Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
ice skating! Yes, here in central Australia in the middleof summer! We took the kids twice. We also did a trip to the Desert Park (with the nocturnalhouse as everybody’s favorite). I don’t have any picturesof the various animals there, but we always enjoywatching the bilbies, mala, various desert mice and rats,ghost bats, Western quoll and assorted lizards andsnakes. The last picture below is the “thorny devil.”
We had some intense rains about ten days ago whichhad the normally dry river bed flowing. The waterhas now dwindled to a trickle, but after the rainswe get a lot of tadpoles/frogs. We’ve spent twolovely mornings collecting (then releasing) tadpoles. LD had well over 20 in his container at one point today.
Here are a few things DD has done this week: Letter stamping from http://kidssoup.com/ (membershipwebsite) DD has really enjoyed word related file folder games thisweek and has asked to do lots of them each day. Hereare a few examples of what she did: Sunflower Sight Words:http://filefolderfun.com/KindergartenSightWords.html The “it word” matching came from page 15 ofhttp://www.wordway.us.com/FamilySets/itSet.pdf There are more word family activities at Carl’s Corner:http://www.wordway.us.com/LetterI.htmor http://www.wordway.us.com/ Frog two-letter sight words:http://www.earlylearningactivities.com/PDF/frog2swbookc.pdf(You can...
As I was out walking our dog this evening, I was thinkingabout my preschool posts. Just considering what I post, Ireally haven’t given a good view of what DD’s “preschoolday” really looks like. I would say the majority of theday is spent in creative play. She plays elaborate gameswith her stuffed animals, plastic animals, and doll house. She builds things with legos and K’nex with LD. She playsoutside. She, LD...
Several times a day, DD sits down to draw, make cardsand “practice writing.” She does this when LD writes inhis journal or practices his handwriting. I never suggestany of this, she chooses to do this on her own. Stickers,crayons, paper, glue and sequins are always out andavailable. (That means that the dining room table ispretty much always covered with “stuff.”) She and LD both enjoy arts and crafts and we...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 19, 2010
I saw this art project at Deep Space Sparkle. The kidswere enthusiastic to give it a go. She explains it betterthan I do, but essentially they drew the monster withoil pastels and then used water colors over top. I was amazed at how little guidance they neededonce I explained the steps. Even DD needed very,very little help. It is interesting that since doing this art project, DD’sdrawings of people now...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math: Preschool Math
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 11, 2010
In this game you need some counters (we used coloredtiles) and a deck of cards without the jokers, 10s or picturecards. Each player takes a turn. The player turns over a cardand adds that many tiles to her paper. (DD had to addyellow tiles, I added red tiles.) After she placed her tileson the yellow paper, she had to determine if there weremore than 10 tiles. If so, she took...
LD has been reading these fairy tales fromthe Beacon Second Reader aloud to me. Thisbook was published in 1914. LD and I both like the tales. You can downloadthem for free and print them out. I did this andexpect to get a lot of use out of them. (LD isalready half-way through the book.) Here are some sample pages (not everypage has an illustration) from the Shoemakerand the Elves and...
DD did the sorting activity again and then we pulled outplaydough and she formed the first letter of each word. ED enjoyed taking the wooden letters and sticking theminto the playdough!
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 10, 2010
Someone in one of the yahoo groups I’m in shared this science resource: http://www.school4all.org/index.php?view=article&catid;=56%3A2009-02-26-13-13-12&id;=341%3Abooks-on-science-maths-activities&format;=pdf&option;=com_content&Itemid;=70 I briefly checked out some of the links. Some didn’t seem to work for me, but I did enjoy this science comic on the auroras: http://vidyaonline.org/arvindgupta/cawsesaurora.pdf which had a cute comic strip explaining the aurora borealis and included photos from NASA and elsewhere. I’ll be checking out more of the links soon. Someone else shared link...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 8, 2010 · Last modified June 25, 2015
This month we’re doing lots of science experiments. We also have a friend with us for the remainder of the school holidays (end of January for public school kids), so the kids have been having long, imaginative play sessions most days. It doesn’t leave me with too much more to talk about on the home-schooling front. Life in general though is full to overflowing! Isn’t that the case for most...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 8, 2010 · Last modified June 25, 2015
Yesterday we prepared our red-cabbage pH indicator. We took a red cabbage, sliced it and placed it into a pot of boiling water. The heat was turned off and we let it sit for several hours. Then we drained out the cabbage and put the cabbage juice into the fridge until we were ready to try our experiment
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 8, 2010 · Last modified June 25, 2015
Here’s the set-up of our experiment. We don’t have any test tubes, so we used small plastic cups. I also recommend having a pH indicator color chart ((I got mine from page 13 at the Surfing Scientist) as the kids really were excited to examine the chart to see whether it was an acid or a base and to decide how strong it was compared some of the other things...
By the way, I read that you can freeze the red cabbage juice and then thaw it to use later.
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.
