Teaching Music

So as I consider homeschooling I am always looking for new ways to teach things. This October we have at least 6 birthdays we have been invited to. I don't think we can make it to all of them - but I was looking for new types of toys to give to kids. In my search for new and interesting things I came across Boomwhackers - even the name sounds like it is made for boys! It is basically a set of musical tubes that look like PVC pipes. When they are put together they can be played like a xylophone but you can also put them apart on a big musical scale and have kids play them. One child can play one note or one child can play the whole scale. They even have music books and a whole curriculum (K - 6th) to teach music with these. So, if I do homeschool we may have a musical curriculum based around these things - they just seem so useful and less likely to get destroyed by kids. We'll see. Just thought I'd put them out there.

Homeschool Resources

As I look through the web I sometimes happen upon items that I might eventually use if we decide to homeschool. Today I found a VERY cool resource for teaching handwriting. Basically you can type out what you want your child to practice writing, print the page and then they trace what you have written. How cool is that! It's free too. So here is the link.

The other cool thing that they have are tons of different "write on" shapes (shamrocks, hearts, bears, etc.) that have lines on them so that you can write whatever you want to on them. You can make a book, a sign, a note, whatever. It just seems like another fun way to celebrate a holiday or decorate and encourage your child to write.

I am also a big fan of graphic organizers. These are basically pictures, graphs, mind maps, etc. that help you organize thoughts in ways that aren't just text. There are lots of websites that have graphic organizers, but this one is one of the best that I've seen. Again, they are free and a great way to help kids think through ideas, characters, stories, etc.

So these are some resources that I might use in the future. We'll see. Maybe some of you can use them now.

PS - Sometimes with the graphic organizers it will get to a point where it asks you to join. You can open quite a few before you get to that point though. Sorry I didn't realize this when I orignally posted. It also seems that some sheets have this request to join linked to them and others don't. Thanks for pointing this out Ski!