Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Must Read / Science / Science: Simple Machines Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 11, 2013 · Last modified April 6, 2019
I have kids of different ages (5, 8 and 10). We all did this simple machines unit together. It was perfect for my younger two — quite easy for my oldest, but from here we’re going to go on to more complicated topics… inventions and electricity (see our STEM Electricity and Circuits Packet here) which are more suited to my older two. It works best for our family to do...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 9, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Have you ever spun around on a swing or something and when you get off you feel dizzy, can’t focus your eyes, feel out of balance and sick to your stomach? That’s what life has been like for me for over a week. It’s a complication of my ear surgery from three weeks ago. It has made life very tough. It has been difficult to walk straight. The ceiling and...
Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 8, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Perspectives from a working (part-time outside the home) homeschooling mom. Since Liesl is still under the weather, here is a guest post from a friend (Disclaimer: I am in no way as amazing a homeschooler as Liesl.) I have been homeschooling my kids since they were 4 and 2, they are now 9 and 11. I have also always worked part time outside the home and I love my profession. ...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Division
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 7, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
DD is just now moving into long division–by that I mean we’ve done about a half-dozen problems together. She really didn’t get it at all… so I wanted a more hands on way of showing her what was happening. Last week I made ED some kitty place value cards (haven’t gotten that post done!) for her to work on building numbers into the thousands, but it occurred to me that...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Simple Machines Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2013 · Last modified August 12, 2021
We started a unit on Simple Machines several weeks ago. I thought I’d share the first set of hands on activities we did on levers and the three classes of levers. We started our unit going over the six types of simple machines. Since I have kids of varying levels I made several sheets (matching, tracing and fill in the blanks). In the end, this turned out to be useful...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 4, 2013 · Last modified May 15, 2016
In the first post in this series, I explained how we had dabbled in writing, but had never found a “program” or curriculum that worked well for us. I found some expert advice from primary classroom teachers, though, and set about creating a workshop that works for our family. I learned about the 6+1 writing traits (the basic qualities that make writing work and include: ideas, organization, word choice, voice, sentence...
Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 2, 2013
If you are wondering what to do with all that Halloween candy, you can always do some science! This is an experiment I did with my kids a while back with Skittles in water. I think the results are fascinating: Do you want to do other fun experiments with candy? Be sure to visit this great website, Candy Experiments written by Loralee, a mom of three. She recently wrote a post Candy Experiment Cards...
Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 1, 2013 · Last modified April 16, 2015
This is a post by my amazing sister, Cynthia. She and her husband homeschool their three kids. My sister works full time and my brother-in-law works part time for the National Guard. They live on a farm in Tennessee and raise chickens and a few ducks. Here’s a view looking out on their lake from a trip last winter: I’ve written about my sister’s family adventures from time to time...
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.
