In the shadow of the Great Sand Dunes National Park is peaceful San Luis State Park and Wildlife Area. Waterfowl, shorebirds, songbirds and raptors fill the sky over this unique desert ecosystem, making San Luis an outstanding watchable wildlife area most of the year.

The Denver Firefighters Museum is located in an historic firehouse, built in 1909. The collection includes firefighting equipment dating back to the days when horses provided the locomotion. Learn all about the games that firefighters used to hone their skills, the big Denver fires that they have fought, and how trained horses and dogs helped the firefighting effort. Try on a firefighter's uniform and visit the gift shop, which offers many hard-to-find firefighting memorabilia and souvenirs.

A branch of the Boulder Public Library, this facility houses a collection of over 200,000 photographs and 700,000 historic documents and is is available to the public and researchers.

Nestled along the Front Range in scenic Colorado Springs you will find the Western Museum of Mining and Industry (WMMI). Among the museum's attractions, you will find mining artifacts, a 12,000 volume research library available by appointment, a museum store and historic machinery that actually works. WMMI, is a nonprofit educational museum dedicated to preserving the West's mining heritage.

Miles of trails winding through ancient and interesting local history, and spectacular scenery provide visitors and nature enthusiasts with great outdoor exploration opportunities. Area attractions like the former mining town of Trinidad with its colorful history make great side trips.

The Boulder Historical Society and Museum was founded in 1944 Now called the Boulder History Museum, it exhibits artifacts from a collection of over 30,000 objects of historical significance.

Explore the Baca House, Bloom Mansion, historic gardens, and learn more about the Santa Fe Trail. Ongoing exhibits document the history and culture of southern Colorado from the Santa Fe Trail period through the 1920s.

The Phoenix mine is operated by the oldest continuous gold mining family in Colorado, Al and Dave Mosch. It is a working gold mine where miners actually do the work. Take a guided tour of the mine and then do some actual panning for gold in the stream. There is also an area to picnic. This tour has a fee associated with it. Panning is included in the cost of the tour and you may keep any gold that you find in the stream while panning.

The Telluride Historical Museum provides a rich and compelling experience to visitors, offers learning opportunities, and encourages a deeper understanding of our past -- all by exploring the events, artifacts, and personal accounts of Telluride's cultural heritage. he mission of the Telluride Historical Museum is to preserve the rich, colorful and diverse history of the region and to bring history to life through exhibits, programs and education.

Whether you’re an old-timer or first-timer, the Dorsey Museum in Estes Park has something for you. Housed in a 1924 guest lodge, the museum features several period room settings and display galleries. There is also a 1905 log tourist cabin and two-bedroom cabin depicting accommodations from 1949. Admission is free.

The University of Colorado Museum of Natural History is an academic unit of the Graduate School at the University of Colorado at Boulder with a mission to contribute to knowledge of the natural world and the humanities through research, teaching, and public education. The Museum's collections number more than four million objects in anthropology/archaeology, botany, entomology, paleontology, vertebrates and invertebrates. The University of Colorado Museum offers a wide variety of K-12 and adult ...

The County of Denver maintains this buffalo herd about twenty miles west of the city. The bison are direct descendants of the last wild herd of bison in the U.S. They all came from a herd of 7 bison brought from Yellowstone National Park in 1914. The bison herd can be seen from I-70 when heading west into the mountains on the right right side of the road.

Colorado National Monument preserves one of the grand landscapes of the American West. Sheer-walled canyons, towering monoliths, colorful formations, desert bighorn sheep, soaring eagles, and a spectacular road reflect the environment and history of the plateau-and-canyon country. Historic Rim Rock Drive offers 23 miles of breathtaking panoramic views and numerous overlooks. Trails lead across mesa tops and to spectacular overlooks or into backcountry canyons. Picnicking and camping are availabl...

In 1997, the Stanley Museum was invited to The Stanley Hotel to set up museum exhibits and to manage the historic tours of the Hotel and has become an important extension of the original Stanley Museum. Over the years the Museum has attracted a worldwide membership while fulfilling its mission to tell the Stanley story.

A beautiful mountain valley just west of Pikes Peak holds spectacular remnants of the earth's prehistoric life. Huge petrified redwoods and incredibly detailed fossils of ancient insects and plants reveal a very different Colorado of long ago. Almost 35 million years ago, enormous volcanic eruptions buried the then-lush valley and petrified the redwood trees that grew there. A lake formed in the valley and the fine-grained sediments at its bottom became the final resting-place for thousands of i...

Reading Made Easy is a phonics-based program, featuring 108 easy lessons, designed to be taught in less than 30 minutes per day. It is fully scripted and has original Christian content and stories. Includes hands-on writing and drawing activities. Reading Made Easy can be purchased here.

Shurley English maintains that effective instruction in English must be founded upon an understanding of how the parts of speech work together in a sentence. A good grammar foundation gives students the skills to improve writing. Grammar is the structure of sentence composition. Through grammar, students learn how to write, improve, and expand sentences. After they have an understanding of sentence structure, students are then able to combine sentences successfully into paragraphs, essays, and reports. For product information on Phonics Pathways, click here or visit their website.

Perrine's Sound and Sense is a fantastic book for studying poetry with your children. It is a great resource for high school students. It includes clear and thorough explanations of devices, forms, how to analyze poetry, and more, as well as a huge variety of poems, both classic and contemporary.

Grades K-4. Each 120 page book contains worksheets and has selected activities that cover the major math standards. Each page outlines the grade level, materials needed, settings, learning experiences, and are based on NCTM Standards.

A Reason For® Spelling combines the latest research on how children learn to spell with all the strengths of traditional programs. It teaches highfrequency base words, plus hundreds of other word forms. Values-based stories set the theme each week and help make spelling fun. You'll find product information about A Reason For® Spelling here.

Grades 2-5. Idea Book designed for use with Cuisenaire Rods.

For the Good of the Earth and Sun is for teachers at all levels, especially for those teachers who feel anxious about introducing poetry to students. Georgia Heard offers a method of teaching poetry that respects the intelligence of students and teachers and that can build upon their basic originality. She explores poetry from the inside as it is: a powerful and necessary way of looking at the world, and one of mankind's most durable inventions. Her book provides detailed, organized information so that teachers themselves can begin to enjoy and feel knowledgeable about poetry, and, from there, pass those feelings on to their students. The author's text is supplemented by examples of students' work in original and draft form.

Beautiful Feet Books publishes Rea Berg's "History Through Literature" study guides. They offer fine children's literature, including the D'Aulaire biographies and Genevieve Foster's "World" titles. This is a great resource for anyone wishing to utilize an approach that studies history through literature.

This teacher's manual, written by a homeschool educator with experience as a professional school teacher and private tutor, shows how to teach reading the "write" way. By phonetically teaching spelling from the start as the backbone for reading, all children can be taught, regardless of learning styles, to read and spell. If your student knows how to read already, this program can improve his or her spelling. Find out more about this product here.

Happy Phonics uses games to teach early reading skills. Simple yet entertaining and educational, these phonics games are printed on colorful, sturdy cardstock ready to cut out. Included is a mother-friendly guidebook which contains details on how to teach phonics and reading, how to pronounce and teach the phonics sounds, how to make your own simple beginning readers, and step-by-step teaching information for each phonics sound. Happy Phonics covers beginning to advanced phonics.

MCP PLAID Phonics from Modern Curriculum Press incorporates best practices for teaching essential phonemic awareness and phonics skills with lots of flexibility. Find information on these products here.

Phonics Pathways begins with short-vowel sounds, slowly progressing to whole words, phrases, and sentences of gradually increasing complexity. Special teaching tips, extensive examples, and 100% decodable practice readings reinforce each lesson. Contains all spelling rules with a spelling index, spelling charts, spelling short-cuts, diacritical markings, and a wealth of inspirational proverbs. The new 9th edition of Phonics Pathways features many new enhancements including a wealth of reproducible games, a step-by-step spelling guide, teacher/student record sheets, a Dewey-the-Bookworm Bookmark and a new carefully-researched appendix detailing how Phonics Pathways aligns with most State Standards. Supplements to this program include The Train Game (to teach letter sounds), WordWorks (a set of cards used to reinforce phonics reading skills), and Blendit! (a set of eleven board games that reinforces knowledge of specific begining spelling patterns). For product information on Phonics Pathways, click here or visit their website.

This is the historic text (originally called the Blue-Backed Speller) that has been updated to teach phonics/beginning reading. The blends and words in this reader are arranged to correlate with the sequence in which the special phonics sounds are taught. This reader is an invaluable teaching tool for children who need extra practice in the application of phonics rules. Find out more here.

At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child offers a balanced approach with intensive phonics and literature-based reading instruction. This is a simple method of teaching reading, with lots of supplemental materials. Get product information here.

Montessori Reading is a beginning reading and writing program for elementary aged children. This series of books introduce phonetic letter sounds, phonogram combinations, reading simple sentences, and reading and writing words that name everyday objects, animals, etc. A teaching guide and a child's journal are included.

Explode The Code provides a sequential, systematic approach to phonics in which students blend sounds to build vocabulary and read words, phrases, sentences, and stories. Frequent review of previously learned concepts helps increase retention. Each workbook in this series contains exercises that incorporate reading, writing, matching and copying. The consistent format of the books helps facilitate independent work. This series includes primers—Get Ready for The Code, Get Set for The Code, and Go for The Code—which introduce initial consonant sounds. In addition, Beyond The Code provides a comprehension component introducing basic comprehension skills with phonetically controlled stories. You'll find product information here.

Alpha Phonics is a primer for beginning readers. It features 128 self-explanatory lessons, printed in large, clear calligraphy suitable for beginning readers. You'll find product information about Alpha-Phonics here.

Drawn Into the Heart of Reading was developed for use with students of multiple ages at the same time, perfect for the homeschooling family. It is designed for use as an entire reading program or as a supplement to an existing program for students in grades 2-8.