Forgetful Momma

Secular Homeschooling in Canada

Homeschool Helps

Websites with Free Educational Resources

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Homeschool, or sublimating your child’s education doesn’t have to cost you. I have been homeschooling for about a year officially, and I can honestly say I have only spent about $50 on workbooks and materials of the like. I look for free resources, like worksheets and printables.

Websites with Free Educational Resources

Websites with Free Resources

*This post may contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

I have accounts to buy from four different websites where I get my worksheets and printables for free. In order to download or print from these sites you do have to sign up for an account, but that too is free. They do have have content that you have to pay for as well. Some of these links are affiliates.

 

Teachers pay Teachers

Their dream is to make the expertise and wisdom of all the teachers in the world available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. There are a lot of paid resources here of course but there are freebies as well. I receive their newsletter once a week I think and included are 10 freebies, but most sellers also have a section of freebies in their shop as well.

Educents

*Educents has closed.*

Educents is passionate about bringing parents, homeschoolers & teachers access to educational products, all in one place. I love these guys! In fact I am an affiliate of theirs. They not only have freebies, but they also have a lot of sales where something might be marked down to a couple bucks!

*If you are a blogger and your interested in becoming an affiliate as sign up here and please put me as your referrer. Thanks!*

Education.com

Education.com’s aim is to give educators of all kinds the resources they need to promote learning at home, at school, and in their communities. They are a website that offers free printables (you have a limit of prints per month) with a premium upgrade (paid) available. My favorite section is the Worksheet Generator. Create reading, math or just for fun worksheets.

Teachers Notebook

*Teachers Notebook has closed.*

Teacher’s Notebook is the best place for educators to find, share, and sell original classroom materials. It is very similar to TpT. My favorite feature is at the bottom of their page. Under Resources there is a link to Popular & Free, and free is what we’re all about here.

I would love to hear where do you find your free resources.

 

Buying Art Supplies for Your Homeschool

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We are an art loving family. I took painting classes as a child, and loved to draw. Now all three of my kids love drawing, painting; any and all mediums of art. I keep a cupboard full of art supplies on hand.

The best part of keeping art supplies on hand is that you can find most of it is from the dollar store. Not all, but most, and those that you get else where, shop the deals and the right time of year.

Art Supplies for Your Homeschool

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What Comes From the Dollar Store:

Pipe Cleaners, pompoms, popsicle sticks, stickers, etc. You can find some great craft kits, everything included that you need.

Dollar stores always have great things for each and every holiday – Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Canada Day, Halloween, Christmas, I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

Art Supplies from Amazon

Amazon is a great place to buy those supplies that you can’t find anywhere else. They are my go to place quite often and have really good prices when you know what to look for.

I find that you are definitely getting better quality from Amazon than the dollar store, and prefer to get paint and glue here instead.

Buying Art Supplies for Your Homeschool

Art Supplies from Walmart

Back to school sales can be amazing! A couple years ago I bought a lot of crayons (24pack) on sale. They were 25¢ a piece, and my kids love crayons and use them a lot.

Markers, scribblers, and such are also really cheap, often better than 75% off throughout the back to school shopping time just keep an eye out, and think ahead so you don’t have to pay full price later.

Art Supplies from Michael’s

Not only does Michael’s have coupons in their flyers, but you can get them in your email, as well as in store. Often I get them when I have made a purchase to go towards my next purchase.

Also as homeschoolers you can receive the teachers discount.

Art Supplies from Costco

I love shopping here for all my needs. Just the other day I got 21 Post-It pads for less than $10, not only are these useful for me, but my kids really like creating some sticky pictures. Sticking with the sale prices for most things. You can get boxes of paper, pens, etc.

Where do you get your art supplies? Are your kids big into creating and art?

Recommended Products for Art Supplies in your Homeschool

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3 Shortcuts to Keeping Your Homeschool Portfolio

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In our school district we are required to keep a homeschool portfolio for every year that our child is homeschooling, and keep them until they are finished (home)school. Make sure that you learn the laws for your area, every state, province, and school district is different. We don’t have to hand it in at the end of year where I live thankfully, but there are places that do require it.

You don’t want to be left at the end of the year without anything, and scrabbling to get it together. There will be plenty of other times you can scramble to get things together.

Shortcuts to Keeping Your Homeschool Portfolio

Shortcuts to Keeping Your Homeschool Portfolio

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

We use large binders, nothing expensive, just practical. We personalized our portfolios this year with pictures of them on the front cover, colorful dividers, etc. It makes it more personalized, and might just get them helping, on to tip one…

Children Can Help

Have your children pick through their work each month and choose what it is they would like in their portfolio. Remember to give them a limit to how many pieces they choose per subject so they aren’t keeping everything. There are apps that you can use to get digital copies of their art work in stead of all the actual work.

This saves you from doing it and teaching responsibility to your student(s).

By Semester

Every three months I get my hole punch out and go through the papers that we’ve done. For the most part all our work is in workbooks or scribblers. Scribblers will get added to the portfolio when they are filled, and workbooks dissembled when they are filled.

Location

We keep our portfolio in the same place at all time. I don’t move them around, otherwise I’d end up losing them.

Remember to keep track of things that you have to have in your portfolio. Each place/school division requires different things. Don’t make things harder on yourself.

How do you keep everything together?

 

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Beginner Books for Kids – I Can Read

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I love reading. Picking up a book, dividing into another world. I enjoy all types of books both fiction, non-fiction. I want my children to have a love of reading as I do, so I have always had huge selection of beginner books for them.

Beginner Books for Kids - I Can Read Beginner Books - Child reading

Beginner Books for Kids

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

My kids love looking at books, which is step one in getting kids reading and having a love for reading.

Going to the library for us is like going to the candy store without the tummy ache later.

As my oldest was learning to read I learned that the early readers aren’t necessarily early readers. Some books that I loved as a child, and my children love, are perfect for learning to read however, and just might help your early reader get on the right track.

Some tips beginning reader books:

  • books of interest; topics that they are interested in (ie: Barbies, Heros)
  • what time of day is your child most alert, but not too active – not when they are falling asleep
  • correct reading level – if its too hard they’ll be discouraged and not want to try

Some of our favorite beginner books for kids are:

Little Critter by Mercer Mayer We have the one pictured above plus quite a few more, including one that was Hubby’s as a child. These books tend to have smaller sentences and only one or two per page.

We don’t have as many Dr Seuss books as I’d like. But we do have a number of them, and have been getting more. Blake’s favorite is Hop on Pop. Dr Seuss books are repetitive and fun, which makes them perfect for kids. to learn to read with.

I Can Read Books

The Berenstain Bears book tend to be a little long with a lot words to read, but these I Can Read beginner books are shortened versions of the popular books, one or two sentences per page, with larger print. With 12 different books in the set. There are also Berenstain Bears I Can Read level 1 books.

Personally we love these book sets, they have each have one book based on a specific sound. Really repetitive. They are also great for building confidence in reading for those who struggle. We have also found some more of these great I Can Read Books:

It’s not all about knowing the words in the book to read it, its also about understanding and taking it in while reading it. We sound through the sentence once, and then read through it to make sure we understand what is happening.

A fun way to make sure your child(ren) understand what the book was about is to draw a picture once finished. It could be a picture of any part of the book. Here we draw our favorite part.

Recommended Children’s Beginner Books

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Making Mom Friends in a New Area

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We’ve moved around a lot in the last eight years, after the first move I was lucky enough to start babysitting for a few really great women whom I was happy to become friends with. But every move did not leave me with friends or even need or will to babysit. Making mom friends can be super hard, and feel impossible. You have kids in common, but then you have to find some other common ground.

Making Mom Friends

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So how do you go about meeting mom friends in your area?

One of the first things I do when we move to a new place is search for Facebook groups for the area, usually there is a garage sale group where you can ask about a local events page and some places will have a children’s sale page, or a mommy group page.

As a homeschooler now, I have whole other group that I can search for and a whole new way to meet new people.

The next thing I do is look at the local library website for information, see what they offer. A lot, even small town, libraries offer story times, sometimes for different age groups (ie/ toddlers, preschoolers, school-agers). This is probably where our love of libraries has come from.

Finding friends you can be real with.

Some Places to Look for Meeting Mom Friends:

  • Library
  • Family place/centers
  • Schools
  • Hospitals
  • Local grocery stores with community rooms

Sometimes making small talk with another mom can make a big difference in a new area. You could end up with a great friend.

Finding someone you can talk to outside of your family can be life changing. Someone who isn’t going to judge you. Someone who might be going through the same things as you.

A friend to grab coffee with, or to just hang out at the playground with. Hanging out at the playground can be really boring when you are just there with your kids, having someone to chat with really help to past the time. Bonus if you have kids that enjoy playing together.

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