Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
I’ve been toying with trying something a bit different and I would love to hear your opinions. I’ve been thinking of either putting together a few podcast episodes or video episodes highlighting different hands-on activities and/or thoughts about homeschooling. I happen to listen to a TON of podcasts, but then video seems better to be able to incorporate visuals. Anyway, I’m just bouncing this around in my head and am...
Today, the Pope is making his first visit to the United States. The kids and I watched his arrival on TV just a little while ago. We aren’t Catholic, but the kids’ Grandma is. (My Mom died about 15 years ago and my Dad remarried just before LD was born.). Anyway, we took the opportunity today to talk about a bit about Catholicism today and about why the Pope is...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 22, 2015 · Last modified September 25, 2016
Are you looking for free fall printables for PreK-K? Here’s a huge list of fabulous FREE fall-themed packets that have been shared by generous parents and teachers. Get your 3-6 year old into the fall spirit with some of these fall-themed activities and printables. You will find everything from puzzles, counting and letter recognition activities to writing, do-a-dot pages, dot-to-dots and more! Fall Pack from 3 Dinosaurs: Leaves Unit by...
Active Math Games / Homeschool Den / Math--Division / Math--Multiplication / Math: Pre-Algebra
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 21, 2015
The weather is gorgeous, so once again it was time to take advantage of the lovely temperatures, get active, and practice some math! For this game we drew a giant circle out of chalk and put numbers into each space all around the circle. Which numbers? We wrote down the numbers as we skip counted by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s. (2 thru 20, 3 thru 30, 4 thru 40 and...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 17, 2015 · Last modified September 21, 2015
So in my last post, I talked about how I really wanted to start off my mornings strong. I realized I needed a Power Morning Routine to make sure that *I* was energized, refreshed, focused, and prepared. You can read more about all that in this post: Thoughts on Teaching: Creating a Power Morning. But, along with that I really needed to make sure I was completely organized. I think...
Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) / Homeschool Den / Music
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 16, 2015 · Last modified September 15, 2015
Music continues to go really well for us. I’m glad I’ve got the general plan and all the printables organized and ready to go at a moment’s notice. It means that music really is getting done about 3 days a week. Hooray! So this is Week Two following the rough Beginners Music Curriculum that I put together this summer. My write-up here really is geared more for my youngest (ED...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 15, 2015 · Last modified March 6, 2023
Are your kids studying words that have the Long I sound? They might enjoy the activities in this packet. It contains a word sort, board game and bingo cards for reviewing the long /i/ spelling patterns: ie, y, i-e, igh, ind and i. I made this long /i/ word sort file folder game for ED. She went over many of these words (and rules) last year, but she will definitely...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 14, 2015 · Last modified September 13, 2015
Have your kids read the Plot Chicken? We started our Writing Workshop off with this book. What a great buk, buk!! In fact, I liked it so much that I created a chicken writing rules printable to go along with the book (free to download down below)!!! So, in this post I want to share some of our Writing Workshop Mini-Lessons about the Story Writing Process & Story Structure. The...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 10, 2015 · Last modified September 9, 2015
I really want to do a series called “Thoughts on Teaching.” Why? Well, I’ve been reading a lot lately and have been excited about some of the ideas I’ve come across. As I process all that, I always want to write about it. May as well bounce my ideas with my online reader friends, right?!! Do you ever need a private cheerleader… someone to pat you on the back and...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 7, 2015
Today I’m going to share this Minecraft themed addition and subtraction packet that I made for my daughter. It’s free to download! It’s the beginning of the year, so ED definitely needs some review of some of the basic addition and subtraction facts. Combine math facts with her beloved Minecraft characters and she’ll beg to “play” more!! Although they are not presented in this order in the packet, we first...
It’s Labor Day and there are so many reasons to be thankful that our family lives here in this country and at this time! This is a post I wrote a couple of years ago and I thought it was worth sharing again. After the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and...
Before I dive too much into our school posts, I wanted to share pictures from our last week of summer vacation. Back in the spring, we made camping reservations at the Blackwood Campground in Acadia National Park. We drove up to Maine and spent a week enjoying the beauty of that area! We did a lot of hiking! And the kids and Hubby even braved the cold ocean waters! We...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 2, 2015 · Last modified September 7, 2015
Yesterday was our very first day school. We had such an amazing summer (and more about that in another day or so), but it is also great to be back in the groove again! I started the day with my new morning routine (I’ll talk about that more in another post too!), but it left me organized, energized, and ready to go with the kids! ED, of course, was the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Language Arts: Reading / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 31, 2015 · Last modified January 22, 2019
Are you looking for a phonics program to help your kids learn to read? I’ve put together some of the phonics readers that we used with my three kids. As you’ll see, all three of my kids had different preferences! I know I have a lot of new readers, and several people reached out to me recently who have preschoolers and are just starting out on this homeschool journey. I...
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.
