2,3 mommy. There are three groups” . I then reworded “How many are in each group?”  He counted five in each group, so I continued by asking him to count everything. After counting all the way to 15 he responded with “Wow mommy, there are so many!”

Finally I asked him to sort each group by size. So he took the books and the action figures, lined them all up from large to small, but he surprised me with the cars. He placed the largest one first then the next largest and he stopped. I asked him why he stopped and he said “These are the same size.” and he paused “I know!” He then stacked the two cars on top of each other and put the smallest car last in line and said “There that’s how to do it”. Such a smart little man 😀

After that we started playing with the toys and I read him a book. Not even an hour after we put everything away he was asking me if we could do it again, so we did.

 

 

 

The Plan

Over the past couple of weeks our children have had a greater fascination for the money inside of the piggy bank. Taking the change out and putting it back in, separating the pennies and nickels, driving me nuts with the mere fact that I have to keep my eyes peeled for lingering coins where the baby crawls.

The other day our middle daughter, Mae, asked me if she could get a penny for cleaning the table, so I grabbed a penny from my pocket and gave it to her. A couple of hours later I held up a dime and looked at the sink, she took the dime and went over to start the dishes (note to self, never pay for a job until I have finished inspection).

Last night was a rough night for our youngest, Nse, as she is cutting more teeth , so I didn’t sleep well. As a result I was able to hear our oldest boy, Ice, when he had an accident and was able to prompt him to the restroom to finish his business. My husband, woke up and helped me out and had told Ice that he needs to try a little harder to wake up dry, and tried encouraging him to wake up dry to earn money. This is when it hit me… Pennies…

I am still in the early stages of this new plan, though for the most part, each child will start out with 100 pennies and will have 2 charts. One will be to record everything that they earn, the other for what they owe their father and I. At the end of each week we will tally up all of the charts and pay (or take) what is due. Once they have reached a certain amount, they can buy themselves something that they want, or just save it, whichever.

The charts will have general concepts like, Do the dishes when asked without hesitation earn a penny, Do dishes without being asked earn 2 pennies, or Refuse to do dishes when asked owe us 2 pennies. While making the charts unique to each child for example: For each day Doe does not take food from the fridge without asking he will earn 2 pennies, but For each day he does take food without asking he will owes us 2 pennies.

Though I am not stopping there as we go through an awful lots of snack foods and drinks, so for now on, they will have to decide if they want to pay for a snack or drink outside of what we give them. I am hoping that our oldest, Kce, will learn that even though food ‘Dose grow on trees” doesn’t mean you have to eat it all at once.

There are so many lessons which can be learned by this process, including but not limited to, How to use charts, math concepts, responsibility, perseverance & the value of money. Now I realize that this is not going to be an easy transition as it takes 21-28 days to break or “make” a habit, but I am going to give it my best shot… Wish me luck 🙂

Report: Homeschooling Growing Seven Times Faster than Public School Enrollment

I always assumed  that homeschooling was obsolete, I knew some people did it, though I went to public school and pretty much thought that children had to do the same. Though I am learning that not only is homeschooling bigger that I ever imagined, but research also shows that homeschooled children may even be better educated…

Report: Homeschooling Growing Seven Times Faster than Public School Enrollment.

Priorities

Over the past few years I have been looking for ways to earn money through the World Wide Web, and it wasn’t easy, but I have found various ways of making and saving a little extra money doing surveys, daily searches, reading emails, even an electronic coupon site.  Though these things have not made me a real income, so for the past year I have been engrossed with finding a more efficient way to earn money, and that’s not including everything else I’ve been trying to tackle.

I’m trying to get 2 blogs up and running & researching how to utilize facebook & other social networks to try and earn money. I am taking free online courses so I can make a business proposal and have some credibility. I am learning how to grow more efficiently & dehydrate food properly to save food & money. I have tons of appointments coming, including kindergarten graduation. Vacation will be upon us soon which I have to homeschool over the summer because one of my children is being held back, two barely passed & I have to prepare one for kindergarten (so I am also searching the web for free homeschooling resources), all while trying to wean our 9 month old who will be potty training soon.

Wow didn’t realize how much I was doing until I read it lol I am thankful that my husband cares for the animals, keeps up the yard, helps with the housework and supports me 100%!

Though it wasn’t until I had a conversation with visitor the other night that I realized something very troubling…  My visitor was a young woman in her 20’s and my children had to “investigate” who she was when it was already past bedtime, that’s when my visitor & I ended up talking about when she was a child. Every time she mentioned spending time with her mom, her eyes lit up, and her face would glow with a great big smile. Yup that is when I realized, that while doing all of the above I have neglected my most important job…  Being a mom!

Sure I cook meals, make sure they take their showers, keep up with Dr. and other appointments &  between my husband & I they always have clean clothes to wear. You know, all of their necessities are met on a daily basis. Though I haven’t spent any quality time with them like I use to. Chasing them around the yard like a T-Rex trying to eat them, playing tickle monster or reading their favorite books before I tuck them in at night.

Even though it is important to have extra money, my main priority is to be a mom, then worry about everything else.  What are your priorities? How do you manage your priorities? Do you ever feel like you need a priority makeover?

Related articles

• Priorities, Part Deux (omyknowsbest.wordpress.com)
• Priorities (thehouseofo.com)