Being A Good Friend – Principles to Grow By by Miiko Gibson (PDF) – We all understand the perils of ungodly friendships. Help your young daughter build a strong godly foundation now when she is still open and teacheable! Being A Good Friend: Some Principles to Grow By, is a wonderful, gentle book for pre-teen girls written by Miiko Gibson. It will introduce your daughters to important and godly principles of friendship. You and your daughter can read and discuss the book and fill in the journal at home. This book also lends itself to mother-daughter classes, where mothers can take turns raising questions or answering questions from the girls. Relevant Scripture references are interwoven throughout the book to support these principles and discussion questions are provided for each chapter at the end of the book. Delightfully illustrated with vintage artwork, this ebook is a joy to look at and a treasure to share with your growing daughters.

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UPDATE: The download page for today’s freebie is back online and working fine! If you had problems before, please try again. Be sure to refresh your browser if it doesn’t work the first time!

Today’s freebie is this set of “Busy Homeschooler” Helpers Sheets from Marc & Cynthia Carrier of ValuesDrivenFamily.com. Included in this folio of helpful planning & “fill-in-the-blank” sheets are:

* Mom’s Weekly Goals chart
* Homeschool Subjects Chart
* Chore Charts & chore clip art
* Grocery checkoff list
* Response sheet for evaluating educational videos
* Math Read-Aloud Response/Review Sheet
* Science Read-Aloud Response/Review Sheet
* Social Studies Read-Aloud Response/Review Sheet

To find out more about this and other great resources from ValuesDrivenFamily, click here

To download today’s freebie, click here!

Our Favorite Gardening Activities (PDF ebook) — We surveyed over 300 families (homeschoolers, homesteaders, city folk and gardeners) and asked them to share their suggestions for successfully integrating gardening into homeschooling and making “growing things” a part of their family life. This is a compilation of many of their best answers. This is real-life advice, and there are LOTS of great ideas and insights in these pages. Read, glean, and utilize what fits you best!

Bonus Resource!
Making It Grow: How to Keep Gardening Positive & Fun for your Kids (PDF) – What is the worst “turn off” for kids as far as gardening is concerned? This Green Thumb Family report is filled with advice, tips and words of wisdom from other homeschool parents. A great way to avoid garden “burnout” and keep your family gardening time positive and fun. Excerpt: “Gardening is not about ‘doing school’. For boys, it’s about getting your hands in the dirt, playing with worms, eating produce straight off the plant. Gardening is a life skill that will provide years of enjoyment and stress reduction if you don’t make it about the grade.”

To read more about these resources & the complete “Green Thumb Family Toolkit”, click here

To download these freebies, click here!

Home Geography for Young Students (PDF ebook) is a great classic course in geography and how it relates to your child’s home, neighborhood and location. Originally published in 1907 for use in primary grades, this classic book uses a neat question & answer format with reviews for each lesson. Though you may find some of the illustrations dated, the teaching method and much of the information is still viable for today’s learners. Just pick and choose some of the later chapters as needed. This is a complete introductory geography course appropriate for grades 1-3, extremely well done. Check it out!

Click here to download this resource freebie! (This resource will be available through the weekend)

The HOMESCHOOL SPEED WRITING METHOD
Discover the super-fast technique that can help slow, reluctant Writers quickly create REPORTS, ESSAYS, ARTICLES & MORE … And Never Get Writer’s Block Again!

Warning: This manual is different than anything else you’ll find about teaching your kids (or yourself) how to write. we must tell you this right up front. You won’t find anything about this writing technique in any of your writing curriculum or textbooks… yet it is one of the most productive, “real world” techniques to change writing from a “drudgery” to an exhilarating, fun experience. This method shows you how to defeat the “writing blocks” that sabotage your writing, and how to get your thoughts and words out of your head and down on paper, so you can shape them into what you want them to be.“Write Like Crazy” is not only the title of this manual, it’s also the MOST important step you can take in learning to “speed write”.

Much of the advice in this manual is contrary to what you will find in other writing guides. It may startle you and shake your notions of how to teach writing. You may not like it at all. But this is a practical, proven, “real world” method of breaking through “writer’s block”. If you have a student who cannot/will not write, or is very resistant to writing, you may be surprised how well these techniques will work.

Find out how to Change writing from a “drudgery” to “exhilarating”
How to Turn Reluctant Writers into Productive Writers
Learn why your brain often sabotages your writing before you even start
Discover How writing in short “bursts” multiplies your output
Find out How to “Get in the Writing Zone”
How to Get Past the Grammar “stumbling block”
Easy, Fun Practice Exercises to develop your speed-writing skills
Unique Tips to break “Writer’s Block” once and for all

The techniques and exercises offered in this breakthrough manual work best for older students, from early teens to adults. (Regularly $17)

Click here to download today’s freebie!

Today’s freebie is The Intentional Planner (June – December 2008) By Sheri Graham

Sheri Graham of Graham Family Ministries contributed today’s great freebie, and writes of it: “If you are like me, you have a Home Management Binder, a homeschool planning binder, a calendar, a journal, a book journal…the list goes on. I have binders and notebooks for all kinds of things. What I wanted was a way to pull it all together into one binder. I could have ONE “small” notebook that contained my daily to do lists, daily cleaning chores, my daily routines, appointments, read-alouds for the day, reading lists, journal of memories, etc. I wanted to have everything I need to get through the day and know what needs to happen – what cleaning is to be done, what baking/cooking needs to be done, what books to read-aloud that day, etc. I have compiled everything into this ebook to share with you, so you can make your very own planner!

“This ebook actually comes in two files. The first file is a PDF file and contains the bulk of the forms. The second file I created in Microsoft Word and saved it as Rich Text File. This file contains the Daily Planner Pages that you can edit to fit your family and schedule. If you do not have the capability to open and edit a Microsoft Word document or Rich Text File, I have included these forms in the PDF file so you can see what they look like.

“I did not intend this planner to be an exhaustive list of forms. There are many more things that could be added. I simply wanted to share the “bare bones” of my own planner – how to put it together for easy use, and provide some forms to get you started. Have fun!”

For more details about today’s freebie and Graham Family Ministries, click here

To download today’s freebie from Sheri’s site, click here

The Star Spangled State Book, provided by Knowledge Quest!

Join us as we travel from coast to coast, learning about the 50 states! From the disappearance of England’s first American settlement to California’s population explosion of 1849, you’ll experience the growth of a new nation. From Plymouth Rock to Pearl Harbor, you’ll follow the course of American history and geography! And when you’re done and you think you’ve learned everything you can… Well, crack your knuckles, take a seat, and turn the pages to one of our challenging brain games. Trust me, if you want to stay in the know, the four GeoQuizzes are for you! Great for children 4th grade on up to adult! The State Book contains 80 glossy full-color pages! The coordinating workbook that turns the State Book into a 36 week curriculum is 264 jam-packed pages.

For more information on this resource & other resources from Knowledge Quest, click here

To download today’s freebie, click here!

Adventures Beyond the Sky is a great children’s story record that takes us on a journey through the solar system and beyond, with lots of fascinating facts (and a few fanciful conjectures) about the universe around us. You can use the oddities of what people’s vision of what space would be like (such as having to “cut slices of water” in zero gravity, and water in canals on Mars) to discuss what we have discovered today. This very entertaining and educational 17 minute MP3 audio story is today’s great freebie!

To get today’s freebie, click here!

Today’s freebie is What Homeschool Moms REALLY Need to Know About Computers, an mp3 audio seminar by Phyllis Wheeler of MotherBoardBooks.com. This concise presentation details what parents especially need to be aware of when letting their kids use the computer; why there is often a disconnect between parents and kids when it comes to computers; and offers several great tips on training your kids to wisely use computers as an educational tool.

For more information on training your kids to use computers, we’ll refer you to her excellent site, MotherboardBooks.com.

To download today’s freebie audio seminar, just CLICK HERE!