Everyday Mysteries

Who invented electric Christmas lights? The Library of Congress sponsors the fascinating Everyday Mysteries collection: Did you ever wonder why a camel has a hump? If you can really tell the weather by listening to the chirp of a cricket? Or why our joints make popping sounds? These questions deal with everyday phenomena that we often take for granted, but each can be explained scientifically. Everyday Mysteries will help you get the answers to these and many other of life’s most interesting questions through scientific inquiry, asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library’s Science Reference Services. In addition, it will introduce you to the Library of Congress’ rich collections in science and technology.

Everyday Mysteries

Animated Engines

Animated Engines offers fun and functioning illustrations which explain the inner workings of a variety of engines such as four stroke, diesel, jet propulsion, oscillating steam, ross yoke stirling and others you may never have heard of, and includes a fascinating look at how the animations were created in the how-to section of the site for those who are either just interested in how they’re made, or would like to try their own hand at designing an animation: “If there are spoked wheels or gears in your drawing, be extra careful with the number of frames you choose, or the parts might appear to be rotating too fast, two slow, or backwards—like wagon wheels in an old western movie. My solution is to make sure the gears rotate exactly 1/2 tooth (or some odd multiple) per frame.”

Animated Engines

AwesomeStories.com

AwesomeStories.com: The Story Place of the Web uniquely uses the Internet to link its story content to hundreds of thousands of the world’s best on-line primary sources. Enjoy an interactive learning experience as you see relevant maps, pictures, videos, artifacts, manuscripts and documents, in context, within each story. Take advantage of human-based searches for a safe, fast and fun way to learn the real story behind historic events, famous people, heroic exploits, legends, disasters, movies, plus topics of current and general interest. When you become a member of Awesome Stories … You can see everything on the site (including an extensive image data base), explore all its features (including narrated stories), dig deeper (with lesson plans and text documents) and hear from Awesome Stories once a month (with a newsletter profiling current events and hot topics). Join the site today. It’s all free!

AwesomeStories.com

Xtranormal: Text-to-movies

Do your homeschoolers have visions of becoming movie directors? Xtranormal’s Text-to-Movie site provides stock backgrounds, characters, soundtracks and movements that you string together to create your animated movie clip. Type what you want your character to say and you can even select what language he says it in – great for homeschoolers studying foreign languages! Check out this free site which puts anyone in the director’s chair. The developers state: xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century. Our revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill—typing. You type something; we turn it into a movie. On the web and on the desktop.

Xtranormal: Text-to-movies

Eclectic Homeschool Online

Eclectic Homeschool Online is an outsdtanding web site which provides resources and assistance that allows homeschoolers to homeschool their children in a manner that suits each individual child’s needs and gifts. Their resource collection lists close to 3,000 reviews which you can search or browse by category. Eclectic Homeschool Lite is a companion site which offers resources and assistance for those just starting homeschooling or thinking about it, and will help sift through the huge array of curriculum and resources available. Happy homeschooling!

Eclectic Homeschool Online

USA Geography Quiz

Can you find all 50 states on a map? Can your kids? This fun geography quiz asks you to identify each state, awarding three points for each right answer for a total possible score of 150; each question is given three tries. Give it a try and see how many states you can locate!

USA Geography Quiz

Best Homeschooling

Lillian Jones’ Best Homeschooling and Homeschooling Gateway to the Internet is a treasure trove of information, great reading, and almost limitless resources for homeschooling – a one-stop cornucopia with no pesky ads or affiliate links to clutter up your reading. Hundreds of favorite links to free homeschooling resources and information about learning and teaching, curriculum, freebies, printable learning materials, reading and language arts, history, arts, geography, mythology, college and career information, help for special challenges, educational games and puzzles, long distance learning, tools for Internet research, preschool and kindergarten learning activities, articles on teens and high school, college, careers, and so much more – truly one of the greatest sites for homeschooling on the Internet, and rightfully named Best Homeschooling!

Best Homeschooling

Science Projects

This school-oriented but homeschool-helpful site offers a listing of ideas for elementary, middle, and high school Science Fair Projects – experiments involving everything from plants to X-ray machines – with useful links and hot tips on how to prepare science experiments. They have hundreds of ideas for every science topic, from Astronomy to Zoology, all 100% Free!

Science Projects

Free Kids Music

The wonderful folks at Free Kids Music have gotten together a bunch of quality children’s music artists to share some of their great music for free. These are complete songs, not edited versions. And they are high quality…not poor quality versions designed to tease you into buying an album. All the music downloads for kids you’ll find on this site are FREE: listen, download, play them on your computer, or burn them to a personal CD for boombox or car listening (of course, you can’t copy and re-sell them to others…).

Free Kids Music

CoolMath

Coolmath.com is a one-stop math shop for middle and high school students, and also has a helpful section for parents. Math teacher Karen Lyn Davis has run this award-winning site since 1997 as an aid to helping kids of all ages learn to enjoy math. The online math dictionary and calculators can help teach basic math concepts, including algebra and geometry. There are sections for math practice, math-related games, a math dictionary, and links to companion sites for younger kids and teens.

CoolMath