We are so glad you are here at the Homeschool Den! We have been homeschooling for years now, so we have a lot of resources tucked away here at our blog. In fact, let me send you to one ofour latest freebies – the FREE Fall 2024 Homeschool Planner and you’ll find our Free 2024-2025 School Year Calendar Printable here. Would you like to check out some of our other homeschool freebies? Visit Welcome Page #3. Do you want to see what hands-on homeschooling has meant to our family? Visit this page filled with hands-on homeschool activities and teaching strategies!
If you’re new to homeschooling, you might want to start with this post, Starting to Homeschool. Be sure to check out the Science Units and History Units as well. Those pages give you a visual overview of many of the units we’ve covered in our homeschool. If you are on a mobile phone, you might tilt your phone horizontally to see the various menu options.
You can find out more about our homeschooling family (with 3 kids) and me (my name is Liesl!) and our very hands-on homeschool style here at our About Page.
If you are new to our blog, you’ll find that we have done a LOT of different units. The category button above will be a huge help in finding what you need. And of course, you can check out our store for a long list of units and packets. If you are looking for specific units or topics, you might want to check out these resource pages:
- History Units Page — We’ve studied everything from the Ancient World through the Civil Rights Movement and everything in between! We’ve done tons of hands-on history projects, read amazing book, watched some incredible documentaries and films and all along the way I’ve been making notebook pages and other activities. Many of our notebook pages are free — some such as our World Facts Packet, Civics and Government Unit, American Revolution, Slavery and the Civil War, Age of Exploration, European History 1500-1750 (Renaissance/Reformation/Age of Absolutism), World War I, World War II, Cold War, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China and others are in our store.
Again, you can see some of the history topics we have covered here at the History Page
- Science Units Page: This page will give you an idea of some of the science units we’ve done over the years.
Many of our science units are available in Bundles now (units are still available individually as well!). Below are links where you can check out
the Earth Science & Physical Science Bundle
the Big Animal Bundle is a study of zoology topics for early elementary kids
the Biology Bundle We started going over many biology topics in later elementary and into middle school (and even high school). Many topics we covered and/or reviewed every couple of years, going into more depth. Each time, I would add new material and activities to our packets. For this reason, our units are suitable for homeschool families.
(We did history and science together; I have three kids each two years apart.)
the Nature Studies Bundle This is a new and growing bundle!
the Chemistry Bundle
We covered one human body system each spring. Every few years, we would do one of these units again going into more depth. Each time the packets were updated, so again these units are suitable for homeschool families with kids of different ages.
- If you are wondering in general what science topics/units to cover, this is a free checklist of the units we hoped to cover K-8 (ie. in elementary and middle school) Homeschool Science Unit Checklist for Elementary and Middle School (free printable) We generally did around 6 science units a year and came back to them for review or to go into more depth every two or three years. This checklist helped remind me what we hadn’t covered for a while and really helped with my overall homeschool planning!
- Free History Checklist Printable:
Click the link or picture below to download this free PDF! History Checklist for Homeschoolers
This PDF includes many of the history units and topics we covered in our homeschool in elementary, middle school and even into high school. It also includes some of the historical skills I wanted to cover with the kids and different history teaching strategies and activity ideas. There is a list of different types of history writing assignments to do with your kids. And, there is also a more updated list with our free history notebook pages.
Hands-On Homeschool Activities
- We absolutely ♥ love hands-on science activities. We do a lot of science experiments as we do our science units. You might find something useful here at the Science Units page: Our most popular bundle is the Earth Science Bundle.
Our Human Body Bundle is also very popular and includes lots of hands-on activities (as well as in-depth notebook pages and worksheets)! Visit the Human Body Systems Page to find out more about these units.
If you have younger kids be sure to check out our BIG Animal Bundle which includes 8 units to study Animals such as the 100+ page Animal Packet which covers animal characteristics, vertebrates & invertebrates, animal homes & shelters and more plus there are packets on World Animals, the Rainforest, Life Cycles, Winter Packet and Hibernation Unit plus mini-units on Wolves, Cicadas and Chameleons.
We’ve also done units on Simple Machines: (See this post our our Store for more details!)
Cells (Plant & Animal Cells, Organelles and more!)
We’ve done units on Botany & Carnivorous Plants, Oceans, Magnets, Circulatory System, Digestive System, and many others!
In early middle school we covered Biology and talked about topics such as Biomes, the Ecosystem, Biological Relationships such as Symbiosis, Commensalism, Mutualism, Parasitism, Mimicry, the Food Chain & Food Web, etc.) and many other topics! 🙂 After that unit, we covered Pathogens which was one of ED’s all-time favorite science units!
Here’s one of the activities in our 170+page Biology Packet:
- Language Arts Page — We have tons of free grammar pages on things like comma rules, their/they’re/there and more.
And these categories:
- Ages 2-6
- If you are on a desktop, you can check out the categories on the right side-bar and find the unit you might be interested in Ancient Egypt, addition, birds, geography units, engineering and STEM activities and more than 150 more!
Homeschool Planning for Next Year (Free Planning Pages)
These are some free Homeschool Planning Pages that I use as I try to figure out our long-range homeschooling goals. This post shares share the process I go through… and also will share the planning pages that I’ve been using the past few years. I like having colorful planning pages to work on. This isn’t really a weekly/monthly planner, but rather a homeschool vision planner. This 30+-page pdf is currently FREE to download! Let me know if it’s helpful! ~Liesl
Free Homeschool Planning Pages
Homeschool Goal Setting – Click on the link or picture below:
Homeschool Goal Setting – Free Printable
If you are looking for more general tips about creating routines, organizing and keeping things running smoothly, be sure to grab our newest Homeschool Packet: Homeschool Foundations: Establishing Routines that Work! It is currently FREE and I will be adding to it throughout the summer (2021).
Free Homeschool Planner (for daily/weekly planning)
And, if you are looking for some printables to create your own Homeschool Planner, you might want to check out our free Homeschool Planner. This unique homeschool planning packet is currently FREE to download! It is nearly 100 pages! Not only does this packet include daily and weekly planning pages, checklists and record keeping pages, but it also includes various homeschool journaling pages… think gratitude journal meets homeschool goal setting! Again, you’ll find it at this post: Free Homeschool Planner and Discovery Journal. I tend to change up my homeschool planning pages regularly as our needs change, so this packet of materials has steadily grown in size! There might be something you can use there! 🙂
We also have a half-page booklet style homeschool planner as well. I print the pages out one-sided, fold them in half and bind along the left side. That free printable can be found here: FREE Booklet-Style Homeschool Planner
The new Spring 2023 Homeschool Planner has just been released! It is free as well! I hope it is helpful! Visit this post for the download link: Free Printable Homeschool Planner for Spring 2023 We will release our new Fall 2023 Homeschool Planner this summer.
Homeschooling – Creating your Own Curriculum
Free Resource Guides for K-Grade 1, Grades 2-3, Grades 4-5, Grades 6-8, High School
I have often been asked questions from my readers such as “Where do I start? How do I know what to teach? What units did your kids do when they were in __ Grade? What does an 8 year old need to learn for science/history/math?”” The simple answer is every homeschooling family will have their own journey. And in fact, each of my three kids had a different homeschool journey as well! But I wanted to put together these guides to show you what our family did along the way. Maybe it will give you a few ideas as you forge your own amazing homeschool path!!
Creating Your Own Homeschool Curriculum: These are some resources I made that might be helpful as you create your own homeschool plans. These are somewhere between 30 and 50 pages and are FREE to download :
If you are Transitioning from School to Homeschool, you might want to check out this post which I wrote as COVID-19 started closing schools around the world.
Free Homeschool Supply List Printables (including basic supplies, art materials, math manipulatives and science materials you might want to have on hand). Get the free printable at this post.
Homeschool Den Catalog: This (free) pdf has a list of many of the packets we have available. It gives you a quick glimpse of each of the units. In Our Store, you can click on the Quick Previews next to each product below to see many pictures/photos of what is included in each packet. Click here to view or download our Homeschool Den Catalog (pdf):
This post has a wide range of different hands-on activity ideas and teaching strategies that might inspire you in your homeschooling! You can grab a free copy of the teaching strategies printable here:
Are you a visual person? Be sure to visit this post with dozens and dozens of hands-on teaching ideas in pictures! Visit the Ultimate Hands-On Homeschooling Guide for some fresh inspiration!!
Visit this page for Homeschool Tips and Encouragement:
Homeschool Challenges such as Organization, Scheduling and more! Read about the challenges (and solutions!) here:
Math: You might enjoy this post: 10 Things I’ve Learned about Homeschooling Math and 30 Math Activity Ideas
We love doing hands-on activities and we get a lot of hits from Pinterest on our activities, but equally as popular are our printables — pretty much in all subject areas.
- For the younger crowd, ages 2-6, people seem to really like our science experiment packets and the huge activity list we made. We also get hundreds of hits each day on our “Preschool at Home” posts.
- In math (for younger kids), we get a lot of interest in our place value activities, Minecraft/Pokemon/Pete the Cat printables and skip counting mazes. And the math printables we have by holidays (fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day) are also really popular. Many of those are free! 🙂 Use the SEARCH button to find what you want (by searching “skip counting,” “addition,” “Minecraft,” “Thanksgiving” and so forth!!)
Plus, we have a (growing) K-2 Math Bundle (which includes subtraction, place value, etc.) and has various worksheets, games and other activities for ages 5-7 or so. There are 20 pdfs and more than 300 pages of materials. At just $5.50, this is by far one of the best values on the blog. I enjoy making these materials and have kept adding (and adding to this bundle!) It includes lots of games and activities. Hope this helps make math time fun!!
- The Multiplication/Division BUNDLE is also a great value ($7.50). It also has more than 20 pdfs and over 350 pages of materials for learning all the math facts from the 2s through 10s!!
Learning the Multiplication Facts: As my daughter moved into learning her multiplication facts I looked around for the kind of multiplication practice that would help her. The math book she was using went through the math facts a bit too quickly for her. She needed quite a bit of repetition and wanted bright, colorful worksheets. I wound up making my own sets of practice pages and games. She loved that! Be sure to check out our Multiplication Bundle here: Learning the Multiplication Tables 2s thru 9s. You’ll see links to these individual packets at the bottom of that post. (There are 15 pdfs in our multiplication bundle (and growing) with over 250 pages of worksheets, games and activities!)
- We get a lot of interest in our science units, especially our Human Body Units, Rocks and Minerals Unit, Simple Machines, Weather Unit Packets, and our Earth Science Unit. You can check out Our Store to find out more about them (scroll down through the page) or check out the Science Resource Page. We absolutely ♥ love hands-on science activities. We do a lot of science experiments as we do our science units. You might find something useful there.
This past year our best selling science packets were 5) Bundle: States of Matter & Properties of Matter 4) Animal Unit 3) Biology Unit 2) Human Body Bundle (Human Body Systems, Cell Unit, Digestive System Unit, Circulatory System Unit) and in first place: 1) Earth Science Packet. Over on TpT where many of our products are sold, the STEM: Circuits & Electricity and Ocean Unit are my best selling units for science. (Just FYI, everything is slightly cheaper here on my blog than on TpT because of the additional costs of hosting things on that platform.)
Here’s a video about the science units and topics we hope to cover in the elementary and middle school years:
- We also get a lot of hits on our History and World Cultures Posts – Civil Rights, Gandhi, Africa, India, Ancient Egypt, and our world religions worksheets (Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.)… and many more. 🙂 You’ll find some longer units like the Civics & Government Packet, Feudalism, Age of Exploration, American Revolution, Slavery and the Civil War packet in Our Store. We also have *tons* of free resources (such as the pages you see below on Ancient China, US Presidents Activities, the India and Africa learning packets… plus much more!).
Writing: I made a video about how/why we changed to a Writing Workshop Model and how that transformed our writing experience!
Grammar sheets — Even the grammar practice worksheets I’ve made for the kids on comma rules, the use of apostrophes, etc. get a lot of hits! These are free, so you’ll want to check those out. 🙂
Be sure to check out our History Resource Page. We have tons of free notebook pages as well as a number of history packets for sale in our store!
We’ve made our way through time in history. This is a history checklist of topics I hope we cover K-8 — and the history tab might give you some ideas if your kids have a particular interest.
Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses Packet and Activities
Middle Ages – Feudalism Packet
Renaissance/Reformation/Enlightenment
Civics and Government Unit – Learn about the 3 branches of government, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Presidential Cabinet Positions, How a bill becomes law, civics review questions (well-known symbols & landmarks and more)
U.S. Presidents – Quick Study of 14 well-known presidents
Oregon Trail Lapbook and Notebook Pages
So again, I suggest you use the SEARCH feature and the CATEGORY button to help you find what you’re interested in.
As you look around, you’ll see that we have hundreds of free resources on our blog from various math worksheets and skip counting pages to history and geography resources, grammar pages and more. I hope you find some useful resources on our blog!! 🙂 ~Liesl
Over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page, I regularly post some of our homeschool resources… gems that might be tucked away on the blog (like this post: Hands-On Geography Activities for ages 4 to 10. I try to share things as we move from season to season – and include some of the activities we’ve done through the years (we just love hands-on engineering projects, experiments… anything that keeps the kids inspired and motivated to learn!). Plus, I share posts about the realities of homeschooling too!
If you ever have any questions, feel free to drop me an email! I love hearing from our readers and happy to answer any questions you have!
Thanks for stopping by! ~Liesl and the Kids
See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter. You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts. You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group. Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well.
Again, if you are interested in joining our Homeschool Den Newsletter, feel free to subscribe here. The Welcome Series includes 5 packed emails… with tips on homeschooling, keeping motivated, finding various resources and freebies tucked away on the blog and more!
Plus, you’ll be the first to hear about new packets (generally offered at a discount when they are first released), seasonal resources and more!
It’s a great way to hear about our latest packets and to learn about many of the hundreds of printables & other materials we have tucked away on the blog!
Happy Homeschooling!
~Liesl