Category Archives: Educational

Passover is Here and Here are Resources!

Article first published at Label Daddy.

 

Passover is the celebration of God taking the Jews out of Egypt! The final plague was the Angel of Death taking the lives of the first borns in Egyptian households. Jewish homes that had the lamb’s blood on the door frame was passed over untouched. Get it? Passed over, Passover;)!

Are you celebrating Passover this year? Do you need some resources? Well, let me share a few!

Aish.com has great resources for all Jewish holidays, not just Passover! I always find great recipes, poignant pieces, and videos over there. A key post of theirs on Passover isHaggadah: An Introduction.

Another resource isn’t really information but food! I am now gluten free so Yehuda’s Gluten Free Matzo page is pretty awesome. You can see all the gluten free Passover options and order from them if you want to (but I have seen the boxes of matzo at Whole Foods). But when it comes to the actual Seder dinner the Chabad has a piece on what kind of matzo is really acceptable (it seems complicated).

Do you have a Haggadah? Looking for one you would like more? Uncle Eli has a kids version. I wouldn’t use it alone but it is entertaining and would print it for the kids to have at their seats. Looking for something a little more mature;)? Check out About.com’s Judaism page. They have a ton of options and a summary about each one.

There are some resources to get you going! Anything else you are looking for? Let me know in the comments and I will see what I have for you.

Happy Passover!

Free Poetry Month Resources!

Graphic of Jack Prelutsky from Scholastic's Page!

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? It is and as always there is a wealth of free resources out there to teach your kids about poetry! And I mean kids of all ages!!!!

Scholastic has a ton of activities for kids k-12. There are workshops, printables and prompts but it all starts with a reading from Jack Prelutsky!

The Shel Silverstein site has a ton of resources from mini units to single printable pages. They have simple printables under kids and a ton more (including this and last year’s poetry month packs) under educators. 1 warning about the site, it pops up with music and you have to click through a few pages to get to anything.

Poets.org has a variety of units available. They were all created by secondary teachers. It also has poems to teach with some of them even being read to you!

Do you like poetry? I loved Shel Silverstein growing up and gotten his books from the library for my kids. But honestly, other than to answer trivia questions, I don’t know much about poetry. So I look forward to learning about this with my kids! Go get your literature arts on and teach your kids to enjoy poetry!

By the way, make sure you check back because later in the month I will be reviewing some poetry apps too!

Who?Comics App

Thank you to who?Comics for sponsoring this post and encouraging my child to read biographies in comic book form! Please click here to learn more about the app. And follow who? Comics on Twitter for updates

As you all know, I am a big fan of reading and an even bigger fan of learning! So you can just imagine how excited I was to  receive the opportunity to use the who?Comics app on my iPad with my kids!

Who?Comics is a free app and it comes with 2 books. There are 27 other books available for purchase. Some are sold individually but there are also packs available.  Which of course, are a better deal;). So I got the Scientists pack (surprise, surprise;).  Right off we checked out Marie Curie and Thomas Edison!

Here is a little detail you should know going in. These comics are not the super quick, over view type comics. There are 150 pages of details about the subject’s personal life. Which means it isn’t a quick read! I was very familiar with Marie Curie and I learned so much! NerdPie and I even cried at 2 different spots.

So what is my overall feel? Well, I love the idea of having these on the iPad for easy access! The art is clear and the story line moves at a good clip. This isn’t going to be a situation where you can read the whole thing in the doctor’s waiting room and that can be a good thing. This app was developed over seas and so there are a few translation issues. Due to that and the fact that these really deal with real life situations, I would make sure you child is near you when they read them. I had to explain about certain illnesses and certain historical events that were mentioned in the books we read. There was an assumption that the kids understood everything but mine had quite gotten there yet. (For example, why and how Poland was being occupied By Russia and how they weren’t supposed to speak Polish.)

My kids thoroughly enjoyed these comics! My kids are even asking for books from the library so they can learn even more! Both about the people in the stories and the science they discovered!

Thank you again to who? Comics for sponsoring my post. Please click here to learn more about the app. Visit who? Comics for updates. I was selected for this opportunity by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own. #CleverWhoComics #spon

Frugal Homeschooler: Fraction Help

Here in the NerdFamily we are having fraction issues. The NerdBug and NerdPie basically understand them but haven’t gotten used to using them so there is a constant reminder lesson going on. We are really having challenges in multiplying, dividing, and reducing. So I have decided we need some dedicated fraction time! And why pay for a book when you know there have to be some great resources out there? Here are some of the awesome things I found!

Home School Math has some great worksheets! They have free worksheets that will work on multiplying and dividing factions (and mixed numbers) along with another option that works on reducing! Just scroll part way down the page of worksheet options to find it!

One of my all time favorite sources for fact math sheets, The Math Worksheet Site, also has a generator for reducing fractions.

Dositey has a great Fraction Mystery Game. The kids match the numbers to the clues. Not only is it great fraction practice but problem solving and that will help with algebra in the future.

CoolMath4Kids has a section explaining how to work the fractions. And then at the bottom they have a couple great games!

Hopefully these resources will help your kids either learn fractions for the first time or help them just hone their skills! Remember that education doesn’t have to be expensive!