Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Freebies / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 10, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We’ve been doing some background activities on Sir Isaac Newton since we’re starting a new unit on gizmos, gadgets and simple machines. Newton was from England so we did some geography lessons about the UK, Britain and Europe in general. We talked briefly about the difference between the United Kingdom, Britain and England. Then we brought a map over and the kids cut out their own map of Britain using...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 9, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
To see how this relates to homeschooling, you’ll have to stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, but for today I’m just sharing a couple recipes our family enjoys. When we lived in Australia (Hubby and I lived there 12+ years. The kids were all born there. You can see more about our life in Australia in the “Where We Live” category. It should say ‘where we liveD’ now that we live...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Outdoor: Fossils / Science / Science: Ocean Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 8, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We love fossils! I guess the fire was first lit in Australia. My scientist friend told us about a creek south of Alice Springs where people have found lots of fossils. (See original post here: Fossils in Australia and the photos below.) We took the kids and made some great finds. Even my friend, Peter, was impressed! LD was hooked on fossils! Not too long after that we...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 6, 2012 · Last modified February 9, 2017
This week was a bit out of the ordinary. We did a skeleton version of school each day. The kids did Math Spelling (we use All About Spelling) Grammar (see yesterday’s post) Independent reading (for about an hour each day) I read a chapter each day from our book on Sir Isaac Newton We worked on our Fifty States song. We’ve been working on that slowly, slowly this entire year....
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 5, 2012
Sometimes this doesn’t make as interesting material for a blog post, but we do cover grammar and language arts in addition to All About Spelling (we love, love love this program and it deserves its own post sometime), writing (we often use the Teacher Filebox for this), and First Language Lessons. For basic rules of grammar we use the Write Source Skillsbook as our core (more about that below). We...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 4, 2012 · Last modified April 13, 2016
In this series, I have had the privilege of interviewing other homeschoolers from across the country. Today I am talking to a homeschooling Dad. Here to tell us how his family got started homeschooling and what his family’s homeschool style looks like is Jason, the author of the blog, Homeschool Daddy. He’s been online at his personal blog bnpositive and many others for almost a decade. Welcome Jason, First I’d...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2012 · Last modified November 6, 2016
ED is just now starting to work on simple cvc words. The past week or so, she has been working on -it and -in words. We printed out her own -it and -in books. There’s just one word per page like bit, fit, sit in the -it book or bin, fin, win in the -in book. I sit together with ED as we look over a few pages (we do...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 2, 2012 · Last modified April 30, 2016
Whales are able to survive in the frigid waters of the Arctic. In this series of activities the kids and I explored how that is possible. First, not directly related to the whales themselves, we talked about icebergs. We took giant cottage cheese cartons and froze big blocks of ice. One of those blocks had our wooly mammoth plastic creature. I had the kids guess how much of the ice...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 31, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2019
‘Bead’ Rabbits and Skip Counting by 10 Montessori math has kids working a lot with beads. But for this work, I made some Easter-themed manipulatives for ED to work with. I made a set of Easter eggs for skip-counting by 10s. She also used some 100-square rabbits. I printed out a number of copies and cut them into strips of 10 and into single bunnies as well. It’s just...
Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 30, 2012 · Last modified April 7, 2015
Think Challenge: Week 6 We’re loving the spring weather here where we are, so it was time for another outdoor challenge. This is similar to the traditional nature scavenger hunt, this time using a camera. Here is the link to our Photo Hunt check list (pictured below). You can print out copies for your kids. And if you do, I’d love to hear a comment from you! 🙂 Here is...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 29, 2012 · Last modified April 30, 2016
One of the days we read books, I stopped frequently to explain things and do activities with the kids. Whale Migration: For example, we talked in quite some depth about whale migration from the Arctic down the west coast of North America and back again. I pulled out an Arctic Pin map I made and the kids placed the various countries that make up the Arctic region. You can download...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 28, 2012 · Last modified April 13, 2016
In this series, I have had the privilege of interviewing other homeschoolers from across the country. Here to tell us how her family got started homeschooling and what her family’s homeschool style looks like is Rachel. Rachel’s children are twice-exceptional–gifted but with learning disabilities. They homeschool using a virtual school, a cyber school where the kids’ learning takes place online. Welcome Rachel! First, could you tell us the ages...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 27, 2012
It has been a long time since I’ve written about the kids’ handwriting work. I started LD off on Handwriting Without Tears “Cursive Handwriting” when he was in first grade. This helped with his tendency to mix up his “b” and “d” letters. His writing is really quite nice now. He actually uses a combination of cursive and printing, but his writing is neat and legible. DD started Handwriting...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 26, 2012 · Last modified April 30, 2016
Have you ever started a unit and then something else unfolds? Well this is a unit I started to put together on the Arctic. You might even recall that we covered Antarctica for a couple of days to lead up to this unit. The more we got into it, the more this turned into a full blown study of whales! We spent more than a week reading, doing experiments and...
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.
