HISTORY
All of these books are fully online and completely free. Just click on the title to read the text.
To help children process history (or anything else they learn), it's important for them to tell back part of the story in some way after every reading, and find places on a map.
These are educational for ALL ages:
An Island Story (
British history) by H.E. Marshall
Ω
OR
The Story of the World (
5-volume series of world history) by M.B. Synge
Ω The series is made up of the following volumes:
On the Shores of the Great Sea
The Discovery of New Worlds
The Awakening of Europe
The Struggle for Sea Power
Growth of the British Empire
Younger children might prefer one of the following books. Since these contain stand-alone tales, they can be easier to follow than a continuing history sequence, especially if consistency in school scheduling is a problem, as it often is in times of crisis.
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Ω
Thirty More Famous Stories by James Baldwin
listen on player.fm
MATH
Suggestions for Mathematics without a Textbook: Preschool through Primary
Here are some everyday items that can be used for math:
Small objects: beans, blocks, cereal, pasta, raisins, pebbles, pennies
Small finger food items such as peanuts and raisins or cereal that can be eaten after math is done!
Small stones, pinecones, pennies, broken match sticks
Small toys such as cars, people, animals (for illustrating story/word problems)
Markers, crayons, pencils
Construction paper (can be backdrop for story problems, or can be used for simple flash cards, fraction pieces, and matching games)
Lined or blank paper, index cards, large pieces of paper or cardboard to make things like a hundred chart (one hundreds chart is online
here)
Deck of cards, either traditional type or from another card game
Real or play money
A clock
Homemade or commercial balance (there are many ways to improvise this, such as suspending two containers from a broomstick between two chairs);
Object that have different geometric shapes such as cans and boxes
Things around you for counting (leaves on the ground, cars on the road, forks on the table)
Things with numerals on them to read (cans and boxes, houses, gas pumps);
Things to cut in fractional pieces--sandwiches, candy bars
Calendar (new or old)
Board games such as Sorry, Snakes and Ladders, Yahtzee
Beads to string in patterns (or pieces of coloured straws, or macaroni, or...)
Ruler, measuring tape, measuring cups
Suggested Math Topics and Activities
Keep your math lessons and games shorter than your child's attention span (that means lessons as short as 10 to 20 minutes for the youngest ones), and always quit while they are still having fun, and well before frustration kicks in.
Patterns: Learn to look for patterns everywhere, in nature, in fruits and vegetables (cut an apple in half sideways and observe the star), on your clothing, and in picture books. Tiles on the floor make a pattern, as do designs on wallpaper. Have fun putting together your own patterns using whatever you have on hand.
Old and new calendars: You can do a lot with these, depending on the child's age. Really young ones can just cut them up and play with the numbers -- sort them out, cut and paste them. With older ones, you can ask questions like "How many Tuesdays in June? How many days until we go to church? How many days ago did we do this or that? How many days are in three weeks?"
Cup of Twenty: give the child a cup with twenty small counters in it. It can be beads, dried beans, dry macaroni, poker chips, those glass things for planters- they look like flattened marbles- whatever. Also give them each a regular set of dice from a game, one with the number dots for 1-6. Let them take turns rolling, telling you what they rolled (this, again, helps with the recognition of dot patterns from 1-6), and then they remove that many counters from their cup. The first one to zero wins. As they play, occasionally ask questions about who has the most, who has the least, how many counters they have left, how many counters they have removed all together, etc. Once all the counters are out of the cup, they roll to return counters to the cup - same thing - an occasional question about who has more, who can win with just one roll, how many all together from the last roll and this one.
Draw a blank form for a math equation. You might do it this way: use a circle, a plus sign, another circle, and then an equals sign. It looks kind of like this: ( ) + ( ) = Put the number we are working with in the place where the sum belongs, then give the child that amount of small manipulatives. Her job is to move them around in the circles to show different ways of making six. She writes down each of the math problems she figures out. So she'll put two manipulatives in one circle, the remaining four in the second, and then write down 2 + 4 = 6.
Here's a math game to play with a regular deck of cards. Take out a set for numbers one through ten. Have the kids put them in order smallest to largest, and then largest to smallest. Give them a set of beans and have them put one bean over each spot (this is helpful for learning one to one correspondence).
Money: count the coins in your purse, sort them by size and color, learn their denominations, count nickels by fives, dimes by tens.
Counting real things: eyes in the room, shoes, cans of soup -- whatever items are at hand. Ask how many more and how many less you will have if you add three, take three out, and so forth. Ask your child to put ten objects in a pile or bag.
Measuring things, measuring each other: You can get an amazing amount of mileage out of an activity as simple as measuring each other (height, weight, and various body parts), or measuring each other's paces and then seeing how many paces it takes to cross the yard or to get to the corner. Time also comes into this kind of measurement: how long does it take you to go fifty paces? Use a stopwatch or a watch with a second hand. There are a lot of other fun things you can do with a stopwatch or some other timer: see how long it takes you to hop fifty times, or, in a reverse activity, see how many times you can hop in thirty seconds.
First get the concrete stuff down, then add the number sentences to the concrete stuff he already knows and feels comfortable with. Once they've gotten good at games like 'what's in my hand,' most kids can quickly see that the sense in having the symbols for 'and this many more' (+); is the same as (=).
If you are near a good public library, there are many books available to help with math, including picture books to read and resource books for parents and teachers (including many game suggestions such as those we've mentioned). Peggy Kaye's books are good (see her Games for Learning as well as Games for Math). Here's a simple example from Games for Learning: you need paper, crayons and two dice. Each person draws a rainbow shape on their paper and divides it into squares, from left to right across the arc, which must be numbered from 2 to 12. (Not 1, for obvious reasons.) Take turns rolling the dice, and whatever you roll, color in that box on your rainbow, any color you like. If you get a combination that you've already colored, you miss that turn. You can either play till somebody's filled in all their boxes, or set a time limit. This really simple game can involve several different math concepts; for instance, little ones can just count the spots on the dice, but primary-age students can add the two dice together much more quickly. You can also point out (or the kids will notice themselves) that certain numbers come up much more frequently because there are more combinations that add up to them; it's easier to roll something adding up to a 6, 7 or 8 than it is to get a 2 or a 12.
Throughout the day look for opportunities to talk about numbers, estimate numbers and test your answers. The more you do this, the better the child will get at picturing numbers in his head.
Include your children in the real life math problems you are doing yourself. I need to put up a fence, how much fencing do I need? What kind of math problem is that? I need to paint the wall, how much paint do I need? I need to buy carpeting, how much carpeting do I need? We need to set the table. How many places shall we set? For additional math practice, children should make up one story problem of their own each day (along with the answer).
The King's Chessboard teaches the concept of doubling exponentially.
For Older Children through Teens
If the students have access to a computer and the Internet, one of the simplest-to-access complete courses online is
TheMathPage.com , which includes a complete course in arithmetic, one in algebra, and one in trigonometry. Searches for teachers' pages and printable math worksheets will turn up many more possibilities (searching by the particular topic such as "multiplying fractions" will yield faster results). Other algebra help sites:
SchoolYourself.org and
PurpleMath.com .
Alternatively, teenagers might enjoy the challenge of working through
Euclid's Elements.
Here is a link concerning math contests for Jr./Sr. High -- the archives of some contests (USAMTS, for example) are great for math curriculum and problem-solving skills in the absence of textbooks for a month or two (recommended for students who really enjoy mathematics, algebra level and above):
ArtofProblemSolving.com
As in the earlier years, it is important to keep the lessons to a reasonable length (depending on the age of the student). A very young child might only spend ten minutes on math, while an older children can take twenty, or even thirty minutes on math in a day. Don't hesitate to spread a lesson or worksheet over a couple of days to keep within a short timeframe.
Math Games and Worksheets
These websites are fun and interesting for those who want to go deeper, but they are
not necessary. For crisis mode it is enough to keep the student from slipping back by playing easy arithmetic games with the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division):
MathFactCafe.com - clear and easy to use. You can generate math worksheets to print out and use, or use their online flashcard drill
Time for Time - clock games and quizzes for teaching the concept of time