New Resources Featuring St.Joseph

March is the Month Dedicated to St. Joseph.  Let our resources help bring him to life in your child's eyes.

March is a very busy month this year.  Ash Wednesday is coming up, Lent will begin, St. Patrick's Day is coming, Stations of the Cross devotions will begin in many parishes as well as the Feast of the Annunciation will take place at the end of the month.  Mother church knows that we could become overwhelmed and so she helps us stay on track by having the month of March dedicated to St. Joseph.  By this act, the church tells us that St. Joseph was an important part of our Lord's life and should not be forgotten but rather included in the richness of our faith.  We should take this month to focus on this saint and the wonderful virtues that he demonstrates including - trust, obedience, dedication, and patience.

To help homeschooling families and educators honour St. Joseph, we have created some new resources including a full set of twelve notebooking sheets for learners of all ages and skill levels, a new Saint Biography Learning Card and more.  Plus, you can now find all of our printable resources for this wonderful saint in one spot - including our popular printable saint trading cards -There will be more saint pages like this to follow. 

We are still working behind the scenes revamping the website with features like this to make your visit more enjoyable and efficient.  To find out about more updates to our site join us on Facebook or Twitter as we won't be able to note every new addition on the blog.  We are still finding our way around them, but we'll get the hang of it, we suppose..lol.

Click HERE to go to our new saint page for St. Joseph and see all of our resources to help children learn about him.

Blessings,

That Resource Team

Our Learning Cards are Growing - New Phonics Cards Sets Are Ready

 New Animal Families learning cards help to teach phonics and reading.

As we eluded to last week, we are currently expanding our Animal Word Families resources to include more families and additional subjects such as spelling, faith study, writing and science.  Today we uploaded the main collection of phonics cards we will be using in this little learning adventure.  Find printable learning flashcards that list words by many popular phonogram families.  Each word family has been assigned an animal that somehow matches to a word in the word list.  The matching word has an asterisk as a clue for learners.  This little feature will be used to start discussions about the animal highlighted.

Feel free to use these independent of the coming lessons.  They are great for reading review and phonetic reference, not to mention, they are really fun and cute.  To use these cards, simply print out, cut apart on the lines, fold in half and glue.  Laminate for longevity and durability.  Here are a few more sample cards.

See all seventeen sets of these resources on their new page HERE.

Look for more resources to come shortly.  :)

Blessings,

Kalei

A LIttle Latin Lesson on the Pater Noster (Our Father)

New Little Latin Lesson helps kids to learn our Lord's Prayer

Looking for a hands on way to study the Pater Noster or an easy way to spice up your Latin review?  Then this Little Lesson shared by Michelle over at Thinking Love, No Twaddle might be just what you are looking for.

Print these sheets out and cut the pieces apart.  (I like to use card stock.)  There is a reference prayer sheet as well as prayer pieces in Latin and English There is also lovely little copywork page to practice writing the entire prayer, a few lines, or even a few key words from the prayer.

A bit older children could use this lesson independently as a Montessori type activity if they use the prayer reference sheet.  Some quality mama time could be given here as well using the pieces.  In fact, you could play matching games using English to Latin or even Latin to Latin or English to English if you printed out two sets of the card pieces.

This packet is six pages.  Here are a few sample pages from this lesson.

Thanks, Michelle for sharing this little prayerful gem with us all!


Click HERE to download this Little Latin Lesson - Learn the Pater Noster from Michelle's resource page on our main website.


Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team

New Awesome Lenten Little Lesson - Includes Everything You Need For Meaningful Learning Fun

Help prepare for Lent and Easter with this Beautiful 72 Page Little Lesson on the Via Dolorosa

We are beginning to think about Lent in our little homeschool.  We are taking stock of the Lenten resources we have to share with you, including meatless and yummy recipes that we will begin sharing shortly on our recipe blog.  But we are so excited to share today's resource with you all.  It is a wonderful Little Lesson on the Via Dolorosa or Road of Sorrows created by Michelle over at Thinking Love, No Twaddle.  You'll want to make sure that you put this into your lesson planning.

This Little Lesson isn't little at all - it's 72 pages!!  Michelle has lovingly written some beautiful text about the Sorrows surrounding the life and death of our Lord as well as details of specifically Lent, Holy Week and the Passion of our Lord.  I especially like that she takes Holy Week day by day in her lesson, but also that she has thought to include a bit of everything you would want to help learn about the richness of this upcoming season.  Here is a bit of what she has included:  background and explanatory text covering Lent, Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Stations of the Cross, The Seven Last Words and more;  beautiful classic art depicting and reinforcing important events, history pieces, F3 (lapbook style) pieces, scripture references, notebooking sheets, copywork prompts and opportunities for discussion and prayer.  Plus she has left some pages blank so that this can be printed back to back, allowing for activity pieces to be cut out without wrecking the text.  Oh, this is such a little gem!  Here are just a few sample pages:

Please say a prayer for Michelle as she has put in quite a bit of time and energy into this.  We are so thankful that she is willing to share the things she makes for her kiddos with our kiddos, and yours too.  This is a larger download, as you might expect, but it is a great way to study this most important and beautiful part of the Catholic liturgical season.

Click HERE to be able to download this resource - The Via Dolorosa.

Click HERE to see all of the free resources that Michelle has shared with us so far.

Click HERE to find out how you can be a friend to other homeschoolers by sharing some resources you may have made.

We hope that you really enjoy this little lesson and if you know another family that could benefit from this resource, please consider passing along our site or blog to them so that they can download  and use it as well.

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Site Team

Over 30+ Free New Word Searches Based on our Animal Word Families

New Word Searches Help Improve Reading and Phonics Skills

We have been very busy behind the scenes creating new resources for our children, and yours too! :)  As we are year-round learners, many of our curriculum resources are coming to a close.  We are finishing up books and looking to begin new things.  That being said, we are creating new lessons and resources out of necessity.  We have lots of new and exciting things in the works and today we begin to share them.

We have created over 30 new word searches based on phonetic word families and have paired them up with animals.  Each two page puzzle file displays a specific animal for the puzzle and includes an answer sheet.  They are simple and fun to complete. 

If you have used any of our Animal Word Family learning resources before, then you know how things may work a bit already.  They were originally designed just to teach phonics to K/1 learners, but the good news is that we are expanding those resources to include science, spelling, writing, and more subjects to appeal to a bit older aged children.  This completely free program for primary aged children should be a lot of fun and something that your kiddos will come to look forward to using on a daily basis.  So, here is a taste of the fun to come!

We look forward to sharing more details and resources very soon. 

Click HERE to see this collection of word searches.

Click HERE to see our entire collection of word searches.

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team

New Faith Themed Alphabet Letter Copywork in Print and Cursive

New copywork sets help children practice their letter formation as well as learn about their Faith.

A few months ago, a homeschooling mum dropped us some nice words and a kind suggestion of creating individual alphabet letter copywork with images related to the Faith.  So it took a bit of time, but we have finally completed them and they match our Alphabet Letter poster set we shared yesterday.  The images from the posters exactly match the copywork sheets. They are in colour, but those who are conscious of ink usage could easily print them out in grayscale.

Sheets are very useful to teach print or cursive handwriting techniques while providing colourful images designed to speak to their hearts.  Images are sure to be great conversation starters for older learners working on learning cursive writing. 

If you have multiple children, you may want to laminate the sheets to be able to have younger children use them over and over again with a fine tipped wipe-off pen.  You could also laminate them back to back in alphabetical order and bind on the left to create a book.  Once laminated, they could also be easily kept in a 3 ringed binder.

We hope you find these sets very useful.

Click Here to download the set of print copywork.
Click Here to download the set of cursive copywork.

Blessings, 

Kalei - That Resource Team 

New A-Z Letter Poster Set Featuring the Faith

New sheets to decorate your learning area, classroom or use as learning prompts.

Some of our visitours have asked us to consider creating alphabet posters for learning areas, school classrooms or CCD classrooms.  We have finally finished this resource set and hope that many Catholic families find it very useful. 

Rather than just the standard "A is for apple, B is for boy" set, we thought we might illustrate things that are meaningful to us - Jesus, the Bible, the Eucharist, the Trinity.  .  .  and so forth.  So today we offer this wonderful 26 page set of A-Z learning posters complete with almost all real photographs that my friend Lil or I took from our parish here on beautiful Vancouver Island, BC.  There are a few images from public domain as a few of the letters were challenging..lol. 

Here are some sample letters from the set.

I hope you love this set and I will be working on some matching alphabet letter writing practice sheets to accompany them shortly.  Please keep us in your prayers as the devil has been hard at work on us as of late.

If you like this resource and can think of someone who would love to use it, by all means please share our blog and website with them.  Many people can't believe that everything we offer is free, but truly, all of it is.  We have gotten some inspiring notes this week and it is a true testimony to why we should keep doing what we do.  Thanks, Candy and Daisy!!

Click Here to download this new A-Z poster set featuring the Faith. 

(This is a little larger than normal file so please be patient.)

Blessings,
Kalei - That Resource Team

New Little Lesson For Music Study and More Planner Pages

New Little Lesson helps bring music to life.

Today we share a Little Lesson on music from Michelle over at  Thinking Love, No Twaddle.  This hands on and very appealing resource is perfect for refreshing music theory or introducing learners to the basics of music.  This lesson includes pieces for the children and lesson/answers for parents.  Hands-on fun for free.

You can also find more planner pages for her special homeschool year-planner with more to come shortly.

If you are looking for more nice freebies, stop in at her blog now to see her Frugal Friday Freebies.  I love that she keeps it all about homeschooling.  Some really good and unique finds come forth and I look forward to them weekly.

Click HERE to download this Little Music Lesson.

Click HERE to see all of Michelle's goodies from our website.

Blessings,
Kalei - That Resource Team

By Request - How to Make our My Book Mini-books

Here are the simple steps needed to create our mini-books

We love questions and interacting with other homeschooling families online.  As we are getting closer to the ten year mark on homeschooling, we sometimes forget that others may be new to our style of learning or homeschooling in general.  So today we received a simple little e-mail from Tracy asking us how to create and assemble our My Books Mini-books.  We thought that we should post an answer to it to help those who are new to this easy, fun and quite popular resource.

To make this resource you will need the following:

• the printed .PDF file
• a scissors or paper cutter
• a stapler
• writing and/or art supplies

Step One

Find a mini-book of interest.  See our collection HERE.

Step Two

Fill in the required information on the individual pages.  Each page is numbered.  Some pages may or may not have prompts.  Each book was created for our children or by special request by someone outside of our family.  Children may choose to write out the information, draw in the information or use a combination of both.  Some younger writers may only be able to get out one word; older learners may be able to write a whole paragraph. Bullets work well too as a writing prompt as in our sample picture at the top of the page.  Using a small ruler to draw in lines as needed can be quite helpful too for those learners who are still building confidence in their writing skills.

* Note that the pages will be cut out and stapled on the left hand side so it is best not to have children write directly to the edges of the lines as they may risk snipping off the last little y or g.  We learned that the hard way..lol.  Also you may end up stapling over their written words on the left side so be mindful of the staple marks.  We also learned that the hard way..lol.

Step Three

Carefully have the kiddos (or you) cut apart the individual pages on the dotted lines using a scissors or a simple page cutter like those used in scrap booking.

Step Four

Stack pages in order - Title page, numbered pages, and End page.  Page numbers are located on the bottom of each page.  A few of our very first My Book Mini-books may not have page numbers but we felt they were still valuable enough to leave on the website.

Step Five

Staple pages together at the left hand side where the staple marks indicate.  Again, a few of our older mini-books may not have the markings.

Step Six
Affix the mini-book to a notebook, F3 folder, lapbook, project or onto one of our Mini-book Keepsake Pages.  Our collection includes lots of choices for both boys and girls of varying ages and can be found HERE.  You may also choose to leave your books loose and store them on a book shelf or in reading basket as well.

We hope this helps. :)  Feel free to drop us a comment via our blog or to email us directly with a question or feedback.  And now, you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.  Just a few more ways that we are trying to offer support to homeschooling families around the globe.

Blessings,

That Resource Team

Ideas to Help Thwart the Commercialism of St. Valentine's Day

 Resources to focus on Love and Charity

As we draw closer to Valentine's Day, we are bombarded by cocoa delights in the stores, advertisements in the newspaper, and a plethora of goods and services that well, to be quite frank, we don't need. 

As Christians we celebrate Valentine's Day daily as we uphold our Lord's Commandments to love one another, love and practice fidelity to our spouses as well as honour our parents.  There we go, everyone in our life is covered.  If we happen to attend Mass on the 14th of February, we also show Jesus that we love Him too as we should go to Mass to show God we love Him rather than prioritizing to have our own needs met.

We can do a few things to try and make the day seem less commercial for our children and families. 

• Create a My Book Mini-book on St. Valentine.

• Read 1 Corinthians 13:3-7 in the Bible - the passage on love or charity.  You can find copywork for that Bible passage here.

• Begin Our Virtue Lesson on Love.  This popular month long lesson for learners K-6 is great for February, but it can be done at any time of the year.  If you haven't had a chance to use Our Virtue Lessons, you may want to give it a whirl now.  These lessons incorporate moral development with a Christian focus, and include text lessons, discussion prompts, mini-books, worksheets, copywork, suggestions for reading and go-along printables!!

• Attend daily Mass on February 14th.

We hope these resources help bring love and joy to your lessons this week.

Blessings,

That Resource Team

New Little Lesson on Facial Reconstruction...and Sebastian Bach?

Now for something completely new and invigorating to the brain. . .

Did you look twice at the title of this little lesson?  I did too..lol.. But we are talking science and art not vanity here. And yes, even Bach was a party to this as early scientists were called in to see if the poorly marked grave site was that of the world famous composer. It is such a neat lesson - perfect for your science loving learner. 

This little lesson was contributed by Michelle over at Thinking Love, No Twaddle, who comes up with some of the most coolio little lessons for our children.  I am so blessed to have in our lives because she comes with a wealth of knowledge and experience.  Since she has more children than I do and all of varying ages from very young to adult, she creates lessons out of necessity, but her needs are different - although we usually benefit from them in our little homeschool. :)

Today she offers a lesson that seems right off of the History channel on how forensic science has been able to reconstruct faces and features from a skull.  Facial reconstruction is part of the forensic art skills that also includes drawing and constructing faces from witness statements. Starting from the 1860s, techniques for study of the human facial form began and developed into an art form - well, almost.  As I was reading through this lesson, I especially got an out loud chuckle at Dr. Welcker's invention.  It's worth a read if you wear glasses..lol.

This lesson comes complete with text, solid illustrations, F3 style learning cards, and a chance to practice your art and drawing skills with the human form.  Great for your tween learner and up.  Such a great way to stimulate learning.

That's the beauty of homeschooling, you can choose to teach to your children's interests even if it's forensic art skills.  Remember there is an occupation out there for everyone - every job needs to be done by someone.  From the parish priest to steel detailers, graphic artists to morticians, mums to dog walkers, there is a job suited to each and every one of us. 

Click Here to download this new Little Lesson on Science.

I hope that our resources help you in the education of your children in some small way.

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team Mama

Teaching the Faith Using . . . Valentines!?!

Little treats bring a sweetness to your heart, taste buds and the faith!

Last year I wanted to share the faith in a unique and memorable way with my children at home as well as in my CCD class at our parish.  I had seen valentine's using scripture quotes, but I wanted something that was uniquely Catholic.  So I decided to trace and cut out a heart from card stock, decorate it with artwork featuring quickie simple truths from the Faith (CCC) and attach a matching heart candy.  The result - wow!! 

As a family, we created close to a hundred valentines and distributed them to friends, family, students, fellow catechists, residents at the retirement that we volunteer at monthly, and even our pastor.  Each person responded with a heart felt smile - even those who weren't even Christian!!  Such a great experience and testimony to how charity can positively affect others.

Here are some great little truths for you to use that incorporate the use the word love, if you would like to make your own catechism valentines:

• God is Love CCC:221
• God loves you and wants you to be with Him in heaven. CCC:221, 543
• God is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. CCC:224
• God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. CCC:219
• God's love is everlasting. CCC:220
• God alone is enough. CCC:227

Trace the heart, cut it out, decorate it with the verse of choice, cut a little slit to poke your lollipop through and tape the stem to the back with scotch tape.  By using a heart lollipop, the idea of "love" is reinforced in a sensory way - the color red for love, the shape of a heart as a synonym for love and the sweetness to be treasured like God's gift of love should be to us.

Hope this helps bring some sweetness to your celebration, class session, lesson, meeting or Valentine's Day.

Blessings,

Kalei - That Resource Team