Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Free Curriculum Resource Guides / Free Homeschool Planner / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2019 · Last modified November 2, 2022
Free Homeschool Planner! (Newly Updated!) I have updated our (free) yearly homeschool planner to include a step-by-step guide on the homeschool planning process. This 50+ page packet is not as much a traditional Homeschool Planner as a tool for planning out the coming year. It includes some of the questions to ask yourself (and your kids!) as you start planning out the coming year. It has you consider how the school...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Homeschooling in the News / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2019
As people begin to look into homeschooling, they want to find out some basics: How many homeschoolers are there? What are the benefits and challenges of homeschooling? Will my child be able to get into college? How will my kids do if they haven’t been to a formal school? What about socialization? Will they have enough friends? Let’s dig in to some of these common homeschool questions! How many homeschoolers...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 22, 2019 · Last modified January 25, 2019
I like having a clean and tidy house… or rather, I dream of having a clean and tidy house, but I have always found that to be a challenge. My friends will lovingly tell me that the house has a normal “lived in” look. But, to be honest, it’s been a struggle over the years… Just check out this picture of our dining room table… not exactly tidy, is it?...
Free Homeschool Planner / Freebies
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 13, 2019 · Last modified September 23, 2022
This afternoon, I added in about 20 new pages to our free Homeschool Planner. I have been adding to this file for ages because I change up my own homeschool planner frequently! This Homeschool Planner pdf is now well over 125+ pages! Recently, I’ve been printing out two pages for each week. One is a grid with 9 areas where I can jot down some notes about each subject area…...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 10, 2019
We are always trying to encourage our kids on this wonderful homeschool journey, right?! This semester we started off with a family discussion… a discussion that I hope will get to the heart of the kids’ own motivation, self-determination and the path they’ll/we’ll be creating for this semester. You guys know it, I am a planner. I am a curriculum creator… but when it comes to the day-to-day I am...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 15, 2018
Hands-On Homeschool Activities Your Ultimate Hands-On Homeschooling Guide Make Learning Memorable, Exciting, and Engaging! I wanted to let you know that I added a New Page: Hands On Homeschool Activities. This is a page (rather than a blog post), so I wanted to link to it here – for those of you who come to the blog from time to time to check out our latest posts! (As a new page,...
Free Homeschool Planner / Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 24, 2018
Free Mid-Year Homeschool Assessment Packet About this time of year, I get itchy. I know that the holidays are coming up and we will take a well-deserved break! Right around the holidays, I also take the time to think about how things are going. Today, I wanted to share this Free Homeschool Assessment Packet with you (I updated and expanded it a bit this year.). This packet has several pages...
Holiday: Christmas Activities / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 20, 2018
Homeschooling during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas can be particularly trying/demanding. There are more events on as the semester comes to an end. On the homeschool front, we are often finishing up big projects and wrapping up units before taking an extended break. But there are a lot of other things going on too! There are holiday-themed parties and get-togethers. There are concerts. There also more demands on our...
History and World Cultures Units / History: American History / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Language Arts: Writing / Starting to Homeschool / WWII
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 18, 2018 · Last modified December 29, 2018
History Portfolio Projects have student focus on one theme, topic or time period and can include an array of writing, art, and geography assignments that are compiled together in a final product. While we did a couple of portfolio projects when the kids were in elementary (age 8 -10 or so), Portfolio Project really become a powerful tool during the middle and high school years! History portfolio projects require students...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 28, 2018 · Last modified October 29, 2018
Hey everyone, It’s a Sunday evening. It’s been an exhausting, though very fun family weekend. But of course, as you can see from the title of this blog post, it’s been soured just a bit. I got an email that is clearly a troll trying to make me feel bad and/or threaten me (well, or the website in general)…– accusing me of stealing (content I’m supposing?)… May as well just...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 7, 2018
If you were in my living room right now… I would offer you a cup of coffee (partly because I’m tired from driving ED early in the mornings to her soccer games this weekend) and I’d have some cookies baking in the oven. That sounds overly domestic of me, but the truth is we had signed up to bring cookies yesterday and I ran out of time to bake the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2018 · Last modified September 7, 2018
Life in Our Homeschool This was our first week back and it didn’t go quite as planned (though, when does homeschooling ever go exactly as we think it will?!) At the end of last week and into the weekend, I was quite sick. My older two were away for the holiday weekend with some friends. When Monday rolled around, ED was excited to start back. We jumped back into homeschooling...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2018 · Last modified August 6, 2018
Hey everyone!! Just warning you right up front, this post has become part confessional, part apology, part explanation of our website!! I have been humbled by how many new readers we have these days. For just one Mom sharing the work she’s making for her kids and the hands-on activities we’ve done along the way, it’s really been an inspiring journey. I just love what I do… and have been...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 1, 2018 · Last modified July 18, 2020
This post is both for first-time homeschoolers who are wondering where to start and for veterans who are looking for some inspiring teaching strategies to get the kids completely engaged day-to-day! Since I’ve gotten a number emails/messages asking where to begin I thought I would write a post to say You CAN Do This!! This post may also have some useful resources/activity ideas for those of you who have been...
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.
