Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 27, 2013 · Last modified July 7, 2020
Yesterday, I mentioned that we’ve added a new portion to our math day. For much of the fall, the kids were simply doing math problems from their math book and they were complaining that math was B*O*R*I*N*G. What? Oh NO!! It was true, though, with everything else going on they were doing straight-forward stuff; you know fraction problems like this… or long division… or a good meaty problem like 5789...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 26, 2013 · Last modified July 27, 2018
I thought I would put a post together that helps give a flavor of what our daily homeschooling routine looks like. So many of my posts are compilations of our activities, but they don’t actually show what happens day-to-day. It’s about time to do that again (and I enjoy reading these posts later as the kids get older!) We have finally gotten back to a relatively normal schedule. (If you...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 25, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Here’s a math puzzle for your and your kids. Three match sticks are laid out in front of you. Moving just two match sticks, make six. I’ll share the answer in another day or so and explain why I’m asking!! 🙂 Happy puzzling! There’s another puzzle over at my Homeschool Den Facebook page if you like this sort of challenge! Later: The solution is here at More Math Brain-Teasers (Free...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 24, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Growing up, my family didn’t buy cookies at the grocery store, we always baked them at home. I love to bake and have been making cookies since I was little. By the time my sister went off to college (and I was in 7th grade), I took over the weekly task of baking cookies for my family’s lunches. We have some pretty great family recipes for shortbread cookies, peanut...
Critical Thinking Activities / Family Meeting / Games for Thinking and Learning / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 23, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
It has been WAAaay too long since we had a family games night. For a while we did really well holding a family meeting once a month or so (see this post-Holding a Family Meeting) and this post (Our Monthly Family Meeting). Last weekend, though, everyone was home (no sleep-overs, no sporting events!) and so we gathered together to play a bunch of games! Fun! This was the first time we...
Holiday: Thanksgiving / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 22, 2013 · Last modified October 15, 2017
Can you believe Thanksgiving is almost here?! Here is another set of Thanksgiving-themed math sheets I made for my Kindergartner. She is starting to work on number families and continues to work on very basic addition. If you are interested you can download the free Thanksgiving Number Family and Basic Addition Sheets here. It is 7 pages; Make 6 through Make 10 pages and two turkey-feather addition matching sheets. We’ll...
Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Simple Machines Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 21, 2013 · Last modified April 6, 2019
The last day of our Simple Machines unit was probably our favorite. We spent hours and hours making and toying with different ways of making pulleys and wheel-n-axles! We started (as always) by reading a couple of books. We did an activity to show investigate which way of looping the rope made it easier/harder to pull the broom-handles together: The kids really enjoyed Pull, Lift, and Lower: A Book About...
Freebies / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication / Math: Preschool Math
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 20, 2013 · Last modified November 15, 2018
Last week my daughter did several skip counting mazes and she asked for more. I whipped a few new sheets together for her… the turkey has to find his lost hat (and not wind up as dinner!). You can move in any direction including diagonally. If you are interested you can download them and use them with your kids as well! Enjoy! Thanksgiving Skip Counting Practice 2s 3s 5s If...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 19, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Life is so busy in the evenings as I drive the kids where they need to be for their sports, scouts and play dates that I rely on my crockpot a lot. This is a wonderful soup with a tangy flavor that my kids all like as well: 1 1/2 -2 cups dry lentils — soaked in water for 1 1/2 hours, then rinsed prior to adding to the...
Freebies / History: India Unit / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 18, 2013 · Last modified February 17, 2016
This semester we are studying India. Back in September I shared the huge India Unit packet I made. We’ve gone through most of that packet and have done a lot of the readings I mentioned in that post. Then while I was recovering from my surgery the kids and my mother-in-law read lots and lots of children’s books about the various Hindu gods and goddesses (books are listed in this...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Freebies / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Fractions / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 16, 2013 · Last modified March 10, 2016
I’m always SO grateful for the educators who share their materials for free! I was looking for some Thanksgiving themed math materials for my kids and came across a number of free games and printables (most are from TeachersPayTeachers which you need to register (free) to be able to download). We have taken a number of pages for ED’s kindergarten math from Royal Baloo’s Thanksgiving Math Pack Use a hole...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Science / Science: Simple Machines Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 15, 2013 · Last modified August 3, 2018
We started with… a plain old screw!! The kids spent time trying to screw it into an old board: We have been reading the book, Archimedes and the Door of Science along with this unit. What a terrific book and what a remarkable man Archimedes was! The book talks about the Archimedes screw as well as lots of other topics — astronomy, math, geometry and more. We loved the...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 14, 2013 · Last modified May 15, 2016
It has been a while since I talked about what ED is doing for math. Kindergarten math for ED has included a smorgasbord of materials. She spent the first month or so really working on her doubling math facts (1+1 through 9+9). She has those down now. Although we have a couple of math (homeschool) curriculums (Singapore Grade 1 and Saxon Grade 1) for whatever reason, neither of those really...
Kindergarten / Science / Science: Simple Machines Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 12, 2013 · Last modified April 6, 2019
The wedge is a pretty easy concept to remember, but we still took the opportunity to have some fun with wedges! We spent some time outside at the wood pile using real wedges to split wood (plus, we got some wood ready for the woodstove!!) This is a tool call a “Smart Splitter.” Even the kids can split wood with it. They simply lifted the weight and dropped it down...
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.
