I'm Back With You! (and 3 new links!)

I've finally found my way back to this blog. Things have been rather challenging the past few months and I've really been debating on whether to continue homeschooling Monkey next fall. I discovered a knitting group on Friday evenings that helped me begin to get my personal issues sorted out (mostly by finally giving me a few hours every week that I could count on for de-stressing!) Happily one of the ladies in the group is a former teacher. She has been an invaluable resource for how to deal with my sometimes very frustrating 8yo. So now we have a new game plan and things seem to be going a little smoother.

One thing we have been working on is his typing skills. Since our biggest battles always centered around writing, I've decided to pretty much ditch hand writing things all together for now. Hence the need to learn to type. I did a search of the web and came up with some great online free typing lessons for kids, and tons of games. I will toss out a couple today and maybe some others soon. Though the first one is loaded with links of it's own.....

Typing Games 2 Help U is loaded with links to other websites with typing help. Most of them are directed at kids and free. Several different games to practice new typing skills are included. Our favorites for new typists are:

ABCya! This is a link to an exploded keyboard that needs to be put back together. Great for becoming familiar with what the keyboard looks like and where things are on it.

And Dance Mat Typing This link is a series of lessons that Monkey took to like a fish to water. It's a BBC site, so expect an accent that may take a little getting used to, but it's great. In under 30 min my 8yo son was confidently typing words using the homerow keys and propper finger placement. He didn't even have to check his fingers very often because the keys are pictured on the screen. It's loaded with fun graphics and music to incourage budding typists to have a good time while learning. I recommend this site to anyone who wants thier kids to learn to type.

That's it for today. I'll try to be back in a few days with some math links....