Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 23, 2014 · Last modified January 24, 2019
In this post I’d like to share a dozen activities that we did with the kids to help foster early reading skills. These are activities we did with CVC words and basic sight words to make the learning process fun and engaging!! 🙂 The first step in learning to read is to make sure your child knows their letter sounds. We shared lots of ideas about that in our Preschool...
Freebies / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 7, 2014 · Last modified February 24, 2016
The kids are going over some tricky homophones. These are some of the sheets I made for them. If you can use them, they are free to download. Grammar Sheets — Lay-Lie Peace-Piece Accept-Except and other homophones Other free grammar worksheets you can download: Their, They’re, There – Its, It’s Free Practice Sheets Comma Rules and Practice Worksheets Comma Rules and Practice Worksheets (Fall Theme) Grammar Practice: Possessive Nouns...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 30, 2014 · Last modified February 24, 2016
I made a couple of sheets so my older kids can review how to add endings (such as -ed, -ly, -s, -es and so forth). We reviewed when to double the final consonant and some of the irregular verbs. I also included the answers (but they are not shown in the picture below). There’s nothing fancy about these sheets, but they’re free to download if your kids need some review:...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 18, 2014 · Last modified March 1, 2016
A couple of weeks ago, I shared a really cute idea for encouraging independent reading. I thought I would also share some books my girls have LOVED between the ages of 4-7 or so: The Wish Cat, Pinkerton, Behave!, The Clown of God, Stellaluna, Caps for Sale Tikki Tikki Tembo (affiliate links) And some more books: The Gardener, I Have a Sister–My Sister Is Deaf, Big Bad...
Kindergarten / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 4, 2014
We should really call this post “Going Crazy with a Stapler!” So, the picture below is the skip-counting chain ED did (free to download at the Coins, Coins, Coins post), but shows you what we did with the strips in this post! Going along with the “chain” theme that I talked about on Tuesday with the coins and skip counting, I made ED sheets she had to cut out, mix...
FREE Kindle Edition of Mystery of the Secret Room – 5 Days Only! March 20th – 24th This morning I downloaded a free book for girls ages 7-11. Obviously, my daughter hasn’t read it yet, but I thought I’d mention it because it is free until March 24th over at Amazon. The reviews look pretty good. Here’s a bit about it: It’s raining so Brooke and Eva have nothing to do...
History: American History / Language Arts: Writing / WWII
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 21, 2014 · Last modified February 2, 2021
I received several emails and a message from people interested in the WWII Portfolio Project I made for LD. So, here it is! My son is doing some research work on WWII. Except for reading some novels last year (like Number the Stars), we have not covered this topic at all… He has been doing quite a bit of reading and has watched a video before jumping into the project ideas...
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...
Language Arts: Writing / Science: Biology Unit / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2014 · Last modified September 12, 2017
The kids are starting on another independent research project. Last semester the kids did a biography research project, but this semester they are doing a portfolio project. That’s just a fancy way of saying… a bit of this and a bit of that. They’ll do both non-fiction and fiction writing selections, art projects, geography and habitat projects. And they’ll also watch a number of videos and/or movies. You’ll get a...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 10, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
This was one of the best mini lessons we’ve had on writing. The kids still talk about how much they enjoyed sharing their memories and writing about them. They’ve asked me when we can do this again. I call that a successful day! If you’ve missed the previous posts in this series, I would suggest you go back and start with them, though honestly, you can do any of these...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 6, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
Day 4: Story Openings–Set the mood or feeling of your story You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s post, Day 1. Here are some of our first mini-lesson topics....
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 3, 2014 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Day 3: Creating Interesting Characters You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s post, Day 1. Here are some of our first mini-lesson topics. I used mentor texts and picked...
ED has finished her phonics programs and is now moving into independent reading. I was chatting with my friend and she had a wonderful idea to encourage this new-found independence. She suggested creating a reading garden. ED decided she wanted flowers, puppies and kittens in her garden. I chose some coloring pages, reduced them to the size I wanted, and printed them out. Whenever ED finishes reading a book on...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 27, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
Writing Workshop Mini-Lesson #2: Make the Story Come Alive with Details; Show the reader what happened; Create images in the reader’s mind You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s...
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.
