Our latest resources to help homeschooling

New: kidcyber books for early readers

Each book is accompanied by a kidcyber companion booklet. Simply print and staple the pages for kids to respond to the text through writing, drawing, puzzles and quizzes.

Developing research skills, find out about inquiry learning

• The opportunity for many homeschooled students to follow their own unique interests and talents, further encouraged by visits to related sites, is an exciting one.

• Provide a space at home where your child can work and keep all their project materials, free from distractions.

• It is your child's project! Guide them as they plan each stage, help set realistic deadlines and set a date for the project to be finished.

• Help your child plan his or her study time so that project work will fit in with all the other activities in which they are involved.

• Help gather information:

  • Help your child 'brainstorm' ideas about what they want to find out about the topic, and then formulate questions that focus research. Sample generic questions to help them can be found here.

  • Help them find online information: enter keyword into search engine (sometimes add for kids to that) and help them find understandable websites, and assess their authority.

kidcyber has research booklets for early readers and for more experienced readers to work through and practice emerging research skills.

A good place to start is www.kidcyber.com.au

• Visit the library together, and help your child locate resources, borrow them.

• Help them to make phone calls, write letters, send email if required as sources of further information.

• Read the text to your child if they are having difficulty and need help. Discuss the text in the context of the question to be answered, and encourage your child to tell you what they think it means, then let them write down what they said.

• Read through your child's first draft, highlight the mistakes in spelling or grammar, and have them make the corrections. Talk about anything that doesn't make sense, or which seems to be inaccurate, and discuss how this might be corrected by the child.

Remember at all times: it is the child's project, not yours!

At kidcyber, we believe there should be guidelines as to what is expected in the way of presentation and projects.

Students can be taught and helped from Prep/K year with all the stages of a project, starting with posing research questions, effective searching for resources, making notes, writing drafts and eventually the final presentations. Generally the work can be presented as booklets, charts, written reports, oral presentations etc.  However, home schooling offers an opportunity for 'out of the box' thinking in the way of more creative presentations such as video making, power point or other electronic presentation, models, sculptures or other ideas related to the topic.  

You may also find the kidcyber WebQuests of use as a basis for some independent research and project. A web quest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which all or most of the information comes from the internet. Students are given a task and are provided with online information resources to assist in the completion of the task. The task can be for individual activity or as a collaborative exercise. Web quests are flexible in that they can be teacher led or independently worked through by students.

Compiling a Bibliography

Make sure your child acknowledges each source of information in a bibliography. It is a good skill to develop and they’ll need to be accustomed to doing bibliography as they progress. You may have a preferred format, but if not, kidcyber demonstrates one way to do it : an example can be found at the foot of each kidcyber page.

kidcyber also offers an Ask a kidcyber researcher! service where students or parents can request specific information about a topic, or request a specific topic.
There is a Contact Us link on each kidcyber page

Teaching a language?

Here’s a website that may be what you’re looking for: https://smartparentadvice.com/helping-child-learn-new-language/

Pre-schoolers

We are often asked about pre-schoolers: kidcyber content starts for readers of school age. We believe that play is an essential part of learning, having fun experiences (such as blowing bubbles, making things with home made play dough, cooking and so on) as well as following the child's interests in things around him/her. For example, planting seeds, going to the zoos, to the aquarium or to a museum all stimulate an enquiring mind. Talking about what we have seen and done is an essential part of that learning.

It is an enquiring mind and the enjoyment of activity that is the basis for any learning.

Read to them often.

Listen to a range of music.

But above all, play, and go out to stimulate their minds in the wider world!

When they ask questions, demonstrate the 'let's find out' model so they see that there are many ways to find answers, and that finding out/learning, can be fun.

Check out ABC Reading Eggs for online reading games and activities