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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010 · Last modified November 26, 2015
————– Here’s what we did today with our forest biome study: 1) We sang the continent song and the kids placed the continents in the world map (the world pin map is at the top right almost out of the picture). 2) We talked about the fact that different places in the world have different temperatures and different climates (ie. different biomes). We talked about our own climate (a desert)...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010
This week we’re going to make a diaorama on thedeciduous forest and its animal inhabitants. First wemade deciduous trees. The kids used cut up tissue paperand placed the bits onto contact paper. Then we putgreen paper onto the contact paper and cut out a treeshape. We’ll add a tree trunk later. Our other project today was to make coffee groundsquirrels. The kids decided to use colored sand for thesmaller version...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Math: Preschool Math / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010 · Last modified February 21, 2016
DD and I played a squirrel math grid game today. We took turns rolling the dice and gathering acorns for our squirrels. She also quickly did the oak tree life cycle. Both activities were from Prekinders.com (the acorns were from another game I printed out that we’ll play tomorrow, but if you have real acorns nearby that’d certainly be a better option!)
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2010
We’re going to be starting our new unit on biomes/animal habitats and will be learning about forests this next week. It just so happens that there are some beautiful 3-part Montessori cards free for a few days at the Montessori Print Shop that will work in nicely with our studies. I can’t post a picture today of these lovely woodland animal cards, but animals include the skunk, bear, deer, rabbit...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2010
Here’s the finished product of the kids’ arts-and-craftsproject last week. It took two days to dry thoroughly. This was a really good project even for ED (age 2) whocould pretty much do it on her own as long as I remindedher of the steps along the way: Put the spaghetti (or yarn) in the glueStir, stir, stirDump it on your plate
This activity would be easy to create by clippingfood items from an advertisement. I got mine on saleat some point. There’s also a free file folder game athttp://filefolderfun.com/FirstGradeHealth.htmlwhere kids can sort items into grains, fruit, vegies,milk and meat. Anyway, here is DD sorting foods into the variousfood groups. PS — When I was talking to my hubby about the“food pyramid” he said, “Oh no, that’s outdated.” HappilyI could say that...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 28, 2010
For this activity we needed cooked spaghetti (we usedfettuccine), bits of yarn or string and glue. We had onebowl of plain glue, and a bowl of glue + red food coloringanother with glue/yellow and another with glue/green. This activity worked best when I had them use a fork.My kids didn’t dip it in well enough to get a lot of glue.They really needed to stir it around a bit (and...
The kids did this quick camouflage activity (from Take itTo Your Seat Science Centers, Grade 1-2). We alsodid an online game trying to find the camouflaged animals.Find the frog, ibex, snakes, fox, insects, turtles and more.The kids played that for a little bit, but we also just enjoyedlooking at images on the computer such as this websiteabout animals that change colors:http://webecoist.com/2009/02/22/color-changing-strange-animals-species/
Here’s a peek at a couple things DD did this week in herworkbox. The plant sorting activity was from kidssoup.com.It goes along well with some plant related games from theTake it to your Seat Science Centers we’ve had in theworkboxes this week. Where’s the Fairy? — Reading/Word GameThe second activity uses Ami’s household word cards atHomeschool Share– Workboxables. Since DD is on thecusp of learning to read (but doesn’t want...
Here are a few things DD has done this week: Letter stamping from http://kidssoup.com/ (membershipwebsite) DD has really enjoyed word related file folder games thisweek and has asked to do lots of them each day. Hereare a few examples of what she did: Sunflower Sight Words:http://filefolderfun.com/KindergartenSightWords.html The “it word” matching came from page 15 ofhttp://www.wordway.us.com/FamilySets/itSet.pdf There are more word family activities at Carl’s Corner:http://www.wordway.us.com/LetterI.htmor http://www.wordway.us.com/ Frog two-letter sight words:http://www.earlylearningactivities.com/PDF/frog2swbookc.pdf(You can...
As I was out walking our dog this evening, I was thinkingabout my preschool posts. Just considering what I post, Ireally haven’t given a good view of what DD’s “preschoolday” really looks like. I would say the majority of theday is spent in creative play. She plays elaborate gameswith her stuffed animals, plastic animals, and doll house. She builds things with legos and K’nex with LD. She playsoutside. She, LD...
Several times a day, DD sits down to draw, make cardsand “practice writing.” She does this when LD writes inhis journal or practices his handwriting. I never suggestany of this, she chooses to do this on her own. Stickers,crayons, paper, glue and sequins are always out andavailable. (That means that the dining room table ispretty much always covered with “stuff.”) She and LD both enjoy arts and crafts and we...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 19, 2010
I saw this art project at Deep Space Sparkle. The kidswere enthusiastic to give it a go. She explains it betterthan I do, but essentially they drew the monster withoil pastels and then used water colors over top. I was amazed at how little guidance they neededonce I explained the steps. Even DD needed very,very little help. It is interesting that since doing this art project, DD’sdrawings of people now...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math: Preschool Math
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 11, 2010
In this game you need some counters (we used coloredtiles) and a deck of cards without the jokers, 10s or picturecards. Each player takes a turn. The player turns over a cardand adds that many tiles to her paper. (DD had to addyellow tiles, I added red tiles.) After she placed her tileson the yellow paper, she had to determine if there weremore than 10 tiles. If so, she took...
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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.
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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.
