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Website Recommendations II and Books

Randi’s Recommendation List – Randi St. Denis – Homeschool Mom

Choosing Textbooks and Websites

  1. Strike a balance between independent and tutored materials.
  2. The weight of the textbook does not determine the quality of the textbook.  Textbook publishers count on you thinking otherwise.  Match the content with the reader’s abilities.
  3. Good textbooks have full tables of contents, indexes, and glossaries.
  4. A Ready Reference or other laminated card helps determine the scope of the textbook
  5. Some textbooks are more conceptual and others are more detail and data oriented.
  6. Pictures and graphics teach too, and are not merely there for filler. ie.  Usborne books or pictures of cells that illustrate the details being learned
  7. Math – both Computations and Word Problems.  Choose at least one textbook that focuses on graphing calculators.  Solution manuals are more important than answer keys and teacher guides.
  8. Support the textbooks with Videos. YouTube.com (With Caution) TeachersTube.com, The Teaching Company – Videos
  9. The best organized textbooks outline and group the information – tell you what you will learn in the chapter and have a condensed review at the end of the chapter
  10. Great Literature Books zero in on a complete picture including Biography of the author.
  11. Great Books! It’s all about the great content.
  12. Younger  Students: Books that are clearly written with great vocabulary.  Don’t read abridged classics.
  13. Mathematics: Computations of the 4 basic operators, Memorization of  facts, Concepts (includes word problems)
  14. Students love hands on:  Think  – Unit Studies
  15. Prepare for your unit studies in advance.  A little planning brings a lot of enjoyment.
  16. Consider lap booking.
  17. Children love books with photographs
  18. Older Students:
    1. Correspondence Schools

State Practice States for All Ages Students

  1. http://quizhub.com/quiz/quizhub.cfm

Government, Civics, Economics, History

  1. God and Government by Gary DeMar  American Vision
  2. Western Civilization Textbook: Understanding the Modern Culture Wars by Paul A. Cleveland
  3. The Law by Frederic Bastiat
  4. Quest of a Hemisphere by Donzella Boyle Western Islands
  5. Understanding the Times by David Noebel
  6. The Politics of Guilt and Pity by RJ Rushdoony
  7. The Economic Way of Thinking  by Paul Heyne Prentice Hall
  8. Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? By Richard Maybury and other books in the series
  9. How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
  10. How to Lie With Charts by Gerald Everett Jones.
  11. Economics – and anything else by Ludwig Von Mises
  12. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  13. **Our American Government – Online Book http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin
    /getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_documents&docid=f:hd216.pdf
  14. **American Government and other Online Courses and Course Notes: http://www.course-notes.org/US_Gov_and_Politics/Outlines/
  15. American Citizenship Tests:  http://www.twyman-whitney.com/americancitizen/tests.htm
  16. Real Time Economics by Wall Street Journal  http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/category/credit-crisis/
  17. Historical Movies in Chronological Order passed along without endorsement:  http://www.vernonjohns.org/snuffy1186/movies.html#VIII-1

Science

  1. Life:  The Science of Biology William Purves W.H. Freeman Company
  2. Geography and Environmental Science: Exploring Our World by Tony Hare
  3. Exploring Creation with Biology Jay Wile Apologia
  4. Chemistry published by Bob Jones
  5. **Harcourt Brace College Outline Series: Chemistry or Physics and all other subjects
  6. Conceptual Physics by Paul Hewitt
  7. Biology Made Simple
  8. ** http://kineticbooks.com/ Physics CD’s
  9. Many, Many Science, Math and Test Prep Websites
    1. https://education.ti.com/en/resources/test-preparation-tools
    2. http://www.smartscholar.com/sat-prep-guide/
  10. Best Cell Biology Website:  http://cellsalive.com/
  11. Fabulous Cell Videos, hard to get! http://www.molbiolcell.org/misc/video1.shtml
  12. Best Physics: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class
  13. By far the Best Chemistry Site with many interactive tutorials in each chapter: http://www.wwnorton.com/chemistry/
  14. Chemistry Games: http://www.mansfieldct.org/schools/mms/staff/hand/chemgames.htm
  15. **Dynamic Periodic Table of Elements: http://www.dayah.com/periodic/
  16. Fabulous List of Online Science and Math Materials
    http://spot.colorado.edu/~dubin/bookmarks/b/1240.html
  17. The Professor’s Links Page: http://spot.colorado.edu/~dubin/bookmarks/index.html
  18. Anti Drug Abuse for Teaching Teens – http://teens.drugabuse.gov/about.php

Games

  1. Chemistry, Social Studies, English and Math Games – http://funbasedlearning.com
  2. Lessons, Games, and Activities for High School to College Math and Computer Programming, includes Math Caching:  http://www.mathbits.com/
  3. http://www.xpmath.com/index.php Really FUN Math Games
  4. Geocaching – Hunt treasure all around the world, maybe in your backyard – http://www.geocaching.com/

Mathematics

  1.  Reviews and Discussion of Math Books: http://mathematicallycorrect.com/books.htm
  2. http://homeschoolreviews.com

Calculators

  1. **TI84 Calculator:  Getting Started with the TI-84/83 Graphing Calculator by Carl Swenson ISBN: 0471742074
  2. Brendan Kelly has written a series of $19.95 graphing calculator books that are fun and can be used with younger kids to explore upper level math before they have to do the hand calculations.  I have found that heavy use of the graphing calculator allows students to more easily retain many math topics and to more easily become proficient in pencil and paper calculations.  Here is one title in the series:  Functions With the TI 84 Plus Calculator by Brendan Kelly – ISBN-10: 895997259
  3. Graphing Calculator Tutorial:  http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/ti.html
  4. http://faculty.mc3.edu/rhofman/GeneralClass/STWKFa04.htm
  5. Online Graphing Calculator Handbook: (Very Good) http://college.cengage.com/mathematics/latorre/calculus_concepts/3e/students/graph_calc_guide.html
  6. ** Kinetic Books Algebra I CD http://kineticbooks.com/
  7. ** Aleks.com : Online Math Instruction with personalized mastery incentives

Math Videos

  1. Chalkdust Videos
  2. The Teaching Company Videos
  3. Videotext Interactive

Math Textbooks

Computer Instruction

Music

  • Hundreds of Music Games and Worksheets
  • http://www.musictechteacher.com
  • Piano Discovery – No longer published.  Can find used on Ebay.  Must download patch for new computers, find this on the internet.  The best teach yourself and your children piano program.

Money Skills

  • MoneyInstructor.com

Logic

Miscellaneous

  • Online library, originally known as bluewebn, of outstanding Internet sites categorized by subject, grade level, and format (tools, references, lessons, hotlists, resources, tutorials, activities, projects). This searchable website is amazing!
  • AT&T Education Page
  • http://www.kn.pacbell.com/kne_search.html
  • Huge flashcard website with games and tests: Quizlet.com
  • Worsley School Online:  This started as a 1996 project and has thousands of exceptional pages for all subjects.  Very useful for homeschooling

Literature

  • Adventures in American or English Literature Best Edition:  Classic Edition.  Also good, Athena and Pegasus Edition Publishers: Harcourt Brace or Holt Rhinehart Winston
  • Themes in World Literature edited by George P. Elliott  Houghton Mifflin Company.
  • **Trinity Forum Series by Karen Thorpe and Os Guiness
  1. Entrepreneurs of Life: Faith and the Venture of Purposeful Living
  1. The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning
  1. Steering Through Chaos: Vice and Virtue in an Age of Moral Confusion

English

  • Spelling and Vocabulary Success in 20 Minutes a Day.  Many great books in this series, “Success in 20 Minutes a Day”.
  • Robert Conklin Grammar Key and Mechanics  2 $9.95 CD’s teach everything you need to know
  • English Grammar 101 https://www.englishgrammar101.com/Login.aspx
  • The Tongue Untied:   Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Style. Worksheets and Quizzes  http://grammar.uoregon.edu/toc.html

Vocabulary

  • **Ultimate Vocabulary/Software – $67
  • Vocabulary from the Classical Roots – workbooks by EPS
  • Wordly Wise 3000 – workbooks by EPS

Writing

  • **Writing Skills I and II by Diana Hanbury King – published by EPS, these appear as workbooks but are better used as teacher’s manuals.
  • ** Format Writing by Frode Jensen
  • Purdue University Owl Writing Lab:  This is a giant website full of information on how to write well. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
  • Find writing topics on college websites teacher’s pages.  Look for the English Composition Courses.

Standardized Tests:  CLEP, AP, GRE, etc.

Joint Enrollment / Move On When Ready

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