Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 16, 2017 · Last modified September 23, 2022
Homeschool Vision Planner (This 50+ page pdf is FREE to download!) For many of us the school year is coming to a close and we’re thinking about next year. We’re tossing around ideas and trying to determine just what subjects and units we’ll be covering next fall. I thought I would share the process I go through… and also will share the planning pages that I’ve been using the past...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 10, 2017 · Last modified July 25, 2021
Our Homeschool Week It has been quite a while since I wrote about the flow of our homeschool day. I really like writing these posts because it gives a glimpse of our messy, busy, wonderful homeschool life! Plus, I love looking back and seeing how things have changed. I’ll link to some of our previous posts from other years down below at the bottom of the post. (I still feel...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Science / Science Experiments / Science Units / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 13, 2016 · Last modified January 8, 2017
When I think about all we’ve done this past year in 2016 in science, I’m really pretty amazed! It’s been a fun, full year! This post has links to dozens of our science experiments, science worksheets and printables, and hands-on activities. You’ll find direct links to the posts in the table below. Last year as we moved into the new year (in January to May 2016), we were focused on...
Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Freebies / hands-on science / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Kindergarten / Kindergarten Math / Math--Addition / Montessori (general info) / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2016 · Last modified August 10, 2023
How to Create Your Own Homeschool Curriculum: K, Gr. 1 This FREE 50-page Homeschool Resource has been created to help answer some basic questions: What subjects should I teach my Kindergartner/1st Grader? Where do I start? How do I know what to teach my kids? Every child is different, but I wanted to offer a starting point. Hopefully you’ll find some ideas and printables that will work with your kids!...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 21, 2016
In the blogging world, many of us write about a typical or ideal homeschool day. Those are the days that are filled with accomplishments and a schedule of subjects with the kids skipping merrily (or not so merrily) through the day. Sometimes we write about the struggle of it all (but leaving the impression that we get through all the subjects “on the schedule.”). But we are not as apt...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 3, 2016
Over the weekend I wrote a post about what I might do if I were starting all over again with toddlers and preschoolers in-tow (Homeschooling Multiple Ages). In today’s post, I wanted to share what our routine looks like these days. I have two kids in middle school (ie. grades 6 and 8) and one in grade 3. Our homeschool is considerably more structured than it used to be. When...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 30, 2016
Today was our first official day of school. After all the planning I did this summer, it was fabulous to finally just jump in and start off the year!! This year we’ve set up a more structured schedule for ourselves… at least to start with. Other years, we covered all of our subjects, but each day was different. This year we’ve decided (together, this wasn’t just my idea) to have...
Highlighting Past Posts / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Science / Science Experiments / Science Units
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 24, 2016 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Today I’m going to talk about the science units we covered in our homeschool this year AND what we didn’t get to because we ran out of time!!! My plans are always a bit more ambitious than what we actually cover, but even so it felt like we accomplished a lot! 🙂 This year the kids were in Grades 2, 5 and 7, but below you’ll also find some resources...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 21, 2016
One topic that I don’t hear discussed much in my homeschool circles (or online) is taking time for review. My guess is that it’s not quite as exciting to talk about going backwards (so to speak) as finding new topics and new curriculum. But I find it important to review some of the topics and units we’ve covered in the past. We do that on a daily/weekly basis (with cards...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / How to Start Homeschooling / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Ocean Unit / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 8, 2016
Last week we did some pretty fun science experiments for our ocean unit. We always get so pumped up doing hands-on activities & the salinity experiment was especially impressive. I thought I’d talk a little bit what a big impact these kinds of experiments add to our day… the kids get excited and engaged they ask a lot of good questions the activities and projects are memorable so they often...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 19, 2016 · Last modified February 18, 2016
A lot of the time I write posts focused just on one topic… like the Renaissance sheets I just shared on Wednesday or the comma worksheet I’m going to share next week. But other times, I just want to chit-chat about what’s going on… and that’s what this post is going to be! Homeschooling has been going pretty well lately. We are trying to keep going at a steady pace...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 21, 2016 · Last modified January 20, 2016
It has been a while since I just wrote about one of our days. I thought I would write up a quick post about the flow of our day. In our homeschool, no day is exactly like another. 🙂 Today I had to drag myself out of bed. I was up until nearly 3am last night working on the computer (on some school stuff for the kids and some behind...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 19, 2015 · Last modified November 17, 2015
This week I’m changing our “Thoughts on Teaching” series up a bit to write about how our homeschool days flow in general. Each day is pretty different from the one before and is usually a result of what we didn’t get to (or got to only minimally) the day before. But I keep a general running tab (mentally if not by checklist!) of what we’re doing in each subject. So...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 2, 2015 · Last modified October 1, 2015
This post is completely different post than the one I intended to write this week. Why? Because life happens! I don’t have the time to dive into that topic in the way that I want. I was going to write a post on fostering creativity and being engaging as a teacher/homeschooler… How ironic because today was the antithesis of that! In fact, we had to settle for a bare-minimum type...
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.
