Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Engineering - STEM Activities / Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 16, 2012 · Last modified May 6, 2016
Challenge your kids to think creatively with this quick activity. This week we had to do our Think Challenge on Monday since I knew I’d be out of commission. The kids were thrilled; they really love these activities! Their challenge was to build as tall a tower as they could with marshmallows and straws. I let ED use wooden skewers because the straws were challenging to work with. Here are...
Homeschooling in the News / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2012
A Six-Year-old Goes on to the National Spelling Bee A six year old homeschooler from Virginia is going to compete in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee after winning the Prince William County spelling bee where she competed against elementary and middle school students last Friday. She started competing in her first spelling bees at the age of 3 1/2. Congratulations to Lori and good luck! See the article and...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 14, 2012 · Last modified February 9, 2017
I’ve been posting a lot lately. Now it’s time to step back and remind you that this is definitely only a glimpse of what we do or what life is really like for us. You are seeing only a five to fifteen minute snippet of our day or perhaps you’re seeing snippets of several days all organized nicely into one post. And while I love, love coming up and planning ...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 13, 2012
LD has learned most of his multiplication facts, but he still needs that extra practice. Here are some online games that he has really enjoyed. And best thing is, they’re free to play! Multiplication.com has quite a selection of multiplication games. Here are a few of the online games that have been great for reviewing those facts. The Knight and the Princess Multiplication Game: This has to be one of the kids very...
History: American West Unit / Recipes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2012 · Last modified March 21, 2018
Lewis and Clark Lapbooks: I saw a wonderful set of lapbook materials on Lewis and Clark and on the American West over at Dynamic 2 Moms. We used some of their materials to make notebook pages for the kids’ history notebooks. Also the US mint website had a number of really great printables about the journey of Lewis and Clark because of the series of nickles that were released in...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 11, 2012
There are some really interesting statistics out there about educating preschoolers in America. Did you know that enrollment for preschoolers has increased 679% between 1985 and 2008? In 1985 0.2 million preschoolers were enrolled in school in the USA while in 2008 this had increased to 1.2 million! But in reality, still only a little over half of all 3-4 year olds are in school (52% in 2009) (Digest of Education Statistics,...
Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 8, 2012 · Last modified March 4, 2016
A couple of weeks ago I saw some cute preschool activities about dental health at 2 Teaching Mommies, I was inspired! We didn’t get to Amber’s ideas, but we did fit in the science activities from 1st grade with Miss Snowden. After talking about the germs in our house (see this post), it seemed fitting to talk about the germs in our mouths. I hard-boiled six white eggs and we...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 7, 2012
We incorporate a lot of Montessori math into our preschooling days. There are lots of great websites, but Living Montessori Now is a wonderful place to start as Deb has compiled ideas from all around the web. I also play lots of board games that require counting, we jump and play and sing about numbers. Here are some of the math activities we did a couple of weeks ago. I had this...
We’ve been using the fraction chart and a pencil a lot to look at equivalent fractions. I have the kids line up the pencil on 1/2 and then ask them what some equivalent fractions are. We also have spent a lot of time building equivalent fractions with our manipulatives. Again the fraction table pictured below is from Right Start math (a math curriculum that uses Montessori concepts and hands-on math manipulatives and games),...
Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 5, 2012 · Last modified August 23, 2018
Germ Experiment: When I saw this germ experiment, I knew we had to add this into our unit on First Aid. After all keeping ourselves healthy is as important as patching up the injuries, right?! The experiment called for gelatin, sugar and petri dishes. We didn’t have petri dishes so used paper cups and covered them immediately with glad wrap in lieu of a cover. Boil 1/2 cup of water...
I once read about the concept of a time-in. Well, at this stage of life I have to be really mindful to do this for my four year old… Sometimes I even need to turn on the stopwatch on to be sure I’m stopping and focusing on ED for a good solid ten minutes. I do this for my older kids of course too, but at times it’s easier to...
Engineering - STEM Activities / Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 3, 2012 · Last modified March 5, 2019
Engineering Challenge – Week 2 The kids did their second Engineering Challenge this week. Each day I spend time reading a book aloud to the kids. Right now we’re reading a wonderful book about the Oregon Trail. On Thursday I had them try this challenge while I read. The Goal: Build a tower with post-it notes. Make it as sturdy and high as you can. Here are some of the solutions...
Health / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 2, 2012 · Last modified April 14, 2015
Our germ unit took about a week to complete in part because of the amazing germ-experiment we did (more about that next week… the experiment was awesome!). We talked about the major types of germs: bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. While fungi can produce athlete’s foot and protozoa can cause giardia and malaria, we didn’t go into much detail about those. Some sources also consider helminths (worms) a germ as...
About ten days ago we started a new fractions unit in math. I did these activities and games with both LD (age 8) and DD (age 6). We did these activities at the beginning of our math time and then the kids went on to do their daily work in their math workbooks. The kids’ math workbooks both have a chapter on fractions, but I wanted to go a...
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.
