middle school
Virtual Age- Dating: a free interactive tool that explains "carbon" dating
Virtual age-dating is an interactive tool that describes how geologists and archeologists are able to determine the age of samples. Aimed at high school level and above, but an interested middle school level child could grasp the concepts introduced with help. Students should be familiar with the concept of ions , percentages and how to read data off a graph to do the exercise. FWIW, I think the scale of some of the graphs are poorly chosen, and make it difficult to be as precise as the exercise requires; a per
Chinese Bug- free Mandarin language memorization tool
Chinese Bug is a program to help students of Mandarin memorize new vocabulary, both spoken and written. A large number of words is available, and you can easily customize the software to quiz you based on a word list you enter, or pre-loaded word lists to accompany any of 8 commercially available Mandarin programs. The interface works well and is easy to use.
Art-to-Go from the Baltimore Museum of Art (for all ages)
Every month in the school year the Baltimore Museum of Art picks a piece of art in their collection, writes up an art theory lesson for that piece, including an art project, and makes the lesson and a high quality photograph of the piece available for free download. This is the third school year they've done it, and the archives are freely available. The art they've chosen is stunning, and the projects tend to be managable at home, assuming you have or are willing to purchase materials when necessary. The collection includes art from a wide range of locations and time peri
Children's Poetry Archive
The children's section of the Poetry Archive section, this site features wonderful poems either written for children, or appealing to children. Most include a recording of the poem recited by the poet, and are serchable by keyword, author and form. Also includes biographies of the poets.
A fun site to browse with your kids, and a great way for non-readers to get to experience poetry.
Khan Academy- a goldmine of free math, science and economics videos
Khan academy is an amazing resource. It's a HUGE collection of videos, all featuring a smart man with a gift for clearly explaining the complex, carefully going through a wide range of topics, all clearly organized. There's everything from classic brain teasers, to arithmetic, to high school level math, including calculus and differential equations, to biology chemistry, physics, and economics. The graphics in the videos are fairly simple, and the tone is very friendly, conversational and often funny.
Mathematics Enhancement Programme- free curriculum for all ages
This is a complete mathematics curriculum available free online, including printable practice books, lesson plans, and copy masters. It was developed for the UK, and goes from "Reception", which seems to be analogous to kindergarten in the US, up through year 11 (similar to 11th grade). There are 2 versions of the 10-11th year curriculum, only one of which seems to be for college-bound students. The collegebound version includes guidance for customizing the curriculum for advanced students. The version of the 12th year intended for collegebound students is not
"Geography4kids.com" an introduction to physical geography
Physical Geography deals with Eartch Science and why the Earth is the way it is, it doesn't deal with political boundaries, or humanity much at all. Geography4kids is friendly, thorough website with lots of pictures that teaches about physical geography. Ideal for an enthusiastic upper elementary level student up through adults.
The Home Physics blog
Written by a contributor to GeekDad, this blog has lots to offer the homeschooler looking to investigate physics at home. Posts recount the authors experiments with his own children, explaining what worked and what didn't. His experiments generally use equipment you're likely to have on hand at home, or can purchase for a reasonable cost, and are appropriate for a large age-range-- younger kids can benefit from being exposed to the concepts while older/more advanced kids can use the experiments to understand more comple
"Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish" A free video course for high school
A description from the site:
World Maths Day 2010
The annual free online math competition is back! World Maths Day is an international competition open to all children from age 5 to 18, and is a great way to get competition-oriented kids to work their math skills.
The official competition is during a 48 hour period that includes March 3 worldwide, but kids can play head-to-head with children from all over the world anytime.
A description of the contest from the official website:
