Getting my act together.

I spent the day sorting, filing, pitching and winnowing the books that fill my basement homeschool library. Partially because I CANT STAND the mess anymore, and also, to start pulling resources for our upcoming units. Mary Potter Kenyon states that "A personal home library is as important as access to a public library," and I totally agree. I love, love, love the fact that for (pretty much) any topic that strikes my kids' fancy (or mine, let's be honest here), I can jog down to the basement and pull at least one book that has something to do with the subject.

So while I'm on the subject of getting stuff ready, I'm also organizing my computer stuff as well. Our upcoming history unit is pre-history. Since most homeschool books on it are pretty sketchy on the subject, here is my growing website list. I'm making this list, in part, so that I can find these again as well.

1. Nova Evolution - Actually this might be all I need. There's loads here! There's an Evolution video series too. "Becoming Human" which our library has - score!

2. Becoming Human - This one is by the Institute of Human Origins (who knew there was such a thing??) It has lots of interactive things, plus lesson plans.

3. Human Origins - A really neat looking site by the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History. Pretty cool.

We'll also be doing a literature study of Boy of the Painted Cave. We've read this book before, and it is really a great read aloud. It gives lots of information of what life during that time before written history was like.