Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 16, 2016 · Last modified December 24, 2017
Congratulations! After a busy semester, we are all ready for a well-deserved break! The kids are excited for the holidays and we educators need time to regroup, relax and re-energize too! Here are some tips for getting the most from your holiday break! 1. If you have time before the holidays are upon us, try to wrap up your schooling completely. Even if you are in the middle of a...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Science / Science Experiments / Science Units / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 13, 2016 · Last modified January 8, 2017
When I think about all we’ve done this past year in 2016 in science, I’m really pretty amazed! It’s been a fun, full year! This post has links to dozens of our science experiments, science worksheets and printables, and hands-on activities. You’ll find direct links to the posts in the table below. Last year as we moved into the new year (in January to May 2016), we were focused on...
Freebies / Holiday: Christmas Activities / Spanish
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 8, 2016 · Last modified December 5, 2021
It’s the holiday season and today we have some Christmas word cards and worksheets for those of you who are helping your kids to learn Spanish! This year, I teamed up with Sra. Morato from Homeschool Spanish Curriciulum to create a series of free Spanish worksheets for you. This is the 5th post in this series. Sra. Morato teaches Spanish classes online. She is a native Spanish speaker and has...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 21, 2016 · Last modified August 10, 2023
How to Create Your Own Homeschool Curriculum: Gr. 2-3 One of the things I hear a lot about our blog is that there is so much to take in, it can be overwhelming. That is especially true if you are a new homeschooler, just starting out. I’ve dragged my feet about creating a resource like this is because so much of what we covered is not “grade” or “age” specific....
Engineering - STEM Activities / Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den / Science: Electricity and Circuits Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 14, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
Our study of electricity and circuits was electrifying!! Seriously, we all learned SO much in this unit and did over a dozen hands-on projects! If your kids love STEM projects, you may enjoy our 30-page Electricity and Circuits Packet. My kids are currently 8, 11 and 13 and they couldn’t wait to dive into science each day while we were doing this unit! Some of the topics and terms we...
Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Freebies / hands-on science / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Kindergarten / Kindergarten Math / Math--Addition / Montessori (general info) / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2016 · Last modified August 10, 2023
How to Create Your Own Homeschool Curriculum: K, Gr. 1 This FREE 50-page Homeschool Resource has been created to help answer some basic questions: What subjects should I teach my Kindergartner/1st Grader? Where do I start? How do I know what to teach my kids? Every child is different, but I wanted to offer a starting point. Hopefully you’ll find some ideas and printables that will work with your kids!...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 2, 2016 · Last modified July 4, 2017
One of our readers emailed with a question about Prealgebra. She said that she saw our free PreAlgebra lapbook pieces that I mentioned on FB the other day and was wondering what textbook we were using. I thought I’d share what is working for us right now for math. The kids use more than one math book! LD (8th Grade/age 13) He is in the last chapters of Prealgebra (4th...
hands-on science / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Electricity and Circuits Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 2, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
As many of you know, we are doing an electricity and circuits unit. Today I thought I would share some of the hands-on activities we did as we started off this unit! We started off the year with a unit on the States of Matter. Then we went on to talk about the Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter. We touched on conductivity (and insulators) briefly as physical properties, but...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 25, 2016 · Last modified March 5, 2023
Our free German worksheets for kids posts are among the most popular on our blog. Today I wanted to highlight some of the recent German materials we’ve shared over the years here on the blog. Many of these are buried and I thought I would put them together in one easy-to-find post! If your kids/students are just beginning to learn German, I hope you find something useful! If you like...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Spanish
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2016 · Last modified October 10, 2020
El Otoño es divertido! Dear Parents! I am so excited to be part of Liesl’s Fall project! What a wonderful way to learn the colors and fall related words. She and I worked together to create another free Spanish printable for you. With these activities, you can help your students learn some fall-related words and practice their colors in Spanish. As you know, Liesl and I believe learning should be...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 3, 2016
Over the weekend I wrote a post about what I might do if I were starting all over again with toddlers and preschoolers in-tow (Homeschooling Multiple Ages). In today’s post, I wanted to share what our routine looks like these days. I have two kids in middle school (ie. grades 6 and 8) and one in grade 3. Our homeschool is considerably more structured than it used to be. When...
Homeschool Den / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 26, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
Sublimation and Deposition Activities – Making Chemistry Fun! This fall we’ve been studying the states of matter and changes of matter. Today I’m going to share some of our activities as we talked about the changes in states of matter from solid to gas–sublimation and from gas to solid–deposition. It was a day of Dry Ice FUN!! 🙂 While most kids know freezing, melting and evaporation sublimation and deposition are...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 19, 2016 · Last modified July 1, 2020
Today I have some writing practice pages to share with you about the concept, “Show Don’t Tell.” The kids and I are spending a number of days talking about this writing strategy. “Show Don’t Tell” helps the reader to experience the story by using descriptions, actions, thoughts, feelings, & emotions. Using this technique helps readers feel like they are right in the middle of the action! Here’s how I explained...
Homeschool Den / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 12, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
In this part of our States of Matter unit we talked about some of the properties of liquids. A few days ago, I shared some of activities as we discussed gases. You’ll find that here: States of Matter-Hands-On Activities about Gases. We continued to talk about the structure of matter. Liquids have a definite volume, but no definite shape. Not only did we talk about some of the characteristics of...
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.
