Shopping for Christmas? Buy educational toys this year...

On this page, I've collected together a few articles on home-schooling that I think are particularly useful.

Also, just to help you out, I've gone through all the games on this site, and evaluated them with you, the home-schooler, in mind.

It's my sincere hope that these resources will make your home-schooling a little more joyful - or a little less burdensome - wherever you may now be in your home-schooling journey.

First, the articles

There's so much information on the net about homeschooling. I've picked out some articles I particulary like, and with the author's permission, I've reproduced them here.

• Pamela Connolly has written an excellent three-part series on "Learning Styles". Each child is unique, and each learns in a different way. That's one of the main points about homeschooling, of course - you can tailor your teaching to each tyke's temperament. The big question is how? Pamela answers by showing you how to understand your child better, and giving tips on what kind of activities will really gel the most well. Start at Part 1, or skip forward to Part 2 or Part 3.

That's all for the articles (so far!). Now for the games!

• The 1 to 9 game, being a two player game, is just perfect for the home environment. The game's page shows how to vary the rules to make it suitable for any age group.
• The Arithmetic Math Game is a game where players roll special dice and do arithmetic based on the results, hoping to reach a specific number goal. It is most suitable for grades four or five, but you can modify the rules to make it easier or harder.
• Mathteroids is an Asteroid Shooting Game that will help kids with their times tables. As your rocket zips through space, you must be careful to only shoot multiples of the given number - or face dire consequences!
• There's enough Addition and Subtraction Worksheets here to last a month of Mondays, including one special one, carefully designed to teach the important links between addition and subtraction.
• This Set Of Tiles can be used to help teach kids how to add and subtract numbers of more than one digit. Good for, say, first to third graders, or anyone who just doesn't 'get' the idea of carrying and borrowing 1's.
• An Advent Calendar, besides being a great Christmas tradition, helps teach younger kids counting and calendars in a fun, exciting way. Download and print this free advent calendar, make up up with a trimmer and glue, and enjoy the Christmas countdown with your child.
• This Angle Geometry Quiz tests your knowledge of a few facts relating to angles. Race against the clock as you prove your skills! Topics covered include the interior angles of triangles and quadrilaterals, angles near parallel lines, lines meeting at a point and others.
• See how many numbers you can make with just basic arithmetic operations and the four given digits! A great puzzle for stretching the mathematical creativity of young children, and reinforcing their arithmetic skills.
• This Checkerboard (or Chessboard) Jigsaw Puzzle will be a great challenge for your primary school kids. Watch them try and try to arrange the pieces until they succeed!
• If your kid need fractions practice, teach them the Fractions Card Game, and watch them drill each other in addition and subtraction of fractions. Or play it with them yourself!
• In a Cryptarithm puzzle, each digit of an arithmetic sum has been replaced with a letter of the alphabet. The aim of the puzzle is to restore the original sum. These puzzles are sometimes called alphametics or crypt-arithmetics. You can get many more such puzzles from the resources available at www.cryptarithmania.com.
• The Dot Joining Game is not a join-the-dots puzzle, but a two-player paper-and-pencil game. I've described the game, and also described how you can help your fourth, fifth and sixth graders to unlock the hidden mathematical patterns behind the game.
• If you are using flashcards, try this simple game with your child. It's quick to set up, and will add a bit of variety to the normal flashcard routine. The goal of the game? Travel along a trail of flashcard stepping stones to obtain a special prize!
• Fish Plus One is a game with simple rules, for teaching addition facts such as 3+1=4. It can be played with a normal set of playing cards, or UNO cards. Once kids have mastered adding 1 to numbers, you can move them on to Fish Plus Two, Fish Plus Three... or maybe even Fish Plus Plus!
• Print out as many foldable number sheets as you want, and use them to explain our "number system" - why the 8's in eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight all mean different things, even though they look exactly the same! There are three sizes of printable sheets, and also a movie showing one time I used them with my son to explain a point that was troubling him.
• Print out and make this set of Fractions Dominoes. It's a fractions activity designed to help kids recognise how much of a circle each fraction represents. Unlike some other math games, winning is not just about being better at math - but the game nonetheless provides great learning opportunities.
• This Fraction Simplifying Puzzle challenges kids to simplify a collection of fractions and observe which ones can and can not be simplified. There are variants of the puzzle that make it suitable for kids just learning fractions, all the way up to lower high school.
• In this puzzle, the goal is to cut a Heart-Shaped Biscuit into three pieces, so that each piece contains only one color of sprinkles. The cuts will be very twisty and wiggly, but that's fine for this puzzle. Because of the shape of the biscuit, this puzzle is perfect for around Valentine's Day, but it can also be used at any other time of the year.
• Magic Square Puzzle Worksheets are good ways to promote an interest in math while giving kids practice with their arithmetic.
• Print these Magic Number Cards, learn how to use them, and with a bit of practice you'll be able to amaze your friends with your number guessing skills! This page provides the traditional version of this trick, as well as a few variations of my own invention. Full instructions and a video example are available at the web page.
• In the Math Architect Online Game the goal is to design an apartment with the given area. The catch? Each room is a square, and you must have as few rooms as possible! This makes the game challenging enough to keep kids occupied, and deep enough to keep them learning as they play. There is also a high scores table showing the best players each month, year and for all time.
• This Math Board Game will ensure that your children get a lot of arithmetic practice, as they move their pieces from the center of the board to the goals at the corners.
• Traveling with kids aged 10 to 99? Take along this Math Card Game and keep them up to speed on their arithmetic! Good for grade 4 and up.
• Math Lines is like 'Zuma' with a math twist. A twisty row of colorful numbered marbles winds its way across the screen. If they get too far, that's the end of the game. Blast away with marbles of your own, and if you join two marbles that add to 10, they'll explode and give you more time to win. Can you make it to the next level?
• These Times Table Mazes are good for puzzle-loving children who are learning their 7 and 8 times tables.
• Mathino is a game that can be played with an ordinary pack of cards. It's based on a common card game, Cassino, that already is good for kids learning arithmetic. Good for grades 1 to 3, maybe even 4!
• This money counting memory game allows kids from the United States, UK, Australia, the EU and Singapore to practice counting money in a familiar game
• In the Pizza Cutting Puzzle kids try to cut up a square pizza to make it fit in a round tray. Try to cut as few pieces as possible!
• The Sight Numbers exercise is designed to help kids memorise their addition, subtraction and multiplication facts in an efficient way. This exercise, even if introduced through a school classroom, would depend mostly on parental involvement - about 5 minutes a day with your child - so it's particularly ideal for the homeschooler!
• Is your child artistically inclined? Try him or her on this Spirograph Applet. As they enjoy themselves making swirly whirly designs, they are actually picking up some math too.
• Times Tables Memory is a memory game that will help transfer times table facts from short-term to long-term memory. It can be played solo, or with a friend.
• If your kids like more action, and they are at the same level with their times tables, try Times Tables Snap!
• This website has a host of times table charts and grids that you can download and print - even up to the 20 times tables!
• These timetable worksheets will give your child practice reading timetables, schedules, itineraries and the like.

That's all for now. Of course, there are many more games on this site than these. Perhaps some of those I missed would make excellent home-school resources, but I just didn't see it. Browse around and see what you find!

Yours, Mike H...