Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschooling in the News
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 19, 2014 · Last modified April 13, 2017
Last August, a new study was released showing a continued increase in the number and percentage of students who are homeschooled in America. The last time the U.S. government released data about the number of homeschooled students was back in 2007. Since I am doing a series about homeschooling in general (How to Start Homeschooling, Choosing homeschool curriculums, etc.), I thought this was the perfect opportunity to share some of the...
This week I’m going to hit a major milestone since joining the Parents.com team… two million hits on my blog…. one million in just the past nine months. I feel incredibly grateful to be a part of such a wonderful team and love having the blog to share our family’s homeschool journey. Ours is certainly not the best/ideal/only way to homeschool, but I enjoy sharing how we meander through each...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 11, 2014 · Last modified March 7, 2016
This year Mother’s Day is officially one hundred years old in the U.S. On May 8, 1914 Congress passed a law to officially celebrate Mother’s day on the second Sunday in May. Facts About Moms (in the U.S.) There are more than 85 million mothers of all ages in the United States. According to the Pew Research Institute, fewer Moms are married than fifty years ago Of all women age...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 28, 2014 · Last modified March 1, 2016
Plato: Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. One of the things my kids love about homeschooling is that they can spend long, leisurely amounts of time reading. The first thing they do in the morning is pick up a book and start reading while eating breakfast. My goal has always been for reading to be something that you do for pleasure, not for reward. One...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2014 · Last modified March 21, 2015
There was a really interesting article over at Edutopia last month about the worry some educators have about how technology and testing are affecting the amount of reading kids are doing. Educators have noticed that some kids are struggling to read deeply and comprehend longer texts. Are kids reading books deeply and for pleasure? Since the invention of the printing press, there has been a plethora of reading materials available. Granted, not...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 14, 2014 · Last modified January 29, 2017
To Homeschool We Need… Love The most important ingredient of homeschooling is simply love. Homeschooling is about the relationships, not the curriculum we use. Some days will be wonderful, other days… not as noteworthy, but at the end of the day did we connect wit the kids, snuggle with the kids, help them find their own voice and strengths. I help motivate them and support them. I try to keep...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 6, 2014
When I opened the propane bill yesterday, my jaw nearly hit the floor. Our propane bill had more than doubled from this time last year! Augh! One reason for that is of course that it was much warmer last January than this. But also, the price of propane has gone up drastically. Last year (2013) in February propane was $2.40 a gallon. This year? It was $4.70. So having consumed...
Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2014 · Last modified April 13, 2016
It’s always time to fill the house with love, right? With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s timely to think about what this means. Sometimes love isn’t just the feelings you have, it’s the actions you take. I wrote this post last year as I struggled with major (ear) problems that led to 6 ear surgeries in 8 months… You can read more at this post, I’m going deaf today. (I am...
Ear Surgery / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Mom Stories
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 20, 2014 · Last modified April 30, 2016
The past three months have been very difficult. If you’re a regular reader, you know I had ear surgery in October. I have more complications than I can count on one hand. Healing was very slow and a couple of weeks after the surgery I came down with something called BPPV in two semi-circular canals (in my ear) which causes vertigo, the entire world to spin, balance issues and incredible...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 18, 2014 · Last modified April 30, 2016
Someone recently asked me how to get started homeschooling. She was interested in creating some unit studies for her kids and wanted to know where to start. Since I tend to create our history and science units myself, I thought I’d try to share how I pull our units together. I’ve written a lot of related posts about homeschooling things like planning, preparation, assessing our long term and short term...
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 31, 2013 · Last modified July 10, 2016
You know a book is really great when you can’t read it without paper and pencil in hand to jot down all those flashes of inspiration! This break I’ve read several books for teachers that have really resonated with me. For those of you still on break, I thought I would mention them. Even if you’re not on break, they are inspiring and well worth squeezing in time to read...
Holiday: New Years / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 29, 2013 · Last modified December 14, 2016
The year is quickly coming to a close. I absolutely love the year end wrap-ups that come on TV… remembering and reflecting on the good, the amazing, the bad, the sad… And it’s worth thinking about our family’s own year in that same way. Here are some questions to consider about the year. At the end of the post I’ll share a year-end wrap-up of my own. (It’ll be a...
I hope everyone had a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving holiday. Life seemed to charge forward at break-neck speed and suddenly it was Thursday — Thanksgiving. We hadn’t even bought a turkey!! Since we didn’t have any extended family coming over (and the turkey was frozen solid!!!), we decided to have shrimp and veggies and a pumpkin pie on Thursday. Then we made the full spread on Friday (turkey, sweet potatoes, homemade...
We have a wonderful tech team here at Parents. You might have noticed that the categories feature of my blog is now back! Hooray! Ever since I started this blog I have been categorizing things into different units. If you’re doing a study of Ancient Egypt or natural disasters, the human body or the ocean, or just want to look through the dozens and dozens of posts I did when...
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.
