Five Great Homeschool Resources, Especially for Kinesthetic Learners

So we've started homeschooling this year and I have found some resources that are so helpful, especially for kinesthetic learners.

1. The Singing Walrus. This is a channel on YouTube. It has songs for all kinds of subjects. My daughter loves dancing around the room. If we have a subject we are studying, I can often find a song here and play it for her. For example, our subject this week is apples. I found a fruit song on The Singing Walrus' channel that also teaches the days of the week. She loved it. There are also "find the letter in a picture" videos for each letter of the alphabet and videos that teach how to write each letter. Writing is a challenge for my daughter and it helps to have another way to show her how to write a letter than me telling her.

2. Have Fun Teaching. This is another channel on YouTube. It has videos on a variety of subjects, including numbers and letters. There is a song for each letter and my daughter is so excited every time we play one of the letter songs. The songs teach the sounds of letters and how to write upper and lower case letters. The music is also catchy. My kinesthetic daughter totally gets into these songs.

3. The Dr. Binocs Show. Another YouTube channel, this one presents science subjects taught by a blob with a mustache that has hands. My daughter thinks its hysterical. The subjects are taught at a good pace, slowly enough that a kindergartener can understand. And for me, these short videos explain science subjects more thoroughly than I could.

4. Cut, Color, Trace & Paste Rebus Stories. This book has increased my daughter's desire to learn to read. When we first started learning to read, we were reading BOB books and she hated sitting down to read them. I found this resource book on clearance at Mardel and loved the concept. It contains mini books, each incorporating a few sight words. We learn the sight words for a story during a unit and at the end of a unit, we create a mini book. The mini books are four pages each and contain sight words and empty spaces where you glue rebus pictures for other words. This takes the pressure off my daughter as she is not faced with what to her is an imposing amount of text. She also gets to use her tactile bent to cut the pictures out and glue them in the story. Each sight word is also dotted so it is traced. She actually says excitedly after we finish putting together a book, "Can I read it?!" I am so glad I found this resource. It takes the intimidation out of reading.

5. Hugg-a-Planet Globe. To me, this is the perfect geography tool. We have used it so many times. It's a squishy pillow globe. This means it is easy to store since it is not hard. My daughter keeps it in her bed and loves her earth.