Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2013 · Last modified April 6, 2016
It has been ages and ages since I’ve written about ED’s math activities. A lot of ED’s math happens naturally over the course of the day — counting objects in a picture book, counting by 2s, 5s and 10s when we brush teeth and do dental floss, counting money together, looking at numbers at the store, in books, etc. Numbers are a part of daily life and we take advantage...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Freebies / Holiday: St. Patrick's Day / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 10, 2013 · Last modified March 1, 2017
I made these game boards for ED. It’s a race to 50 (or a race to 100). Print out one game board for each player. The players take turns rolling the die (use a 20-sided die in the race to 100) and covering the squares on their game board with tokens. The first to cover their entire game board wins the game. You can download these free: St Patricks Day...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Holiday: St. Patrick's Day / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2013 · Last modified February 17, 2016
This activity was a huge hit with ED this past week. I chose some words from ED’s phonics readers and wrote them out on some shamrocks and taped them on popcycle sticks. I covered an empty cereal box with construction paper and wrote the words out on the box as well and used a knife to create a slit for the Popsicle sticks. I sat with ED each time she...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading / Science: Dinosaurs Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 25, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
A couple of week or so ago I highlighted 14 picture books my girls have been enjoying lately. Today I thought I’d share a few of the chapter books we are enjoying. Each day during lunch I read a chapter from Chronicle of Narnia. Last week we finally finished The Horse and His Boy (affiliate link) and loved every minute of it! It seems that everyone knows and talks about The...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Earth Science Unit / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 14, 2013 · Last modified April 23, 2021
Here’s another freebie from our Rocks and Minerals Unit: Free Printable Montessori 3-Part Cards on Famous Rocks Around the World! If your students are studying Rocks and Minerals they might enjoy this activity about Famous Rocks Around the World! This set includes the Sphinx, Stonehenge, Mt. Rushmore, Uluru, Arches, the Rock of Gibraltar and others. Hope you find these helpful. 🙂 Have a great day! ~Liesl Famous Rocks Around the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 11, 2013 · Last modified March 1, 2021
Are you studying Rocks and Minerals?! This post has a free packet, great for supplementing your Rocks and Minerals Unit. Find out more below! And be sure to check out the links to some of the fun hands-on activities we did while studying sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks. We wrapped our chemistry unit and spent a few weeks on vertebrates and invertebrates. It was time to tackle a new unit...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2013 · Last modified February 8, 2019
Doubling Practice – Games and Worksheets I made a Valentine’s Day Bump Game for my daughter who is still learning her addition (doubling) facts. We worked on these and from there we’ll move on doubling higher numbers 7 through 10s. After that, we’ll work for a while on “what comes after” and then go on to problems like 6+7. This is a game to practice doubling (1+1, 2+2, etc.). To...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 28, 2013 · Last modified February 23, 2019
One of the wonderful things that has been happening here at the Homeschool Den is the amount of independent work the kids have been doing. DD is always asking to learn more about animals so at the beginning of the semester, I downloaded Erica’s wonderful Expedition Earth: Discovering God’s Animals over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. It is a free animal unit study. Erica has made animal mini-books for close to...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 27, 2013 · Last modified July 17, 2020
After our study of earthworms and flatworms, we went back to talking about vertebrates. One day last week, we learned a bit more about domesticated animals. We talked about some pretty fascinating things with DD and LD. Can you guess out of the millions of animal species how many large animals have been successfully domesticated? I’ll tell you in just a minute below! For ED we pulled in a few Montessori...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 21, 2013 · Last modified March 29, 2016
Once we went over the classification of animals (I shared that post and our Montessori Activities here), we got into the exciting hands-on stuff! We looked at earthworms and a type of flatworm called Planarian. There are some interesting differences in their body systems so we spent time comparing the two. Our first step was to go out to the garden and find ourselves some earthworms. It was chilly out...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 19, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
We read a lot of books here at the Homeschool Den. I thought I would highlight some of our current favorites. The girls have actually been reading a lot of the same books. I’ve been reading to the girls together at night and more often than not, DD climbs into my lap in front of the wood stove in the mornings when I’m reading to ED! The girls are 4...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 18, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
We made some play dough together at the beginning of the week and ED has been playing with it every single morning! Play dough is really easy to make and has a wonderful consistency. Here’s how we made made ours: 1 cup flour 1/3 cup salt 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar (in the spice aisle of your grocery store) 1 Tablespoon oil 1 cup of near boiling water almost...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 15, 2013 · Last modified September 23, 2022
Continuing on with our vertebrate-invertebrate unit… One day last week we learned a bit about the backbone and nervous system. We talked about the importance and function of the vertebrae and did some activities to explore how/why the vertebrae work. The kids liked this almost as much as they liked Harold (when we did the circulatory system)! Here’s a picture of vertebrae man–then I’ll explain what we did… I made...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info) / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 14, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
Homeschooling is so great because you can be flexible and go with the flow when the need arises! We were all prepared to start school with a unit on rocks when my wonderful homeschooling friend offered to give us some flatworms called Planarian. Her family had studied them and their amazing properties. We jumped at the chance to do something new and delved into a week-long study of invertebrates. It...
Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)
A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
To read more about us CLICK HERE.
Click on the image to find out more about the units and packets we have available.
This post has links to dozens of posts and resources both for new and veteran homeschoolers for everything from finding homeschool curriculum to general homeschool advice and encouragement.
Click on the image above to see the History Units we covered in our homeschool.
What science topics could I teach my 5-7 year old - Homeschool Science Curriculum
Click on the image above to see the Science Units we covered in our homeschool from elementary through middle school (and beyond!).
A list of the books we've used most in history, science, math, language arts, etc.
Click the image to check out our packets on Earth Science, Rocks and Minerals, the Atmosphere, Weather, Energy and More!
Units are also sold separately.
This is one of our most popular units. It covers the Layers of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, Volcanoes and More! It is included in the Earth Science Bundle (see the picture/link above).
Click the image to see our Biology Units on Animal and Plant Cells; the Biology Unit on Biomes, Food Chains, Symbiosis; Scientific Classification & Taxonomy (Domain/Kingdom/Phylum/Class, etc.); Botany - Plant Kingdom and Oceans and Oceanography.
Click on the image to see our Animal Bundle - including the Animal Unit, Life Cycles, the Rainforest, Winter (Polar Animals) & Hibernation, Chameleons, Wolves, Cicadas and more!
The Human Body Systems, Skeletal, Digestive, Circulatory, Muscular, Nervous, Endocrine Systems and More (with lots of hands-on activity ideas)! We usually study a different body system each year.
Click on the image to see our units on the States of matter, Properties of Matter, Electricity & Circuits, and the Chemistry Unit (Get to know the Periodic Table in a fun way!)
This is a free checklist I put together of the various science units I hope to cover in the elementary and middle school years.
Do your kids know the 4 largest countries? Which countries have the most people? The longest river? This packet covers basic world and U.S. facts and also covers geographic features and land forms.
Click on the image to check out our 100-page unit on World War I.
We have used AAS for 6 years! AAS is an affiliate link.
Dozens of posts about how to create a homeschool writing workshop.
Click on the image to check out all of our fun K-2 Math Packets.
This is one of the best values we have... more than 20 PDFs with games, activities and worksheets to learn/practice the multiplication facts ($7.00).
Click on the image to discover some of the pages, posts and homeschool resources within our blog that might be the most useful for you including a long list of our freebies!
Click on the image to check out our 100+page Rocks and Minerals Unit.
This is a fun, hands-on unit for early elementary students!
How the body is organized from cells to tissues... organs to body systems
Click on the image to check out some of the Spanish worksheet bundles we have available!
Click on the image above to check out our German worksheets.
Click on the image to find out more about our units and packets.
