Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 20, 2015 · Last modified May 10, 2015
Middle Ages Unit: Worksheets on the Medieval Church & the Development of Monasteries This week we talked about Christianity in the early Middle Ages in our homeschool. We read about how the Church was organized and how monasteries began. The history book we are using [primarily Early Times : The Story of the Middle Ages (affiliate link) by Suzanne Strauss Art] went into detail about a couple of the historical figures that went...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 19, 2015 · Last modified July 27, 2018
We absolutely love our homeschool writing workshop. We don’t use any special homeschool writing curriculum, instead we’ve designed a writing routine that works really well for us. (In fact my reluctant writer now really loves writing! More about that in How/Why we needed a change in our writing program!) Today, I wanted to share a mini-lesson series I did with the kids on the literary device, conflict. I learned these...
Arts and Crafts / History: Middle Ages / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 17, 2015 · Last modified September 13, 2018
Last week, we combined our study of the Vikings with a new art project — woodburning! We have just started a new unit on the Middle Ages. Last week, we focused on northern Europe and the Vikings/Norsemen. We started by learning the location of the Scandinavian countries. We talked about the “barbarian” invasions of the Roman Empire and read that section in our history book. The spine for our...
Ages 2-6: Clocks - Telling Time / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 16, 2015
This Thursday, Feb. 19th, is Chinese New Year. ED continues to work on multiplication for the first time and I wanted to make her some worksheets again this week to work on moving from skip counting to simple multiplication problems. There are 7 pages, 3 of them include addition with regrouping and simple subtraction problems. Her worksheets are dragon-themed to celebrate the Chinese New Year! I hope someone else can use...
Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 15, 2015 · Last modified February 17, 2016
About the same time we studied the world biomes years ago, my son was *really* into reptiles. I made some cards for him back then and made them into pin-map pieces that he placed on our world map. There were reptiles from the rainforest, desert and tropical savanna. I also used the cards as Montessori 3-Part cards (where he matched the name with the photo). You’ll find those larger cards below....
History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 14, 2015 · Last modified February 16, 2016
If you are studying about different animal habitats or the word biomes, you may be interested in this free download. I made this world biomes pin map for the kids years ago. It includes a world biomes map and legend has pictures of the boreal and deciduous forests, rain forest, grasslands/savannas, chaparral, and tundra that the kids can stick onto the map. How to Make This: Print out all three pages on card...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 12, 2015
Life is running away with me because I have so many irons in the fire! I love it!! So first off, about me and my new journey here at our new location: So just to fill in for those of you who are new readers… I’ve been blogging since my youngest was a baby (well actually since well before my oldest was even born, but that was a family blog to...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 10, 2015 · Last modified February 8, 2015
It’s mid-winter. It’s cold and there’s still plenty of school left in the semester. How do we keep ourselves motivated to homeschool? I’ve been thinking about that a LOT lately. When working with the kids, it’s not just having the activities ready, the books out, worksheets printed out. It’s the smile and positive energy that really inspires our homeschool. In that regard, there are times when I’m not doing my job. Call it...
Ages 2-6: Clocks - Telling Time / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Math--Addition / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2015 · Last modified January 24, 2017
A number of people asked for skip counting mazes of 4s and 6s, so I went ahead and made those for this week! This packet contains 7s mazes total: Free Valentine’s Day Skip Counting Mazes Valentine’s Day Skip Counting, Addition and Subtraction pages: This is the packet I made for my daughter. It is also free. She is just learning multiplication (2s 5s 10s). The packet also includes some addition/subtraction...
The girls did this very quick Valentine’s Day craft last week. We’ve been doing this nearly every year since they were toddlers. 🙂 It adds such a pretty splash of color this time of year! You might be interested in these Valentine’s Day Resources: Valentines – First Multiplication Page-Skip Counting-Addition-SubtractionPractice Valentine’s Day Addition Pages (free) Valentine’s Multiplication Worksheets and Game Boards Valentine’s Bump Game Doubling (Addition) Valentine’s Bump Game —...
Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 6, 2015 · Last modified January 26, 2017
I made these Valentine’s Day math worksheets for my daughter who is *just* learning about multiplication. She knows how to skip count pretty well and has been asking to learn multiplication. These sheets are pretty basic and cover multiplication by 2s, 5s and 10s. Several of the pages have clocks at the top (to help her see that she already knows 5×3, 5×6 and 5×9). There are also a...
Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2015 · Last modified November 2, 2022
This 150+ page Earth Science Packet includes worksheets about the solar system, the layers of the Earth, plate tectonics, the ring of fire, earthquake activity and volcanoes. I also included instructions for more than a dozen hands-on activities we did with this unit. This includes activities about plate tectonics, using a compass, earthquakes, volcanoes, instructions on how to make a shake table and more! My kids were in Grades 1, 4,...
This soup has become one of our family favorites! After soaking the lentils and soup beans, add all ingredients to the crockpot and cook for 6-8 hours. 1 1/2 – 2 cups dry lentils — These days I usually add 1 cup of lentils and about 3/4 cup of soup beans mix) — soaked for 1 1/2 hours, then rinsed 8 cups water 1 onion chopped 1/2 cup celery chopped...
Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Earth Science Unit / Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2015 · Last modified March 21, 2021
Last week I explained how we made an Earthquake Shake Table and shared a quick video on how we made ours. We first tested it with marshmallow structures. A couple days later, we made “brick” structures out of sugar cubes and peanut butter. We put on the documentary, Deadliest Earthquakes, and set to work. We all built our structures and then brought out our shake table to test them out! The most exciting...
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.
