Homeschooling Resources » Foreign Languages

World Pen Pals

Mary Nix — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 13:32:47 +0000

World Pen Pals

The Largest educational pen friends movement in the world.

World Pen Pals offers students a unique , interesting and personal approach to global studies, foreign languages and language arts by direct correspondence with a new friend overseas.

They offer: Penfriends by gender/contintent. Correspondence is in English.

Questions: Phone/Fax (845) 246-7828 8am-8-pm E.T. seven days a week.

http://www.world-pen-pals.com/request.htm

EDSITEment

Mary Nix — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 15:36:54 +0000

EDSITEment is “the best of the humanities on the web from the National Endowment for the Arts”.

This educational partnership brings online humanities resources from some of the world’s great museums, libraries, cultural institutions, and universities directly to your classroom.

Some of the subjects listed there are:

Arts and Culture
Literature and Language Arts
Foreign Language
History & Social Studies

Visit EDSITEment here: http://edsitement.neh.gov/

Learning foreign languages by Valerie Bonham Moon

Mary Nix — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:23:17 +0000

Valerie Bonham Moon offers some great hands on advice for learning another language at Home Education Magazine’s News and Commentary this week.

She writes:

On military homeschooling discussion lists, there is often the question of how to go about learning a foreign language, often German since thatâ€™s where many servicemembers are stationed. When we lived in Germany, one technique I used, after we had acquired a reasonable stock of words* in our minds, was to listen to audio recordings of familiar English-language stories that have been translated into German.

[* The beginner materials that I found most friendly for collecting that â€œreasonable stock of wordsâ€ were The Learnables immersion lessons. The audio lessons are all in the foreign language being taught, with the lesson â€˜explanationsâ€™ being cartoon drawings of whatever each story is about. In this way, there is no need to translate words. The acquisition process is similar to how we each learned our mother tongue: demonstration, listening and repetition.]

Valerie continues to explain the process and how to duplicate it even if you are residing within the USA.

Thanks Valerie! I would love to hear more about your learning adventures in Germany!
~Mary Nix

Homeschool Buyers Co-op Opens Its Doors!

Helen Hegener — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 05:28:09 +0000

Homeschool Buyers Co-op

The Homeschool Buyers Co-op has officially opened it doors. President Brett Walter made the announcement August 20th at the 15th Annual Home Education Conference in Sacramento, California. With assistance from homeschoolers around the country the Co-op expects to grow its membership to 100,000 by the end of the year.

“The basic idea of the Homeschool Buyers Co-op is that school districts get educational discounts – why not homeschoolers?” asks Walter, a homeschooling dad of twin 9 year old boys. “Of course,’ adds Walter, “the reason school districts get discounts is that they make large purchases. They have purchasing power. We homeschoolers, on the other hand, routinely pay retail prices because we buy in small quantities. As independent buyers, we have no purchasing power.”

All this is changing with the advent of the Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op, an online non-profit serving the entire homeschooling community. The Co-op is now actively negotiating discounts for educational products from leading suppliers of products such as curriculum, media, science kits, books, educational games, toys and more! These discounts are posted on the web site and members can request email notification of new additions. The Co-op will finance operations with advertising revenue from educational suppliers. Best of all, membership is free to all homeschoolers.

For more information about the Homeschool Buyers Co-op please visit the web site, email Brett Walter, President, at brett.walter@homeschoolbuyersco-op.org, or call Suzanne Morze at (650) 530-9988. To receive a message about the Co-op that you can pass on to your homeschool support group or friends email Nancy Reddy at nancy.reddy@homeschoolbuyersco-op.org.

Usborne Books

Helen Hegener — Mon, 02 May 2005 17:14:48 +0000

Link: EDC Publishing.

In 1973, Peter Usborne decided that educational, nonfiction books would need to change in order to compete with TV and comics. He borrowed some ideas from these two media and hired educational consultants to oversee the writing to make sure that the books would satisfy the child’s interest but also arouse it.

Explanatory books which merely explain are doing only half the job; if a book fails to make its subject attractive and interesting to the reader, chances are that the explanation will fail. Usborne Books are designed graphically to draw the students in, to make them want to learn the material and to help them retain that knowledge. The magic of Usborne Books is that they make both reading and learning fun and not a boring or intimidating experience. Peter Usborne set out to break down a child’s resistance to reading and learning at home. These books are so well organized that children absorb and recall much of the vast amount of information presented.

Usborne Books are fascinating, lavishly illustrated books written with humor, surprise and drama. They incorporate activities and puzzles to challenge a child’s observation and intelligence. Their superb printing quality and exceptionally well-produced graphics, high ratio of pictures to text, short magazine-like format and unique detail set Usborne Books apart from anything yet produced. There is a wide range of subjects covering hobbies, history, science, nature, foreign language, parent’s guides and more. Usborne Books truly appeal to all ages, infants to adults, with prices to suit everyone. The books are printed on acid free paper, so the pages will last forever if taken care of properly.

Dorling Kindersley Books

Helen Hegener — Mon, 02 May 2005 16:51:59 +0000

Link: Dorling Kindersley.

Thirty years ago,Dorling Kindersley (DK) took on the challenge of creating visually engaging books for children on subjects that would compliment their areas of study and personal interest. The award-winning Eyewitness Books, DK’s trademark series, which began in 1988, never fail to inform, excite and inspire both children and adults alike. The series, which has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, is constantly expanding and the new titles will be branching out into more esoteric areas.

Dorling Kindersley publishes an extensive range of both adult and children’s reference titles – in effect ‘cradle to grave’ publishing. DK’s children’s reference titles are second to none. The list covers a vast range of children’s interests for every age group – dinosaurs, space, nature, history, religion, sport and science. In addition the publishing also includes a number of richly illustrated and highly accessible encyclopedias for learners of every age.

The adult list encompasses many subjects: gardening, conventional and holistic medicine, pregnancy & childcare, travel, cooking & wine, natural history, art, sports, popular culture, and languages. It includes manuals, encyclopedias, atlases, maps and handbooks.

DK offers an extensive website, with free e.newsletters, easily searchable booklists, subject browsing and much more.