Here's what's taking up a lot of my time today!

I mentioned before that I love sites that have free resources for homeschoolers/teachers. A lady from a local mailing list I belong to pointed out a website created by Cindy Downes, an Oklahoma homeschooler, with ideas for recession-proof homeschooling!

I've been looking through all the different links this morning. It's a lot to take in, but I've come across several things that will work for us in the upcoming weeks as we plow through to the end of the school year.

Ms. Downes offers a good list of composition project ideas. I'm trying to find ways to make writing more interesting for my son. I let him have his own blog to try to encourage him to write, but I want to encourage more paper and pen writing too. The list is a great step in that direction, with ideas like creating a travel guide focusing on a country being studied and writing a Consumer Guide about a product that might have been available during a time period being studied. I would have never thought of fun things like that!

Ms. Downes also points out other websites that have good ideas. My son just this morning started working on his Amazing Animal Alphabet book. From the name of this project, you might assume it's a bit "babyish" for a 5th grader, but it actually reinforces several skills.

My son is using the dictionary to look up animals that start with the letter A. He's also looking for adjectives, action verbs, and adverbs that start with A. Next he's using some of those words to come up with a silly sentence such as "An angry alligator ate Allen." Then he will draw an illustration for the sentence and use colored pencils and markers to complete the drawing. Really, you can make this as simple or complicated as you want to fit varying age levels.

There are plenty of other good things on the site, so be sure to check it out. Even if you aren't a homeschooler, you can find some cool projects to do with your child.