Stuff We Like :: 10.9.15

While the fall issue gets it final tweaks (subscribers should have it by the end of the weekend!), Shelli's sharing some of her favorite homeschool fun in this week's Stuff We Like.

at home

My kids are growing, and so are my mornings as I have so much more to teach! But so far, so good. I really like All About Spelling Level 1, which I bought for my nine-year-old. It’s easy to use and thorough, and since he can already read, we’re moving quickly. I can tell it would be easy to use with younger kids too as I could just go at a slower pace, so I’m thinking of using it with my six-year-old next year. I’ll be buying Level 2 soon.

My nine-year-old and I went back to Life of Fred: Dogs, and we just finished, and I have ordered the next book! I’ve tried a lot of different math resources, but for my eldest, we’ve always returned to Life of Fred. It suits him.

But for practicing math facts, I finally found a cool little app that my son doesn’t mind playing. Check out Math vs. Zombies. It’s available on Apple products and Androids.

all the craze

What my boys would want to tell you about is Blocksworld. They can build anything on it and program their creations to do all sorts of movements and cool things. The more you play, the more functionality you get. Unfortunately, it’s only available on the iPad though.

at home/school/life

on the blog: I love Tracy’s latest post about the autumn of unschooling.

pinterest: I’m going to have to show my sons some of these nerdy Halloween costume ideas that Amy has pinned.

future issue: And speaking of Halloween, that means more holidays are on their way. I am looking forward to seeing the Holiday Gift Guide in the next issue of home/school/life, which is usually full of unique gifts that are perfect for homeschoolers!

documentaries

My six-year-old loves birds, so we’ve mostly been watching David Attenborough’s Life of Birds series. It’s phenomenal. (This is the third time we’ve watched it.) Before we started it, however, we watched Decoding Neanderthals, and we thought that was pretty fascinating too. For fun, we’ve been watching Iron Chef America. Netflix offers a “best of” series. (Okay, that’s not exactly a documentary, but the boys love it!)

reading

For Kids: Right now I’m reading The Jungle Book to my nine-year-old, and we’re both thoroughly enjoying in.

For Adults: I finished reading Lalita Tademy’s book, Cane River, a fictional account about four generations of her Louisiana ancestors who endured slavery and the aftermath. I could tell you how much I liked it, but instead, I’m going to tell you that Stanford University just made this book required reading for all incoming freshmen in 2015. Need I say more?

And since I was talking so much about Cane River, my history professor husband told me I needed to read Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves In the Plantation South by Deborah Gray White. This is non-fiction and well researched. It’s not an easy read, but it’s an important work that everyone should read.

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