Page Contents: Guides | Example Topics
You can use the library and an encyclopedia to make many of the lessons for social studies, geography, science, health and some language arts. I am guessing that many of you have at least 2 encyclopedias on cd-rom and perhaps one old used encyclopedia set. Even if you do not have a set of books, you can probably check out the ones that you need from your public library.
A guide may be the only other thing that you need to plan a series of lessons. Some guides are:
History/Social Studies
- Around the World in 180 Days
- Guides to History Plus by Kathryn Stout
- Let the Authors Speak by Carolyn Hatcher
Science
- Science Scope by Kathryn Stout
Scope and Sequence Guides:
- Home-Schoolers Complete Reference Guide by Kay Millow (k-6)
- What Your Child Needs to Know When: An Evaluation Checklist for Grades K-8
World Book's Standards
For your convenience, I have linked World Book standards. You will see an example of a list of basic subject and the objectives of each subject.
Pre · K · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12
Links are set to open in a new window.
Encyclopedia Research Guides
The best place to start is the Research Guide that comes with the encyclopedia. We have several World Book Encyclopedias and one Britannica encyclopedias, they are all old sets that I bought at the library (I inherited one set). Fortunately three of them included the research guide books. If you don't have the research guide book, use the one at the library even if it does not go with the encyclopedia set that you have.
To use the research guide, choose a topic like nutrition for example. Look up nutrition in the research guide and it usually will have a list of articles that are about nutrition. Choose the articles that apply to the goals that you have set for the series of lessons.
If you wish to teach your 3rd grader about dental health, look up teeth in the research guide and you should find one or more articles listed about that topic. If you have the World Book encyclopedia, then you will find that they have a Reading and a Study Guide on Teeth.
Using the World Book Encyclopedia on cd-rom
(or almost any brand of encyclopedia)
I have the World Book 1999 Deluxe Cd-Roms. It is just like the printed 1999 books except the cd-roms may not have every single picture. The cd-roms do have an appealing advantage --- multimedia! It has cultural music clips, counting and greetings in many different languages, movies, interactive things, and a zoo! There're timelines too! I can make quizzes for the children and there's a research paper helper that we've not figured out. :)
Topics
To learn a bit about communities you can look up topics such as:
- Family (and the many articles of families across the world)
- Marriage
- City Planning
- City (be sure to look up ancient cities too)
- Road
- Transportation
- Farm and Farming
- Rural
- Electric Power
- Poverty
- Building Construction
- Park
- Sanitation
- Waste disposal
- L'Enfant, Pierre Charles
- Be sure to search for cultural music too! And how to count and say hello in many languages.
Health Topics
- Posture
- Health
- Disease (selected parts)
- Epidemic
- Baby
- Bath
- Diet
- Fat
- Fatigue
- Food
- Growth
- Human body (and related articles, such as ears and eyes...)
- Nutrition
- Physical fitness
- Sleep
- Stress
- Teeth
Health Biographies
- Barton, Clara
- Curie, Marie Sklodowska
- Dix, Dorothea Lynde
- Fleming, Sir Alexander
- Galen (He discovered that the arteries contain blood.)
And there's much more, just get that cd-rom out and look them up! :)
