Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 31, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
The weather feels like summer and we had a week away, but we actually haven’t quite brought our school year to a close. We have a couple of weeks left partly because we haven’t done our end-of-year testing yet. As part of the requirements for our state, the kids have to take a national exam (there are several to choose from). The tests are graded elsewhere, we receive the results...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 30, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
Yesterday someone asked me how the tune to the 7 Continents song goes that we use in geography. We decided to try our hand making a video to help. ED sang the song by herself the first time through… then all the kids joined in the other two times. When they were first learning the seven continents they pointed (at first with my help) to each continent. When they were...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 29, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
As you probably gather from yesterday’s post 10 Reasons Why Time Off is Important, our family was on holiday last week at the beach. There are so many things to do at the Outer Banks (Southern Shores/Kitty Hawk/Nags Head area), I thought I would share some of the things our family has done there. I know it’s a popular family destination. Here are some things your family might enjoy in...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Outdoor Fun / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 28, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
1. It allows you to open your eyes to the beauty around you 2. It puts the focus on love, family and being together 3. It lets you try new things The kids went kayaking for the first time last week. 4. It’s soothing, relaxing and you can switch off. 5. It allows you to experience someone else’s passions Hubby and LD played endless rounds of card games...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 25, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
A few years ago, my kids really liked Nutrigrain bars. I hunted for a recipe that would approximate the store-bought bars, but that I could guarantee weren’t full of preservatives. I make these about once every 6 weeks or so and they get eaten very quickly in our household! In a mixing bowl mix well: 1 cup butter (softened for 30 seconds in microwave) 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 23, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
…just the cute ones win out! Do you do little crafts with your kids? I’m just as guilty as the next blogger in only sharing the cute-craft successes. This post was originally just a shout out to ED’s little lion project. Cute stuff, but really that doesn’t demonstrate the creativity and imagination of the poor, “ugly” crafts that get made at the Homeschool Den. Most of those don’t even get...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 23, 2013 · Last modified March 1, 2016
…just the cute ones win out! Do you do little crafts with your kids? I’m just as guilty as the next blogger in only sharing the cute-craft successes. This post was originally just a shout out to ED’s little lion project. Cute stuff, but really that doesn’t demonstrate the creativity and imagination of the poor, “ugly” crafts that get made at the Homeschool Den. Most of those don’t even get...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info) / Must Read / Science: Rain Forests
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 21, 2013 · Last modified November 2, 2022
World Animal Packet: 100+ page packet focusing on the animals on every continent! It includes Montessori 3-Part Cards, Activity Sheets for every continent, printable continent cards, a world animal game, world animal pin map activity, and more! As I mentioned on Friday, ED has been working on her world geography. She has spent a couple of weeks going over the 7 continents again and working with some Montessori 3-part cards...
Ages 2-6: Flower Unit / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 19, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
Did you know this week, May 2-8, 2016 is National Wildflower Week? You might want to visit the U.S. Forest Service Website: Celebrating Wildflowers and their Special Features Page. They have beautiful posters and resources available (free). Okay, so only some of these flowers below are actually wildflowers. It’s not a great idea to pick wildflowers if you don’t know the regulations of your region, but we found some gorgeous...
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 17, 2013
Scholastic Dollar Deals are back! I noticed that they have their $1 sale on ebooks until May 19th, 2013. I have bought dozens of books over the past couple of years. Just thought I’d mention it for anyone who might be interested — Here are some of the things we’ve bought ($1) and used: Instant Habitat Dioramas Banish Boring Words Various Writing Prompt Books Math: Fractions
Freebies / History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 17, 2013 · Last modified August 15, 2020
FREE Montessori World Pin Map Printable You can make your own Montessori Style World Pin Map with this free printable! While my older kids were learning a lot about the location of the specific countries of Africa, my preschooler was working on world geography again. I thought I’d share some of the activities ED has been doing the past week or two. As always, we started out by singing the...
One day, DD announced, “I want to learn to weave.” I realized that I was a terrible mother… my kids have never even learned the basics of paper weaving! It was time to bring out the construction paper and teach that all-important skill… repeating the over-under-over-under pattern! Then I used hard pieces of cardboard and made simple little yarn looms for them. Even my youngest quickly got the hang of...
Games for Thinking and Learning / History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 14, 2013 · Last modified March 3, 2016
We have been playing a couple of wonderful geography games in our homeschool. We have the Africa version, but you can also buy these same games in a version of Europe, Asia, or the Americas. The first is a card game called WorldWise Geography (Africa) I got for just a couple of dollars (it’s a different version that the one I linked to. It looks like the game has been...
History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 13, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
We are winding down our school year and will be bringing our Africa unit to a close in the next week or so. The past couple of weeks we’ve been reading about East Africa. We’ve read about a number of countries and then learned a bit about the Maasai people. The Maasai are semi-nomadic people who live in Kenya and northern Tanzania. They have quite distinctive customs and dress and live...
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.
