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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 1, 2012 · Last modified July 6, 2016
A couple of years ago I made game-boards to go along with some cute princess-themed sight word cards I found over at Kelly’s Kindergarten. Print out both pages of the sight words “Cinderella’s Ball.” (3rd game down) and/or the sight words under Sight Word Memory: Princess-easy (you’ll need to scroll down to the 15th game). Print out the cards on cardstock. To play, place all the cards face down in...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 26, 2012
It probably comes as no surprise that we’ve been into the shuttle this past week or so! We use All About Spelling and I made a word sort that goes along with volume three (though since it’s a simple sort you can use it with your kids any time even if you don’t use All About Spelling). This is a space-themed word sort for long-o words. Just so you know...
Ages 2-6: Clocks - Telling Time / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 24, 2012
My kids and I have been playing a lot of “Time Bingo” lately. It has kids recognize the time at five minute intervals. I love the fact that all the clock faces on the bingo cards are different. We got this as a Christmas give from Grams and Gramps, but I see on Amazon that it’s pretty reasonable in price (currently $4.00). Just to make sure the kids knew what...
Freebies / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 10, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We’ve been doing some background activities on Sir Isaac Newton since we’re starting a new unit on gizmos, gadgets and simple machines. Newton was from England so we did some geography lessons about the UK, Britain and Europe in general. We talked briefly about the difference between the United Kingdom, Britain and England. Then we brought a map over and the kids cut out their own map of Britain using...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 6, 2012 · Last modified February 9, 2017
This week was a bit out of the ordinary. We did a skeleton version of school each day. The kids did Math Spelling (we use All About Spelling) Grammar (see yesterday’s post) Independent reading (for about an hour each day) I read a chapter each day from our book on Sir Isaac Newton We worked on our Fifty States song. We’ve been working on that slowly, slowly this entire year....
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 5, 2012
Sometimes this doesn’t make as interesting material for a blog post, but we do cover grammar and language arts in addition to All About Spelling (we love, love love this program and it deserves its own post sometime), writing (we often use the Teacher Filebox for this), and First Language Lessons. For basic rules of grammar we use the Write Source Skillsbook as our core (more about that below). We...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2012 · Last modified November 6, 2016
ED is just now starting to work on simple cvc words. The past week or so, she has been working on -it and -in words. We printed out her own -it and -in books. There’s just one word per page like bit, fit, sit in the -it book or bin, fin, win in the -in book. I sit together with ED as we look over a few pages (we do...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 31, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2019
‘Bead’ Rabbits and Skip Counting by 10 Montessori math has kids working a lot with beads. But for this work, I made some Easter-themed manipulatives for ED to work with. I made a set of Easter eggs for skip-counting by 10s. She also used some 100-square rabbits. I printed out a number of copies and cut them into strips of 10 and into single bunnies as well. It’s just...
Freebies / History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2012 · Last modified September 19, 2017
As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve been reading a book about a girl who travels West on the Oregon Trail with a group of other families. Since we’ve been reading for quite some time now, I thought we could jump right in and play the Oregon Trail File Folder Game I found at File Folder Fun. I asked them a couple of questions to prepare to play the game in another day...
We’ve been using the fraction chart and a pencil a lot to look at equivalent fractions. I have the kids line up the pencil on 1/2 and then ask them what some equivalent fractions are. We also have spent a lot of time building equivalent fractions with our manipulatives. Again the fraction table pictured below is from Right Start math (a math curriculum that uses Montessori concepts and hands-on math manipulatives and games),...
Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2012 · Last modified January 27, 2016
I came across a Valentine’s Boggle Game at Teacher’s Pay Teachers. I printed it out and much to my surprise both LD and DD loved it. They did it both yesterday and today and then complained that it was too easy the second time. I promised the kids I’d make a new word hunt for them and just finished it this evening. My version is not as cute as the...
Active Math Games / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Division / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 7, 2012 · Last modified January 22, 2015
Valentine’s Day Division Cards I made a Valentine’s Day set of division cards to use with LD over the next week or so. We use these cards to play a game called Fast Track — an idea we got from Peggy Kaye’s Games for Math. To make the board you need a large piece of butcher paper or poster board. There are three win spaces, three start spaces and various...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2012 · Last modified January 31, 2017
ED has been working a lot on letter sounds and simple -at and -an words. I made this Valentine’s themed word matching activity for her to work on over the next couple of weeks. She has to attach the clothes peg to the matching word on the wheel. It took some cutting pasting to put it together, but if you’d like to make your own you can download the pages...
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2012
DD is just now learning to skip count by 3s. I made a unicorn and dragon themed game to help her practice. The game is pretty straight forward. Each player takes a turn drawing cards from the file until they get a dragon (STOP!) card. The player then sorts her cards and places them in skip counting order while the other player is drawing cards. The object is to be...
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.
