The Anachronistic Mom's notes on:
Educational Software

I'm on some wonderful email lists for homeschoolers. Here are some of the online resources and websites referred by various homeschoolers.

Here's an article about homeschooling a visual spatial (aka "right-brained") learner.

Reading and Writing
Spelling City lets your child plug their spelling list in and turn memorizing it into a video game.

Time 4 Learning says that it's for visual-spatial learners. It's homeschool/after school learning that totally supports the standard curriculum, and you can track progress on it.Sunburst has a program to teach young people how to type: Write to Learn.

Here is a list of mind mapping software from a UK dealer. If you're from the US, you should search for these products in the US. 

Here's a really fun "word mapping" service called Wordle.  And here is how a teacher uses it to have her students write poems.

From the UK (a big dyslexia place) Wordshark and Numbershark

Word Construction Set

Math
Numerancy has a set of software programs for dyslexic learners to learn math.

When I was in fourth grade, my wonderful fourth grade teacher, Miss Ashmore, played records for us every day, with the times table on them.   It worked like a charm.  Here is the 2008 version musical math times tables!

Have you ever heard of a 100's chart?  The 100s chart can be a wonderful tool for visual-spatial kids. Begin by doing some addition on the chart with your child--problems she can do easily already. Show her that when you add 2 you move to the right 2. Make sure she knows how to get from one row to the next, for example do 38+5. Place a finger at 38 and make 5 steps/hops to the right which will take you to the next row in the process. Next do additions with double digits. Take 21 +13. Place your finger at 21. For each hop of ten, you can just move straight down. Then move to the right 3 places. This will take some practice before she sees that each 10 moves you straight down. I would then attempt to do some simple subtraction, whatever she already fully understands. Of course with subtraction she will be moving to the left (backward from how we read and then up for each 10 that is subtracted, ultimately).

You can also do skip counting easily on the 100s chart. Count by 10s or count by 2s.

Math on the level lets you teach it yourself, only has 5 problems a day, and teaches through real life instead of  textbooks.  There is a yahoogroup for support of it.  Look for  Math on the Level at Yahoogroups.

Sunshine math has been recommended, particularly for right-brained children.  It uses a lot of  higher-level thinking when solving math problems, and it's free.  The site contains all worksheets and all teacher commentary. Very nice.

Life of Fred sounds absolutely wonderful.  Go onto the website and check it out.  It's math, but fun.  The first one is about Fred, who is 5 and needs to use fractions.  Read the examples.  I am going to go and buy this today! 

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is interesting for math concepts.

And here's a math manipulatives set that's often used by homeschoolers.

Science
If you have an advanced student who need a science lab, these folks can help.

Look at this product called Phun. It's a 2D physics sandbox, and exactly what I've been looking for for years!

There's another product called Roblox, which is great for kids who like to build things. Kind of a precursor to programming. It's an online community, with what looks like fairly stringent guidelines and monitoring to keep the kids safe.