Heart Disease – Heart healthy – you may hear these terms and think of them for others, maybe even your husband. I know I do. But do you ever stop and think about how they relate to you?

Are you taking care of your heart?

February is American Heart Month, and that relates to us women as well, especially those of us who tend to put aside our own health needs while we are taking care of our families and our work.

 Heart Disease is the biggest cause of death in women in the United States – bigger than even breast cancer.

I’ve written before on the importance of taking care of you, and how not taking care of my own health while balancing work and family has caused problems. But are you taking it to heart?

In Dec of 2008, a dear friend, a fellow homeschooling, work-at-home mom, had a heart attack. Ever since, she’s struggled to regain her health and her life.

She’s spent more time in hospitals than at home, her young daughter (who is a year old than Little E) has stopped homeschooling and is going to a public charter school and she’s been bounced around between home, friends, and family while her mom works hard at becoming healthy again.

Heart disease in women is very real. Are you taking care of your heart?  What would happen to your family if you had a heart attack?  Sometimes waiting to take care of your heart until you are in my friend’s condition is just too late.

This month, I encourage you to take some time and evaluate your own heart health. I’ll be sharing some free heart-healthy cookbooks throughout the month.  But to get you started, here’s two free resources to learn more about heart disease in Women and help you evaluate your risks.

The Heart Truth for Women: An Action Plan – a 4 page e-pamphlet from the National Institute of Health that covers:

• What is Heart Disease
• What factors increase your risk of heart disease 
• What steps you can take to prevent heart disease
• Additional resources for overcoming the risk factors

 The Healthy Heart Handbook for Women – a 127 page ebook from the National Institute for Health that covers:

• What is Heart Disease
• How Heart Disease impacts Women specifically
• What Are the Risks of Heart Disease
• How other factors, like birth control pills and menopausal hormone therapy, impacts your heart health
• How to evaluate your own risk for heart disease
• How to prevent heart disease
• How to get help if you think you concerned about your heart

Please remember, it’s not selfish to take care of you. Doing so helps your family in the long run.

Because I care about you…

…Shannon

If you are studying biology this year like we are, here’s a great way to reinforce those biology facts – with biology songs. 

Songs for Teaching has a whole page of biology songs to help reinforce those biology facts.

If you click on a song link, it’ll take you to a page that gives you the option to listen to the biology song and gives you the song lyrics written out.

There is also an option to buy the download or CD, so if you are having younger kids access the site, you may want to instruct them as to which button to click to listen to the songs.

The science songs page also include numerous biology-related songs, including life sciences, botany, and human physiology (anatomy).

As my daughter is on a mission to do a full year’s worth of high school biology in 2 months, we’re always on the look out for activities that reinforce her learning outside of the biology text book. You can bet, this site is going to be on her to-d0 list for next week!

Many thanks to Karri Fieglin for sharing this resource!

Step 3 in my 6 Steps to Ensure Your Homeschool Can Survive A Financial Crisis is to look at Free, Nearly Free, or low-cost curriculum choices to see if you can use an alterative if your homeschool budget is significantly reduced or evaporates althogether.

Here are three free homeschool curriculums worth looking at. If you like lesson plans or schedules to help guide your path, all three of these offer free lesson plans – either daily, weekly. And each have active communities of homeschoolers who are using the curriculums.

1. Ambleside Online

Using a combination of free public domain materials and resources you’ll need to purchase or borrow, Ambleside Online provides a full curriculum for k-12 in Charlotte Mason style.  Striving to create a free curriculum that Charlotte Mason herself would use, the volunteers at Ambleside Online have put together a full, robust homeschool curriculum.
 
The homeschoolers who use Ambleside Online are very generous with their knowledge and in helping bring more and more free resources online to implement a Charlotte Mason style homeschool. You’ll find a wealth of knowledge here, if you are interested in literature-based or Charlotte Mason-style curriculum.

If you are not familiar with Charlotte Mason and her teachings, I recommend reading Ambleside Online’s Introduction to Charlotte Mason and either Charlotte Mason’s original writings (available free on Ambleside Online) or a copy of A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning by Karen Andreola.

Note: Ambleside Online is primarily a Christain homeschool curriculum, but because it is literature- and nature study- based, it is also easy for the secular homeschooler to adapt.

2. An Old Fashioned Education

An Old Fashioned Education is a free homeschool curriculum based on classic public domain literature and text books. The entire curriculum was developed by Miss Maggie, the founder of Hillbilly Housewife (one of my favorite frugal cooking sites), for her boys, after she discovered Ambleside Online wasn’t structured enough for her family.

Even if you don’t use the full curriculum, Miss Maggie has pre-screened, categorized, and links an amazing amount of free literature and public domain textbooks, making the site a wonderful reference on where to find free books for your homeschool.

The 3RHomeschooling yahoo group provides excellent support for those using An Old Fashioned Education, as well as other literature-based curriculum. Again, the members are as generous in their knowledge as Miss Maggie was in putting together this curriculum and ensuring it remains free.

Note: An Old Fashioned Education is a Christain homeschool curriculum, that uses books with a strong moral focus. However the secular homeschooler will also find the site useful in finding free homeschool curriculum and classic literature in public domain.

3. Simply Charlotte Mason

SimplyCharlotteMason.com is another free homeschool curriculum for those looking for a Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool. Like Ambleside Online, this curriculum uses both free public domain litature and more contemporary resources that you will need to purchase or borrow. There is a free Curriculum Guide for Grades 1-12, and suggested resources for each subject by grade.

There’s a Community Forum for this site, where you can get support and questions answered. Also the two families who designed this curriculum give workshops.

This site is more commerical than Ambleside Online and An Old Fashioned Education. The site owners sell items on the site and their Charlotte Mason (“living book”) book finder does link to Amazon. But the curriculum and many of the resources are free or are available free from public domain sites. One special freebie unique to this site is the Book of Centuries - a free, downloadable pdf file that allows you to put together a history timeline notebook.

Note: Simply Charlotte Mason is also a free Christain homeschool curriculum, but like the other two, it can be adapted by the secular homeschooler by eliminating certain resources.

Next week, I’ll share more free homeschool resources, as this series on ensuring your homeschool can endure a financial crisis continues.  In the meantime, if you have experience using one of these curriculums or know of another free, full homeschool curriculum besides these three, please share in the comments below.

Thanks!

…Shannon

P.S. In case you are curious, I’ve tested out An Old Fashioned Education, and use it as an additional resource when looking for free living books for our homeschool.

Lately, my 7 year old is really into how things are made. Today’s question was “How is a Light Bulb Made?” And so we headed over to Google’s Video search to see if there was anything good available.

Here are two 5 min. videos that pulled not only my 7 year old’s attention but also that of his older siblings. One is for an incandescent light bulb and the other for a flourescent bulb. Enjoy!

…Shannon

How An Incandescent Light Bulb is Made

How A Flourescent Light Bulb is Made

I have been really happy with our core elementary math curriculum. It’s off the beaten path, as far as homeschool math curriculum goes, but I’ve liked it.  But sometimes, the kids need a little extra practice, before moving on to the next thing, and so I turn to one of my favorite free online resources: www.themathworksheetsite.com

This site is wonderful. It was created by a homeschool dad for his own family’s use, and  has very generously shared the tools with the rest of us. I have used this site for years, with all of my children.  Right at this very moment, I’m printing off a Multiplication worksheet for my 9 year old son and two Hundreds charts for my 5 and 6 year olds.

The hundreds chart has been an excellent tool for learning to count and for skip counting. I print out as many as I need and have them color whatever we are learning. (For example, to learn to count by 10s, I have them color the 10′s row. To learn to count by 2s, they color every other number (evens). etc.)

The worksheet generator for each of the operations allows me to print out custom worksheets that cover the exact areas that the kids are having trouble with. For example, Josh (my 9 year old) had some difficulty learning the 7x and 8x tables.  Extra worksheets that just covered those helped him practice more. 

To teach telling time, I’ve exclusively used the worksheets provided on this site, coupled with a manipulative clock. So far, all four of the children have either learned to tell time this way or in case of my 5 year old, is learning to tell time.

I also like the 5 minute drill worksheets. Not as five minute drills, but as a tool to figure out what the kids really know and and how well. I’ve been surprised – both positively and negatively using these tools.

Anyway, if you are looking for some math worksheet supplements, this is a great free website.  There is a subscription area, and frankly I’ve not had a need for it yet. But the free side… well that I use on a regular basis.

And, as a side note, their blog has this great article on how it is to run an at-home business, homeschooling, and try to appear professional on the phone. I could totally relate to this one, and you might too…

Enjoy.

…Shannon