Free eBooks and Other Freebies

A Thinking Love ebook from Simply Charlotte Mason

• Available from Simply Charlotte Mason this ebook is available in PDF, ePub and even Mobi (for Kindle!).  From the website: "It’s easy to give our children an indulgent love that caters to their every whim. Or a lazy love that follows the crowd and does what is easiest. But giving them a thinking love requires some effort."

NASA illustration

• How to Fly an Airplane (28 minutes!) & Rocketry Acceleration (mini lesson and videos- Slingshot Rocket) from Supercharged Science (Aurora Lipper). The lesson on flying an airplane is from a real flight instructor. The rocket lessons use simple materials that you probably have around the house. Short and fun :)

• That Printer of Udell's free PDF ebook. From Living Books Curriculum, this was a President's Day special, here is what Sheila Carroll says about this book in her email:

"That Printer of Udell's (an inspiring story)

Ronald Reagan's mother gave him this book to read at age 11. Reagan says that it inspired him to become an evangelical Christian and made a lasting impression on his life. After reading it, he felt convinced to become a Christian and was baptized in his mother's church. At age 66 Reagan said that the book "left an abiding belief in the triumph of good over evil."

That Printer of Udell's (1903) is a novel by Harold Bell Wright, who was a minister and later a writer. In his book he created a compelling story of Christian redemption that is still in print today.

The hero of the story, Dick Falkner, comes from a broken home. His father is alcoholic and as a result his mother is starving and ill. After both parents die, Dick goes to the Midwestern United States to take a job. A printer named George Udell hires Dick. Through a series of circumstances both of them decide to become Christians. Eventually Dick becomes a revered member of a Christian community due to his public speaking abilities and optimism. At the end of the book, Dick gets a political job in Washington, D.C."

• Free Resource of the Day (02/24/2011) from Learn Out Loud: The Future of Nuclear Energy by Andrew C. Kadak. (video) From the email sent by LOL: "Get ready for a great debate on the future of nuclear energy in America. Andrew Kadak is an MIT Professor of the Practice of Nuclear Engineering and he argues that in the face of global warming we need to face the "second inconvenient truth" that in order to deal with global warming all non-CO2 emitting energy sources must be used, including nuclear energy. Victor Reis was the Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Energy and he argues in favor of growing nuclear power with recycling in order to reduce nuclear waste."

Just one of the guides available

• And last but not least, here are 15 MORE Free Guides That Really Teach You USEFUL Stuff brought to us by Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators.  Facebook Privacy Guide, Automation Guide for MAC Users, A Dropbox Guide (which I've no real idea what is but sounds interesting- makes all your information/programs/files accessible to all your computers), Guide to USB Flashdrive, Windows 7 Ultimate Guide (I still have Vista...I'm resistant to change), Guide to Gmail, Wordpress and others.

Enjoy!

To Read ...Or Not to Read...that REALLY is the question!

I've been trying to get ready for our Christmas vacation and have been putting books onto my Kindle for reading on the drive and at times when I just can't take all the 'socializing' while at family's (lol yea, I'm an introvert by nature!). So I went to the Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg E-books in search of free books to occupy my time.

Has anyone else seen this catalog?!? It is packed with every book that Gutenberg has archived into an e-book. I think it is absolutely fantastic! Some of the books I've downloaded from there are:

Anne of.. Books

A Life of Gen. Robert E Lee

Grass of Parnassus

The Lost World

The Book of the Cat

The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise

The Battle of the Books and other Short Pieces

The Light Princess

The Land That Time Forgot

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

The Swiss Family Robinson

A Study in Scarlet

The Count of Monte Cristo

And that is just some of them. On my Kindle I have well over 150 books...and that doesn't count the ones in archive. I also have the complete works of Charlotte Mason (the six volume set). Of course books can be found for free from Amazon as well. Those are delivered wirelessly to my Kindle- no hassles :) 

Recently from Amazon I downloaded:

CK-12 Chemistry

The Game

In the Reign of Terror

Sidelights on Relativity

The Power of Movement in Plants

The Future of Astronomy

History of Astronomy

Personal Memoirs of Gen. Grant- Vol. 1

CK-12 Geometry

Sorry that I did not include links to each of these books that I've posted (that would take a bit more of my time than I have at the moment!) but it is easy to search either Gutenberg or Amazon, or both for these titles.

Oh! And for those times when I just can't read another word- in a book that is- I also have the games Every Word, Shuffled Row, and recently Black Jack *I deleted this one- I'm not into the gambling bit*. All were free. I love free :)

Alright! Now I know the answer is definitely TO READ! :) I hope that all have a great Christmas with family (however large or small) and remember what Christmas is truly about- Jesus Christ.  I will be 'gone' mostly for the next two weeks but may pop in occasionally, as I have reviews due.

Two Neat (to me anyway!) Finds

Projekt Gutenberg-DE

On one of the Yahoo! Groups I am a member of someone asked for help locating a Project Gutenberg similar site for books in German. Wow! What a great idea! So, without actually reading the responses, I went off on a search. It was a bit tricky to find. Finally, through a link at About.com the elusive Projekt Gutenberg-DE was located! Alas, I could have saved myself the searching, had I read the replies to the poster. It is in German but there is a vast collection here as at the English Project Gutenberg site. I thought it was an excellent find! My husband has some German in his bloodline (his family is very proud of their German heritage) and my ds just loves the idea of learning German.

Summer Fun Reading Program

The other 'find' was sent to my email some days ago and I just ignored it or something. I don't recall even seeing it honestly but today, one of the follow up emails caught my eye. I really should pay more attention! It is from the Homeschool Buyers Co-op (great, GREAT site!) and summer reading. They are putting on Summer Fun Month with great deals (they mean GREAT deals!), fun photography contests and reading program. The last one, the summer reading program is what caught my eye. It is based on your kids' reading times. Go to the record page and input the number of hours your child read on a certain day, the book(s)/author(s) and enter your email address. I think that the number of recorded hours is well over 9,000 now! There are prizes awarded randomly every week in June, July and August for a $15 gift certificate to Amazon, with a grand prize winner being drawn in September for an iPad. There is also a Reading Champion Certificate that will be available at the end of the summer for presenting to your child- with the number of hours AND the books read over the summer! I thought that was cool. My kids love 'awards'.

So those are my two 'finds' of the day. Perhaps more will find their way to me so that I can share with you :)

eReaders for the PC (and MAC)...Part 1, continued

Disclaimer: I am not paid or reimbursed for these 'reviews' and how-to's. I do them because I think they may be useful. I do not have a MAC computer, therefore I cannot vouch for the compatibility of these eReaders on MAC. The statement that they are compatible is based on the software claims. Enjoy!


So last post my Kindle for PC was downloading the book that I had just ordered (for free!) from amazon.com

I left it for a bit and did some other things. When I came back, here is what my Kindle looked like:



It automatically opens at the 'beginning' of the book, not necessarily where you want it to. You can find a different location of the book by clicking on Go To. A drop down menu will appear with your options. Some books will allow you to go to the Table of Contents, but this one unfortunately does not have that feature. If you click on Cover, that is exactly where it takes you.





You can turn the pages using your arrow keys, or placing the mouse cursor on the right or left of the page and clicking. For this book, a few 'pages' into it, there is a Table of Contents which are linked to the particular chapter in the book. Click on a chapter, and you're taken to the beginning of that chapter.





You probably can see that I have a larger screen on my computer and it spreads out the eReader quite a bit. I personally like to have the books I'm reading look more like, well, books. To do that, click on the Aa icon at the top of the eReader. From here you have the option of changing the size of font, the number of words per page, the color of the background (and if you choose black, then the font turns white), and the brightness of the page.





If you are not happy with your settings you can choose to reset it to the default setting. Also if you accidentally go to the wrong place in the book, click Back and it takes you to your last viewed page. One of the good things about the Back feature is that even if you scroll over a page or a few and then realize you are in the wrong spot, clicking Back takes you to the place you were before you turned any pages.

The Kindle for PC is a great eReader, in my opinion. It has some 'faults', such as the format the books are in to download them needs to be in one that it reads. If you go to Project Gutenberg and want to download an etext book to read on your Kindle for PC, as far as I know and have tried, you cannot read it on your Kindle for PC. In this case, you need to download it as a Mobi or MobiPocket format. The Kindle for PC will not read EPUB format.

eReaders for the PC (and MAC)...Part 1

Disclaimer: I am not paid or reimbursed for these 'reviews' and how-to's. I do them because I think they may be useful. I do not have a MAC computer, therefore I cannot vouch for the compatibility of these eReaders on MAC. The statement that they are compatible is based on the software claims. Enjoy!

If you use the AO curriculum, or OFE, or any other curriculum where your books are free but online, eReaders come in handy. You can print off the books but if money is an issue eReaders make it possible to view them in a much better way than just on the computer screen.

I am with those of you that say, "I would love one but they are too expensive right now." Not to brag ...but I was given a Kindle for my birthday...or I wouldn't have one either!

The internet is great, wouldn't you agree? But what if you can't find what you are searching for? That is where social networks (such as Yahoo! Groups, Google Groups, Facebook, MySpace *I don't/won't recommend that one very often*, email, support groups, etc) come in super handy! Some day I plan on compiling a list of groups and sites that are perfect for social networking for homeschoolers- yep, I'm partial to homeschoolers :)

This post however, is for a few eReaders for the PC that I have come across because of specifically my Yahoo! Groups. Those ladies are great! They can find anything!

First, is Kindle for PC. I have posted some about this before but nothing too in depth because I hadn't used it very much myself. The little clickable icon down there is for the Kindle to purchase but if you click on it and then scroll to the bottom of the page you can see the link to click for the Kindle for PC or MAC versions.

After you have downloaded the Kindle for PC it should look like the next screen (sort of!)

This is a very easy to use eReader. Here is a screenshot of my Kindle for PC. It has a lot of books on it right now!



If you click on Shop in Kindle Store in the upper right corner of the Kindle for PC, it will open Amazon.com in a window. From here you can either type in what you are looking for in the search bar or on the left sidebar are some more options. My favorite are the FREE books :)







To download a book to your Kindle for PC is so easy! Pick your book, click "Buy Now with 1-click". If you don't have an account and the information set up beforehand, then the screen you see will be a different one, prompting you to fill in the information required. If you do have all that taken care of, your book should be delivered practically immediately!





Once on the Kindle for PC, it may go to Archived Items. If the file is large it will most likely go here. The smaller ones usually show up on the Home screen almost immediately. I downloaded the Count of Monte Cristo and it went first to Archived Items.



I double clicked on the book in Archived to open it and as I suspected, it was still downloading.



Okay, that is all I have time for right now. I will post another to finish up with Kindle for PC and hopefully get to the other great downloadable eReaders as well :)