No, I did not forget that I promised to share the list of @PanKwake’s favorite ‘homeschooling’ resources. So, here goes…
iPad
Oh, yes, I know – those are expensive! Trust me, I get that. Her first one was a hand-me-down from her father. Her second was a re-conditioned one I bought, years before I met Alan. That was how valuable a tool and lifeline it had become. I used the gift certificate I had won in a writing contest, along with quite a bit of cash (at least when all you have is ‘benefits’) to buy it. Even now, in the best financial position of my life, we still purchase reconditioned ones.
Yes, I know that there are cheaper options – Android and Kindle. Perhaps if her first experience with a tablet had not been an iPad, one of those would have sufficed. But, honestly, iPads are better for a couple of reasons.
- Siri – is much more advanced than Echo or Google functions.
- Voice-to-text & Text-reader functions – even Alan admits that these are the best in the industry.
You rarely see @PanKwake without an iPad. She now has three. Yes, I realize how entitled that sounds. But we bought one when they upgraded their operating system. Some of her older games that she loved would be lost if we updated to the new IOS. So, she would have one for playing her old games and another for the new features. Then, I dropped and broke her ‘new’ one – cracked the bottom of the screen a bit. It is not as easy to replace those on the new models. So, we bought another one – with the intention of replacing that screen and donating it. But she refuses… even now to let that one go. ‘Just in case…’
If she is awake, she has one of them going. So I suppose having more than one is good. It allows them to recharge. Even when she is gaming on her computer, she uses her iPad to play YouTube videos for background noise. Which leads me to…
YouTube
Schools and educational ‘experts’ would be scandalized to hear @PanKwake. She is absolutely convinced that you can learn more and easier from YouTube than you can teachers or schools.
Yes, I realize the reputation of YouTube and I was skeptical at first too. I remember the morning I went in to check on her. She was on her up-all-night, sleep-all-day schedule. I made some comment about her getting enough sleep. She replied that brow-eyed people need on average two hours less sleep than blue-eyed people. I scoffed at that but she showed me a YouTube video on the topic of eye-color. Of course, as an engaged home education parent I could not have her believing such rubbish. So, I set out to disprove it. And I could not. That video was based on a scientific study, and while not all of it had been replicated, much of it had been. It was a pattern that was to be repeated until I have finally come to at least agree…YouTube videos are more reliable than you think.
Here are some of her favorites, mostly science and history…
This is the best science resource I have seen for children. In usually less than five-minutes, Minute Earth accurately and simply explains the most complex theories in a fun way. @PanKwake especially still prefers animated learning so they are ideal. Even if you return to school, this is the first place I would go for all those ‘Why does…’ questions that children come up with. Our parents might have needed to make up dumb reasons why the sky is blue, or promise we would look it up later (which they never did), but we have YouTube and Minute Earth for that.
Fuzzy & Nutz are a bit more morbid and for older children. You know once those questions start to take a turn to… ‘What would happen if…’ some gross thing happened. But the science facts are just as solid.
Are other animated science shows along those same lines that @PanKwake loves.
For some real-life and exciting life-action experiments, she loves…
Of course, it is not just science that she learns from YouTube.
Recently, @PanKwake has become fascinated with mythology, religion, and different cultures.
Linfamy is her favorite resource for all things Japanese.
For most of the others including Greek and Egyptian (her favorite), @PanKwake likes another well-recognized source TED-ed.
But this site has loads of information on all kinds of things.
Before I overload you with TMI (too much information), I’ll stop for today. It looks like I seriously underestimated how many resources @PanKwake had to share with ya’ll. I know there will be at least one more post, and likely two. As I have both her computer/gaming as well as her physical learning resources to share. So, it look likes this series on ‘homeschooling’ resources for schoolers will take a bit longer than I expected. Next time, we’ll look at her favorite non-technology based learning resources.
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 