Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
MATH TAIL TAG: Today after Kindergym I told the kids we weregoing to the park to play math games. Theywere pretty excited. Our first game was Math Tail Tag. The kids all had astrip of construction paper with a number on it tuckedinto our shorts. We ran around trying to protect our tailfrom being swiped and tried to swipe someone else’stail. When we got a tail, we looked at the...
Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 16, 2010
We’ve seen lots of snakes skins at the ReptileCentre, but hadn’t ever seen a lizard skin. Ourreadings about reptiles talked about how lizardsshed their skins whole. Today we were excitedto find a nearly complete lizard skin (about 6inches/15cm long) floating in the water. It’s so great when nature reinforces our homelearning!! Yes, LD wanted to take it home and yes(of course) I let him. Sometimes I’m more excitedthan the kids!...
Active Math Games / Math General Posts / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2010
This week I’m moving away from the theme time tableand am focussing on some active math games instead (Ionly have so much energy to get things organized and setto go!). The kids were beside themselves to get outside to seewhat I was up to with the chalk last night! This is a mathsnail. LD is doing the addition problems. DD is practicing either saying the number (in light pink,it’s very...
Active Math Games / Math General Posts / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2010
This is good for coordination and for practicingthe concept of left and right. The kids have tocross one foot across the other.
Active Math Games / Math General Posts / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2010
I drew circles and placed numbers up on theoutside wall. The kids had to dip a sponge inwater and splat a number. LD worked on the 13 number family. If hegot a 7 for example, he had to figure out whichnumber makes 13 (answer=6). This is thefirst time he’s done the 13 family, so there’sa sheet for him to look at for help. Once again DD worked on “comes after.”...
This week our living room carpet has been dectoratedwith math problems (we don’t have a separate homeschoolroom or area). LD’s doing the space themed additionproblems. DD is doing “what number comes next.”And ED can’t ever be left out, so she get to jump on “1,2,3!” I did this earlier in the year (with different problems) and itreally helped cement in some of LD’s addition facts. It waseasy to say “go...
Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2010
Here are the bird cards I made (link to download is on the sidebar). There are smaller photos as well, but I wound up not using them (oh well), but they do tell you where these birds are located. Anyway, I chose these particular birds because I selected some short (3 to 8 minute long) videos from you-tube that I chose to show the kids. Today after sorting the five...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 14, 2010 · Last modified January 28, 2018
Time for a bit of fun this week. Just copy the 10 questions below and enter your answers after each one of them for this week’s blog hop. I can’t wait to see all of your answers. 1. What time is it right now? 5:20pm, I’m making dinner 2. What are you wearing? my soccer uniform 3. What is your mood? great, I have an evening out (soccer followed by...
Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 13, 2010 · Last modified July 3, 2020
The kids separated things into invertebrate and vertebrate cards. I’m pretty sure those cards were from here. Then we talked about the five vertebrate groups. I made the labels you see below. We have the 5 Animal Kingdom cards here: Vertebrate-Invertebrate Montessori Sort Cards DD used the animal sorting cards from http://www.filefolderfun.com/KindergartenScience.html that you see on the pink file folder here. By the way, we’re going to be sorting the...
I wrote up a list of math resources I’ve come across some time back. This is an old posting, but worth a look for math resources (websites, games, activities) you might not have come across. My kids are young, so these websites are generally for K-2. Math Resources List Part I — Addition, hundreds board, skip counting Math Resources List Part II — Time, Place Value, Money Activities, Multiplication Leave...
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Workboxes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2010
I wrote up a detailed post about our homeschool routine (I hesitate to even call it a schedule). I took notes all day so I could show what a real homeschool day looks like here at the homeschool den. The link is in the right sidebar or click here. We have various ways we keep our homeschool materials organized. We use workboxes for most of our academic things (math, math...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2010
I set out some activities related to the humanbody on Thursday, but we didn’t get to themuntil Friday. On Thursday, we went to a wonderful show aboutdinosaurs. It’s a show based at the museum inSydney but they brought it here for a couple of days.Essentially it was a puppet show with dinosaurs.LD and DD both got to go on stage — and LD wasalso in the ultimate act–being “eaten” by...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2010
In this activity we talked about various handicapsand physical disabilities. Then we talked aboutarthritis and how difficult it would be to be inpain and have swollen joints and so forth. I thentaped Popsicle sticks to their fingers and theytried to see if they could pick things up withtheir fingers immobilized. The last picture is of the inside of a pomegranate.We had never had one before and tried it atlunch. LD...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Math: Preschool Math
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 11, 2010
I printed off princess bookmarks from here. (Iactually used the j-peg image so I could printtwo sets (16 bookmarks total) on one page, but youcan also get the larger bookmarks in a pdf file there. (It took several tries, but I did manage to view thepdf file, just so you know.) I put a dot sticker onthe bottom with the numerals 1-19. I pulled outour beads and DD has really...
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.
