Preschool Notebook Pages for Easy One-on-One Time

Here is an easy way to help preschoolers with learning, and also just to enjoy spending some time together:

Create a preschool "notebook."

This is not something they write or draw in . . . instead the pages are already made, and printed out, and then you and your preschooler will talk about the pictures/sing a song/ do counting, etc.  for just a few minutes each day.

When I was homeschooling with a large family, it was part of our routine to always have a young child do his/her notebook first, right after breakfast, while the older ones were getting started on some kind of independent work.

We thoroughly enjoyed going through these simple pages (with an alphabet, letter sound activities, counting, days of the week, etc.) repeatedly . . . the same few pages would be in the notebook for at least several days, and often a week or longer, before switching in some different ones.

Here are some pictures of some of the pages in the "Preschool Beginning Notebook Set I," made by Gentle Shepherd (similar to the type of pages we used-- but these are made to be computer print-outs, and our original ones were hand-made with markers on paper).

You can find this set of 15 printable pages at: http://www.gentleshepcurr.com/preschool-beginning-notebook-set-i.html

Counting Cards . . . for Re-Doable Counting Fun!

My older kids, in elementary grades, were doing math work pages and other written schoolwork.  My young 3 year old was just beginning to learn his numbers, and I was looking for a special activity in number recognition, for him.

Thinking it would be fun for him to place number tiles to match with pictures, I made up some pages with pictures of items in groups . . . and a blank square near each group, for placing a number tile.

And it worked!  This activity was one of my young kids' favorite ones. The picture pages were passed down through several children, and it gave them something special to do for school-- just for them-- and just like their older siblings, they were doing "math pages."

Because we had a variety of different pictures, a very young child could go through them, doing one each day, and then start over again in random order-- so these pages could be continuously used for quite a while.

Later on, I redrew the pictures (our originals were getting worn), and made a set of these full-color pages that can be printed out (onto card stock); it is called Counting Cards, and is available either by itself, or in a preschool math bundle (along with Preschool Math: Number Tiles).

Here are some examples of the picture pages; there are 15 different printable pages:

For more info see www.gentleshepcurr.com/math.html

Dragon . . . Fly

What? Do dragons fly? Well, maybe some of them do . . . 

But this is actually a compound word, for beginning writers to copy (writing in the space below the letters) when they are beginning to learn to write -- all in capital letters. 

This page is from Easy Peasy Penmanship, an ebook with 141 different printable pages, all in capital letters. Children who are 4-5 years old are usually ready to start with these kind of penmanship pages.

You can see some samples of other pages from this ebook athttp://www.gentleshepcurr.com/easy-peasy-penmanship.html

Word Box Writing

Word Box Writing . . .
The way this works, there are six words in a box, that are kind of related -- for example, "cactus, desert, sand, water, lizard, prickly." Below the word box are some lines for writing, to write 4 sentences using all six words.

This takes some thinking! You can't just write one sentence with each word; some of the sentences will have to have more than one. . .

So what is the purpose of all this?

Well, number one is to have some fun doing writing.
Then also, there is the thinking part . . . and kids might like to use the words in the box as story starters, sometimes.

Would you like to see what these printable work pages look like? Take a look here: http://www.gentleshepcurr.com/word-box-writing.html

Touch Typing -- A Simple System, with Stories . . .

When I learned to type, many years ago, it was in a high school typing class. We typed for almost 40 min every day, using the now antique electric typewriter (at the time it was exciting new technology). The things we typed were rows and rows of all kinds of phrases and sentences. The only one that sticks in my mind now is the saying, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country." Such was touch typing in the '70's . . . and it served me very well. Because I had memorized the finger positions, I could type fairly quickly and even with my eyes closed (or while looking at what was being typed-- which was a useful skill).

When my kids learned to type, starting in the '90's, instead of using a typewriter they used a word processor. This allowed for all kinds of fancy and wonderful things-- you could easily erase (delete) what you'd already typed-- no need to use a correction ribbon or White-Out. . . and you could rearrange words, sentences, paragraphs . . . without having to type the whole thing again! This was almost magical, and truly a timesaver, though my kids never knew what they were getting out of having to do.

They used computer software to learn and practice their typing skills. I remember some fun games they had, with letters falling down from the sky and other strange things. For the typing lessons themselves, the kids typed lots of mostly nonsense syllables, at least in the beginning. Later on, they got to have some words and much later on, some sentences.

My oldest child thrived on competition, and the falling letters games were plenty enough to help her perfect her speed and accuracy. This software for beginning typing had worked fine for her, and we expected to continue with it. When the next child started his learning process, I decided to try out the program myself, to see what it was like. I disliked making assignments for things I wasn't very familar with. So I sat down to type the beginning lessons-- row after row of nonsense syllables, usually in groups of 3 or 4 letters. It might be because I already knew how to type that I found this process intolerably tedious and dull, but at any rate my reaction sparked a thought; why not make typing lessons that use actual words and sentences . . . maybe even an entertaining story, early on in the process?

So I started making lessons, and my second child switched to using them. He had 7 more siblings who would eventually go through the material, and in the process would help me discover a few things that needed changing. My husband taught technology at a public school, and found that his middle school students enjoyed these short lessons, too-- each one took only about 10 min, and within half a school year the entire course could be completed.

Later on, I created an ebook with these typing lessons, and began offering it online, through a new business we were starting, Gentle Shepherd.  And it is still available there, today . . .  if you'd like to learn more about this touch typing course, please visit the "Typing" page on Gentle Shepherd's website.

The Omnibus is Back!

This is the third year of i Homeschool Network's ebook Omnibus.  And it is starting today! This is a huge sale with all kinds of homeschooling ebooks as well as mp3's-- this year there are 83 (yes, eighty-three) ebooks and 24 audios, and all can be purchased at once for the price of only $25.

And this sale truly has "something for everyone," as this photo shows . . .

There are curriculum resources such as an entomology unit study, Middle Ages history book and notebook pages, help for writing essays, Trees fact cards, and Gentle Shepherd's Picture and Writing: Older Ages creative writing work pages.

There are books with plans for preschool . . . several different idea books and complete preschool curriculum resources-- such as 101 Independent Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers by Mary Ellen Bream, God's Little Explorers Preschool Curriculum by Stacie Nelson, and Raising Rock Stars Preschool by Carisa Hinson.

There are all kinds of homeschooling planners . . . if you've been looking for ways to organize school and household plans, there are a variety of approaches presented among the ebooks in this Omnibus.

There are books with art projects, cooking, and lots of valuable homeschool advice (Help! I'm Homeschooling, by Tricia Hodges, Homeschooling 101 by Kris Bales, Homeschooling High School by Marie-Clair Moreau, Simply Homeschool by Karen DeBeus, Large Family Homeschooling by Amy Roberts, and more).

"Omnibus" means a volume with several items previously published separately. In this case, they are still separately published but all available at one time and place . . .

These ebooks are in both PDF and Kindle format, and if you'd like to have a DVD with the entire collection, you can purchase this for an additional $8.

Any way you look at it, this price is an amazing offer . . . and it will be available for this week only (the sale ends at 11:59 pm ET on Sunday, August 24, 2014).

To see more info and a list of all the items in this year's Omnibus, take a look here.

The downloads for purchased ebooks will only be available until September 25; please do not delay in downloading them.  See the FAQ or contact iHomechool Network for more infomation about downloading.

DVD's can be purchased until Sept 20 (and can only be purchased by those who have first purchased the usual Omnibus format).

The deadline for refunds is Sept 5 (Positively no refunds will be given if the file host shows that you have downloaded any files).

Fact Hunts! for research

I always looked forward to "Fact Hunt" day when teaching my kids, because of two things-- first, I knew it was an open-ended, interesting assignment that they would enjoy, and second, I would get to read the facts they collected and enjoy looking over the info; sometimes "ordinary" and sometimes very unusual.

We usually did this assignment once a week, with kids who were in middle school.  They would take a certain topic-- for example, "citrus fruits"-- and use whatever sources they wanted (since modern times and the internet this has always been online searches, but some of our oldest kids did use books back in the day . . .), making a list of 10 facts about the topic.

There were no requirements other than finding 10 facts-- they didn't have to write complete sentences, or find any certain types of things.  The whole idea was just to give them a short research project, to get them used to the process of doing "research."  (You know, the kind of thing you need to be doing when you're writing reports and research papers, and also just learning in general.)

To keep time and a schedule from getting in the way of just enjoying the assignment, the kids would do the fact hunt as the last thing in their morning schoolwork . . . so if it took them a few minutes longer or shorter, there were no worries or pressure.

Since this was one of our most favorite writing projects to do, I wanted to make a short ebook about it, with lists of suggestions for topics.  So now, (drumroll, please) a "Fact Hunts" ebook is ready!  And even more awesome, it is also a freebie, available to anyone on our website.

Here is what the cover looks like; there are 12 pages total, with ideas given for 4 years of fact hunts.

Come and see! Please download and try these out, if this sounds like something you might like to include in your homeschool.  And also, please share the freebies page link (but not the ebook itself; we'd like people to be downloading it from the website) and let your friends know about this research writing resource!

Home Learning Ideas -- Age Group Pages

When in the last few years of teaching our own nine children, I wanted to write out some ideas for home teaching.  I thought of some of the things we'd learned, and what might be helpful to others when thinking about the upcoming school year, and lesson plans.

So I wrote some articles with "ideas" for home learning.  They have been up on my Gentle Shepherd website for awhile, but just recently I noticed they needed a few typo corrections and some revisions.  So the newly revised versions are all up now--

There are five different documents; for preschool, kindergarten, primary grades, upper elementary, and middle school.  All of these are downloadable from the website (follow the instructions at the top of the page, to download), and they can also be read on the site.

Fuzzle Family Felt -- Day 37 of I Homeschool Network 40 Days of Christmas

TODAY there is a giveaway -- for Fuzzle Family Felt pattern set, by Gentle Shepherd (continuing through Friday, Dec 13).

 

It is part of I Homeschool Network's "40 Days of Christmas" advent calendar . . . 6 winners will receive a pattern set (PDF ebook) with patterns for people, clothing, house, car, trees, bushes, dog, cat, and more . . .

 

Making up felt stories is a lot of fun for kids, and these felt toys are quiet, soft, and flexible-- easy for kids to handle, and convenient to store or to take traveling.

 

Today (Dec 10) is day#37 -- Here is a link to the calendar:

 

http://www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com/40-days-of-Christmas

 

Here are some more pics from this felt toys pattern set--

 

Kayla Aimee's Early Christmas Shopping Giveaway!

Kayla Aimee is a young mom who blogs about "faith, family," and her "favorite things."  She has created a series of three "Gift Guide" posts that feature shops of her readers!  I think this is really great-- these are crafters like me who have online shops in various stages of development.  Some are very established and others are just starting out.  They are all offering various discounts through coupon codes, and there is also a giveaway on the blog, for $50 (paid through PayPal) to go to two different winners-- for some early Christmas shopping money! 

It's easy to enter the giveaway; you just make a comment on the blog post. 

My "Fuzzlemania" business is included in today's group of shops.  This post features baby and toddler items. 

Anyone who places an order for felt toys from Fuzzlemania using the coupon code (given in Kayla's blog post) will receive a discount and also a free rabbit finger puppet.

The giveaway, using Rafflecopter, is continuing through this month (November).

See the blog post and giveaway at Kayla Aimee here:
2013 Handmade Holiday Gift Guide | Baby & Toddler Edition

Facebook Frenzy -- You can take your time for this mad dash

Have you taken part in a Facebook Frenzy?  This is something new for me-- I am  one of the participating pages, and have found it interesting and fun.  The frenzy is happening RIGHT NOW!

 

       It will continue through Saturday, October 26.  There is a loop of 19 educational "specialists."  Each offers a freebie which is easily obtained after you like their FB page; then you can continue on to the next stop.

 

      On my Gentle Shepherd Facebook page, I'm offering Picture and Writing: Younger Ages as a freebie through Saturday night.  Just click on the "Facebook Frenzy" tab-- it looks like this:

 

 

Then you can click to see who is next, and go on to as many others in the loop as you'd like.

 

 

 

Since the FB Frenzy lasts for awhile, you don't have to be in a rush to go to all the pages at once.  But some people like me, who are task-oriented, might like to do it this way.  Once I got in a rhythm of clicking to like, accessing and saving, clicking to the next stop, I wanted to just go through the entire loop.

 

But it isn't a race-- you can start and stop at any time . . .  That said, here's one place to start-- 

 

Gentle Shepherd FB page: www.facebook.com/GentleShep

Interview with Homeschool Mosaics -- Drawing for ebooks of your choice!

Homeschool Mosaics Interview with me, about Gentle Shepherd-- with a giveaway!  Please come and enter for the opportunity to receive two free ebooks of your choice from our site (there will be three winners-- and entry is very simple . . .  http://homeschoolmosaics.com/a-moment-with-diane-hurst/)

 

Don't worry there's still time to CATCH THE OMNIBUS . . .

Get ready, get set . . . it's here!  The iHomeschool Network 2013 Omnibus, with 91 ebooks is at a website near you . . . August 20 - 25.

Gentle Shepherd's large ebook (141 different printable work pages) for preschool penmanship pages-- Easy Peasy Penmanship, is a part of this Omnibus.

All 91 books are available for download for only $25.

Come take a look at the ebook list HERE.

This special collection of encouragement, curriculum, and forms and tips comes through iHomeschool Network.  

The sale will run from 12:00 am ET Tuesday, August 20 to 11:50 pm ET, Sunday, August 25.

For more information, go to the Omnibus Info Page on Gentle Shepherd's website:

http://www.gentleshepcurr.com/2013-ihn-omnibus.html

(Please note-- As of 9/26/13 this offer has expired.)

An Omnibus is on its way . . .

Coming Soon!  An omnibus near you!

No, it's not a bus . . . but it does carry a lot . . .

"Omnibus: a book containing reprints of a number of works --
French, from Latin, for all, dative plural of omnis, a combining form meaning “all'.” 

This omnibus is a collection of works by homeschooling authors-- all in PDF ebook format, so they can easily be used on e-readers OR on your home computer.

There are curriculum printables, inspirational articles, helpful forms and ideas; a total of 91 ebooks, altogether valued at over $590.

I Homeschool Network is providing this omnibus, to offer an inexpensive way to help with beginning-of-schoolyear needs.

The entire collection of ebooks is only $25, and it will be available starting at 12:00 am ET on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 and ending at 11:59 pm ET on Sunday, August 25, 2013.

Tomorrow morning I'll put up a link to the list of books, and more info about purchasing.

Gentle Shepherd is offering Easy Peasy Penmanship as a part of this omnibus.

A Number Rhyme

One, two, three, four, Mary at the cottage door . . .

Five, six, seven, eight, eating cherries off a plate!

This was a favorite rhyme for some of our kids; we used it in a preschool notebook that we went through in the early mornings.  Number rhymes are a good way for young children to learn counting, and when a picture is added too, numeral recognition can also start to happen.

The picture page above is from Preschool Beginning Notebook Pages Set I, an ebook with 15 print-out pages.  Am hoping to have Set II completed this summer, and have already started making the pages.

Using a read-through preschool notebook (with pages that changed now and then, according to interests and needs) was one of the things I really enjoyed when my kids were young, and I know they liked it a lot, too.

Remodeling in Progress!

     This afternoon I'll be revising all 20 files for ebooks that are offered on our website.  They all need to have a different website URL put in, as we are changing ours (to www.gentleshepcurr.com).  Have been working on a website remodel, and over several months, have migrated our content over to a Weebly site.  You can see it up now, though I still have a couple of bugs to work out here and there.

     I'm excited about this move, because being on Weebly is FREE (no cost at all to set it up or maintain it, other than a domain name fee) and that means it will be easier for us to stay there indefinitely.  It also has a nice crisp look, and Weebly is really easy to work with, to put content on (if you've ever wanted to make a website for ANYTHING, this is a great wizard to experiment with!).

     The one downside to this move is that we will no longer have automatic delivery of ebooks-- when people order, we'll need to send them the ebooks after we receive payment from PayPal; a PayPal shopping cart is part of what Weebly offers, which is GREAT!  We have been using it already, but our former cart was pretty fancy and also handled doing automatic downloads of eproducts.

     OK... time to get to work on those file revisions . . . come visit the new site, and tell me what you think!  Let me know if you find any missing links or other problems, too-- THANKS A LOT; for a day or two we'll still have both sites up.  Then, the former URL (www.gentleshepherd.biz) will become a redirector to the new site.

Copy and Draw - Penmanship practice WITH Art

Copy and Draw work page e-books are here!  Do you have kindergarten or early elementary-aged kids who would like to draw pictures along with their penmanship practice? Here is a set of 68 work pages in PDF format-- can be printed out as needed.

For some examples of completed pages, see Gentle Shepherd's website art gallery.

With many drafts and revisions, this e-book project has taken almost a year and a half to complete-- from beta test stage to final draft.  And what used to be one set of work pages turned into SIX different e-books.  That is because there are 6 versions-- two different writing line styles multiplied by three different penmanship styles.

If you are using Italic or Manuscript for penmanship, Copy and Draw is available in both of those styles, as well as in the custom font it started out with.

Come take a look; you can see sample pages for all the versions by clicking the links on THIS PAGE.

Real Science! Really New E-books, too!

There are three new e-books on our Gentle Shepherd website!  These are review activities to accompany Gravitas Publications' Real Science-4-Kids level I science textbooks.  You can see sample pages for all three e-books (Chemistry, Physics, Biology) at http://tinyurl.com/8ynakws.

Announcing: Bible Memory Passages - NKJV! And Bible Verse Songs . . .

We have a new freebie on our website; it is Bible Memory Passagesin the New King James Version. This e-book is also available in the 1611 King James Version. The NKJV is what I usually use, so I'm really glad to have gotten permission from the publisher to make the e-book in this version-- and to have it ready and up on our site!

Also, speaking of Bible memory, Here is a review of a different Bible memory product, available through another company, that I’m really excited about:

The other day, while doing some artwork, I was listening to a CD that a friend of mine created, that has Bible verses set to music. There is a verse to go with every letter in the alphabet.

I was so impressed with this music, and wanted to tell you about it; it is a great way to reinforce verses kids already know, or just to “slip” some in while they are playing quietly or doing art/crafts or household tasks.

I don’t think I could adequately describe these songs—you’ll have to listen for yourself—but these are some of the adjectives that came to mind when I was listening: delightful, charming, impressive.

There are a variety of musical styles—in general they tend to be mellow (no hard rock or rap here . . . !) and have some interesting solos as well as group singing.
The name of the CD is ABC Bible Memory Verse Songs, and the songs were composed by Mrs. Candace of Sonbeams, a homeschool curriculum company.

These songs can be used as part of a school routine, too, if you’d like to include them—Sonbeams has created a preschool curriculum for teaching letters and numbers and colors, etc. that also uses the Bible verses that are in these songs.

She has a special offer (that ends tomorrow—June 30 is the last day) for receiving a full month of lesson guides—these have some creative and kinesthetic activities as well as Biblical concepts. For example, for letter D the story of Daniel is used, and kids also write “D” in the dirt with a stick and glue over a workpage letter and sprinkle it with dirt! There are some fun matching card games in the letter lesson guides, too. Click on the following link to receive access to these lesson guides—you are welcome to save them to your computer for future use. These cover letters A,B,C,D as well as some numbers, colors and shapes, and Bible stories, and give a good idea of what the curriculum is like.

http://www.sonbeams.com/blog/2011/06/11/free-1-month-homeschool-preschool-kindergarten-curriculum-trial/

Candace has also generously offered two special coupon codes for friends of Gentle Shepherd, for the Bible Memory Verse Songs:

for 30% off the mp3 files and parent/teacher guide, use code GENTLEMP3
for 30% off the CD (without a guide- but this is a hard-copy CD that will come in the mail), use code GENTLE

New Pages are Online! December coupon code special!

After nearly a year of work, questions, learning, trouble-shooting, revising, and making sometimes slow but always ongoing steps, our new web pages are finally up online! Come and see them if you haven't already . . .

www.gentleshepherd.biz

There is a free e-book for all new subscribers-- this is a book about math games you can make yourself, called Six Easy-to-Make Math Games. The games are for kids ranging from preschool to fifth grade. For a couple of the games there are game board pages to print out. There are photos of all the completed games, and instructions for how to make them.

To receive this e-book (and sign up for our Gentle Shepherd email list), use the form at the top of the home page on the website.

ALSO, we are offering a coupon code for $5 off any order of $6 or more-- this is a one time use for the month of December. Use the code NEW-SITE.