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I just have to rave about the amazing morning we had! I have a very good friend who is a distant relative (12x Great Granddaughter) of Pocahontas. She is a member of the Powhatan tribe… and has quite a number of artifacts that have come down her family line that date back 400 years or so! I organized an event to have her speak to some of the homeschoolers in...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 15, 2017 · Last modified September 19, 2023
This time of year, many people study Native Americans and/or the history of the colonies. We have a lot of free resources on the blog that I thought I would highlight again. I also thought I would include some of the books and resources we used along the way. We’ve covered the history and culture of different Native American tribes in different years, so you’ll find that the first resources...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 9, 2016 · Last modified June 4, 2023
The West – The Plains Wars The past month or so, we have been studying Native American History again. This part of our unit was on the history of the Plains Wars from 1864 through 1890. We talked about the Sand Creek Massacre where the Colorado Territory militia attacked a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Village (1864), Red Clouds War and the Fetterman Massacre Great Sioux War of 1876 including the...
History: American History / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 28, 2016 · Last modified June 4, 2023
We are spending some time studying the Native Americans of the West; we started with a study of the Navajo and Navajo history. I’ll share the resources we used and the free history notebook pages I made about the Navajo. About a year and a half ago, we did a unit on Native Americans. We covered the Algonquian Indians and Iroquois of the Northeast, the Cherokee and Seminole Indians of...
History and World Cultures Units / History: American Colonies / History: American History / History: Civics, Government and Economics / History: Middle Ages / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 30, 2015
What a successful year! As the year draws to a close, I love taking a look at what we’ve accomplished not only in school, but in life in general. I’m not one to make “resolutions” per se, but I do enjoy thinking about what’s to come and seeing just how to make that happen! This year was a *huge* one for my blog. January 5, 2015 was my last official...
History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 12, 2015 · Last modified May 5, 2023
Columbus Day was set aside as the second Monday in October as a federal holiday in 1934. Slowly celebrations of Native American culture has been gaining recognition as well. For example, South Dakota renamed Columbus Day to Native American Day in 1990. This Columbus Day, more cities are recognizing Native Americans (see this CBS article). According to CBS News, nine cities will be celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. Those cities include ...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 7, 2014 · Last modified May 16, 2016
I got a little behind posting because it took so long to share our experiences visiting with Pocahontas’s Great-Great-Great (12th Great) Granddaughter. In the meantime, we’ve done another entire portion of our Native American unit. We learned about the Seminole Indians, their culture and removal (for many of them) from Florida. And, we also learned about the culture and tragic history of the Cherokee people. We started the unit with a...
History: American History / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 4, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2015
Imagine holding museum quality artifacts… some over 400 years old!! That was our afternoon with Pocahontas’s Great-Great-Great (12th Great) Granddaughter, a member of the Powhatan Nation. The kids and I were greeted at the door, by Ms. Angie who was wearing traditional dress. Everything about our visit was fabulous! “Welcome to my yehakin,” she said as she ushered us into her home. Yehakin (pronounced yee-HAW-kin), she explained to the kids, was...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 15, 2014 · Last modified September 13, 2018
This fall we are doing a huge unit on Native Americans. We started with a study of the Native Americans of the Northeast. We learned about the two major language groups, the Algonquian (see this post for our activities) and Iroquois. Each of these groups consisted/s of a number of different tribes. Last week I shared some of our activities relating to the Powhatan Indians, a confederacy that lived in...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 9, 2014 · Last modified May 16, 2016
This fall we are learning about different Native American groups. The past few weeks we learned about the two language groups of the Northeast — the Algonquian Indians and the Iroquois and some of the tribes that make up these groups. A few weeks ago, we went to Williamsburg, VA for homeschool week. That was truly wonderful and is the topic of another post! We went with some friends who...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 5, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2015
Many years ago, a friend told me about an amazing outdoor drama called Tecumseh. This is a 2 hour outdoor drama about Tecumseh, a Shawnee Indian who lived at the end of the 1700s and died fighting in the War of 1812. His dream was to unite all the Native American tribes from Ohio all the way south to Georgia and Alabama. For years, he traveled trying to gain the...
History: American History / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 21, 2014 · Last modified November 14, 2017
I was looking for Native American children’s books written by and about Native Americans. I found Debbie Reese’s website, American Indians in Children’s Literature. What a great resource! Today I’d like to share some of the books we read together this past week. I went with the books that were available at our library and that were appealing to the kids. 1) Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story (affiliate link) This is a...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 14, 2012 · Last modified December 16, 2018
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about finding an ‘arrowhead‘ (really a hafted knife point) in the woods right behind our house. Yesterday morning we had the county archaeologist over to survey the site where we found the hafted knife. He examined it closely and said it was most likely a Piscataway Stemmed Point. We then took him into the woods to show him the site where it...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Outdoor: Fossils
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 30, 2012 · Last modified December 15, 2018
I’ve been bursting at the seams to write this post, but wanted to wait til I had more information before sharing our excitement! Can you believe, we found an arrowhead on our property?! Okay, so technically it’s not an arrowhead, more about that in a second. The first thing we did was start googling to find out more information. I really didn’t know too much about arrowheads. I was...
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.
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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.
