Taking the day off...

So we recently decided to have "fun" Friday's.  For seasoned HSer's you know what this is.  We play geography games, do outside activities, watch Edutainment video's.  Instead today we decided to have a "lazy" Thursday.  The kids are going to be kicking themselves tomorrow when they have to take a Spelling quiz, and study about the differences between   Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cells, but hey they out voted me.  I can usually count on the little one to be on my side.  That's okay I spent the day on the net and my favorite forum http://www.secularhomeschool.com/forum.php and found out about Khan Academy http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy?blend=1&ob=4#p/p  or http://www.khanacademy.org/
very cool!  It's a must see.  You can read an article that quotes Bill Gates expressing his positive views on Khan's video's here http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/technology/sal_khan_academy.fortune/index.htm . 
I would recommend them to the 11 and up crowd, unless you want to stop every few minutes and explain some of the terms.  Really great if you need to brush up on your Biology, or Algebra the night before you teach a lesson (yes I am speaking from experience).  My Alex is a very smart kid, (watches Mythbusters and Extreme Engineering for fun) so we are going to try them straight and see what he grasps.  

I am really liking http://www.ixl.com/ for math.  I'm going to try using it as "practice" instead of printing W.S.   We hate, hate, hate, math worksheets.  And they, especially Aubrey, really liked ixl.  It may get old after a couple months but it's easy to cancel or just take a break from.  What I really like about it is that it actually tells you which "standard's" each practice goes with.  Also ixl keeps really good track of progress.  Only issue you might have is that it does not teach them new material.  You have to explain new concepts, then put them to work. So some might balk at the $10 a month fee, just so you don't have to print a bazillion worksheets that never get done, because everyone ends up crying.  Oh is that just my house? 

Last on today's list my Usborne Internet Linked Books finally arrived today (free shipping takes sooooooo long!)  I have Encyclopedia of World History  and Science Encyclopedia.  I haven't had the time to more then glance through them yet.  I think it will be my weekend project.  Since any thought of going to the beach this holiday weekend is OUT.  Jase even took Tuesday off.  Stinkin' EARL!!!  So maybe Tuesday I can review them.  Then again, I am so far behind on my hulu shows I may just veg out in front of the TV for four days.