This week, we are rerunning some favorite resources from 2008. NEW resources begin again next week!

Our All-Time Favorite Homeschool Activities EVER! (PDF ebook) — This little collection is a true treasure chest of ideas and inspiration for your homeschool. We asked experienced homeschooling parents to share their most successful teaching activities that they considered highlights of their homeschooling. They responded with all sorts of wonderful tips, suggestions, and activities you may want to incorporate into your own homeschool too! Just take your time and read through every one of these ideas and suggestions with a pencil and notebook at hand. It’s not a huge compendium… just 15 pages… but it is chock full of “real life” experiences that other homeschooling parents wanted to share, to help YOU have the best homeschool possible. Dig in… you’re sure to strike gold!

Click here

This week, we are rerunning some favorite resources from 2008. NEW resources begin again next week!

When Mother Lets Us Cook: A book of simple receipts for little folk, with important cooking rules in rhyme, together with handy lists of the materials and utensils needed for the preparation of each dish (PDF ebook) – This delightful children’s cookbook from 1908 includes simple old fashioned recipes for meals, snacks, candy and more, memorable cooking tips in the form of rhymes, and lovely old fashioned illustrations. While you might not want to try all these recipes (people ate quite differently 100 years ago than they do now), there are still loads of recipes worth checking out here.

Click here to download today’s freebie!

Rerun by popular demand…

Learn to DESIGN FANTASTIC BRIDGES ON YOUR COMPUTER, & CREATE REAL MODEL BRIDGES TOO!

For kids who want to know more about designing and building, today’s freebie is a real treat. This software program & ebook set is an exciting introduction to engineering and design. The ebook Designing and Building File-Folder Bridges: A Problem-Based Introduction to Engineering provides students with an opportunity to learn how engineers use math, science, and technology to design real structures–in the context of a hands-on model bridge-building project. It is intended primarily for high school students, but those in lower grades should be able to complete the model projects. Accompanying this book is The West Point Bridge Designer, a computer program which will introduce you to engineering through an authentic, hands-on design experience. This software provides you with the tools to model, test, and optimize a steel highway bridge, based on realistic specifications, constraints, and performance criteria. Our kids have played with this thing for hours and hours, and love to make all sorts of fantastically intricate bridges. Your kids will love it too!

Note: The computer design program is Windows compatible only (no Mac version available)

Click here to go to the West Point Bridge Building Manual download page
Alternate link to the Manual download page! (Thanks, Liz!)

Click here to go to the West Point computer bridge design software download page. (Note: the current version is 2007. If you have an older computer, try version 2005, which is also on this page. It has simpler graphics but is more stable on older systems.)

Note #2: Be warned: Last time we featured this, we crashed their site with all our traffic. If you can’t get through on this, please try again later… they do eventually reboot their site.

Click here to get your Christmas goodies!

“The First Christmas in New England: A Story of Life in the Colonies” by Stone & Frickett (PDF ebook) – Today’s resource is this excellent short story of the first Christmas in New England, in the year 1620. If you’ve been curious as to how the early Pilgrims celebrated Christmas, read this – you may be surprised at what you discover!

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Hans Christian Andersen’s Christmas (mp3 audio) – In this excellent holiday episode of the classic radio series “Father Knows Best”, father Anderson reads the kids the story of fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen’s Christmas. This is a delightful, heartwarming story. Give it a listen… your family will really enjoy this! Length: 30 minutes

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Today’s resource: Build-Your-Own Marshmallow Guns!

One of our kids’ favorite toys growing up were their homemade marshmallow guns. They had wars all over our back yard, the woods, and indoors with these crazy things. These are great fun, more-or-less safe (I’d suggest sunglasses for eye protection from flying marshmallows), and an inexpensive do-it-yourself project. These are the same PVC toys that are sold online and in some stores for $8-$12.

A few years ago, our kids and some friends shot a video on how to build these. The quality of this isn’t very good, but it will give you a good idea on how to get started building and playing with these, if you can handle watching it. Here you go:

Now. Want better instructions on building your own? (I would think so! lol)

Fortunately, Blogger TennZen from Tennessee recently posted some very good, detailed instructions for building these right here. (Be sure to also check out other posts on her blog for several additional “holidays on a budget” ideas. There are some good ones there!)

Next, here is a cool downloadable PDF from Instructables.com that also shows how these are built. Click here

These are fun projects for your kids to make, and great gifts too, as long as you are patient and adventurous enough to handle miniature marshmallows flying all around the house and yard. Enjoy!

The Children’s Book of Christmas Stories (PDF ebook) – From the introduction: “Many librarians have felt the need and expressed the desire for a select collection of children’s Christmas stories in one volume. This books claims to be just that and nothing more. Each of the stories has already won the approval of thousands of children, and each is fraught with the true Christmas spirit.”

This classic collection edited by Asa Don Dickinson and Ada M. Skinner includes 20 classic holiday stories, legends and fables from the 1800s and 1900s especially chosen for reading aloud. The whole family will enjoy many of these.

Click here for today’s resource!

You liked our first collection last week so much, here is another batch of classic holiday clips for your family viewing! Enjoy!

Click here for today’s resource!