Homeschool Den

Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!

Category: Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4)

Valentine’s Bump Game Doubling Practice 4

Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read

Valentine’s Bump Game — Doubling (Addition)

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...

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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates

World Animals — The Amazing Independent Work the Kids are Doing!

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...

Where Do Things Come From 4

Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates

Farm Animals (Montessori Activities and More)

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...

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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates

Hands-on Invertebrate Fun! (Part 1 – Earthworms)

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...

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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read

14 Picture Books My Kids Love at the Moment! (ages 4 and 7)

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...

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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

Easy Sparkly Winter Playdough

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...

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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

Meet Vertebrae-Man — Our Hands-on Explorations of the Backbone and Nervous System!

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...

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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

Invertebrate-Vertebrate Unit Study – Montessori Activities

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...

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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read

Winter Theme Preschool Unit

Over the break, I wanted to pull together a fun packet for ED with activities she can (mostly) do on her own when I’m working with the other kids.  I settled on a winter-relating unit– snowmen, snowflakes and things like that.  Here are some of the resources I pulled together for her: When I want to find some preschool resources for ED, here are some of the first websites I...

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Ages 2-6: Pete the Cat Unit / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read

Pete the Cat Unit – More Free Resources preK to 1st Grade

ED continued to work on things she selected from her workbox with the Pete the Cat theme. She worked through this addition page I made for her… Buttons Addition  for Pete the Cat Here’s ED doing the activity a couple of days ago: She loved the Pete the Cat Die and graph from Herding Kats. The Pete the Cat Roll and Color is by Shannon over at Kindergarten Hoppenings. ED especially liked...

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Ages 2-6: Pete the Cat Unit / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read

Pete the Cat Unit

Last week I asked ED what she wanted to learn about. “Kittens!” she declared. I was thinking I would have her make a kitten lapbook, but the more I looked around, the more resources I found for some books called, Pete the Cat. I hadn’t heard of them before, but they seemed to be all the rage among the early elementary teachers who offered many Pete-the-Cat themed worksheets free on...

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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit

Explosion of Colors in Milk Experiment and Other Chemistry Fun!

Isn’t this pretty? This was one of our experiments as we finished up our chemistry unit! One of the chapters in our chemistry book (Real Science 4 Kids-pre-level 1) talked about mixtures. It talked first about how how some mixtures dissolve (like salt in water). Then it went on to talk about soap and soap molecules. We read how soap makes things like butter and grease “dissolve” in water. Detergent...

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Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read

Fall and Thanksgiving Themed Printable Activities (Free)

Here are a collection of Thanksgiving resources you might want to use with your kids the next few days: ED has really been enjoying dot-to-dots. I thought these printables from Busy Bee Kids Printables were really cute and wanted to mention them if you are interested. Fall and Thanksgiving Dot-to-Dots Color the Turkey: A handwriting activity from Rowdy in Room 300 Cute Turkey Math Game: This is a game I...

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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit

More Fun Science Experiments: Watch them Bubble, Bubble Bombs… Acid-Base Reactions

Our chemistry textbook also talked about acid-base reactions.  It explained how antacids can help neutralize the strong acids in your stomach. We contrasted this slow reaction… to the more impressive reaction of baking soda and vinegar! DD was putting her fingers in to see how her stomach would feel. If you haven’t already done Bubble Bombs with your kids, be sure to do that as well! You take a ziploc...